Tomaso Cecchini

„This book is a response to the felt need for a complete overview of the work of Tomaso Cecchini, prolific composer, who, with the at least 27 printed collections published in his lifetime, left his mark on the musical life of Dalmatia in the first half of the 17th century. The fortune of this composer in contemporary musicological literature is a little paradoxical. After Dragan Plamenac had published an extensive study in 1938 about this previously practically unknown Italian composer, Cecchini was recognised, at least in Croatian musicology, as one of the most important Baroque composers at work in Croatia. A number of studies have been published in the last few decades about his work and his name is mentioned in the major music encyclopaedias of the world, but for some reasons there have been no modern editions of Cecchini’s opus musicum, and his music is still a relative stranger in concert halls. I have attempted to accommodate the narrative discourse to the general public interested in music and cultural history. Some dubious and unanswered questions that might interest experts are given in the footnotes, and a fairly extensive documentation section follows the main text. In this way, I hope, it will be easier for some imaginary “ideal reader” to follow the text. At the very end of the book are several Cecchini compositions in a contemporary transcription, which afford at least an outline insight into the composer’s oeuvre. All transcription has been produced by my musicology students at the Music Academy in Zagreb in the course of seminar work over the last few years. One of the students, Dario Poljak, took care that these transcriptions should be standardised and prepared for the press, for which I owe him particular thanks. The enthusiasm and the positive energies of these young people gave my work an additional impetus.” (Ennio Stipčević)