Luigi Legnani: Scherzo a Chitarra sola intitolato Dialogo tra una vecchia ed una giovane

DGA Editions published in November 2025 the first accurate modern edition of Luigi Legnani’s Scherzo a Chitarra sola intitolato Dialogo tra una vecchia ed una giovane, an unpublished manuscript first performed by Legnani in 1818.

Available from DGA Editions in print or digital format. Edited by Marco Mustardino. 16 pages with introductions in English and Italian, with an engraved score. View a sample of the book at the DGA Editions website.

Digital edition link.

Print edition link.

Luigi Legnani (Ferrara, 1790 – Ravenna, 1877) lived and worked in a historical musical period characterized by a relatively chaotic publishing environment, in which relations between composers and publishers varied considerably from region to region. Naturally, Legnani was no stranger to these events and presumably several of his compositions were never published or were published by less prestigious publishers with limited circulation. These limitations are part of the reason for those gaps in the numbering of his catalog that are the subject of so much speculation. The Scherzo a Chitarra sola intitolato / Dialogo tra una vecchia ed una giovane / Composto dal Sig,r Luigi Legnani was apparently never published. To date, no published copy of this piece has been found, with only two handwritten copies, both without a work number, preserved in the Library of the Orazio Vecchi – Antonio Tonelli Conservatory of Music in Modena. The first known performance of this composition by Legnani was on April 10, 1818 at the Società Filarmonica Modenese.

This book finally sheds light on the authorship of this composition, which is as unique as it is appreciated by the public of the time.

Contents

• Introduction
• Introduzione
• Critical Apparatus
• Apparato Critico
• Music

Corrections

• Print and Digital editions prior to 1 DEC 2025: music measure 1, second bass note should be E instead of A