Introduction: Studies in historical improvisation a new path for performance, theory, and pedagogy of music M ASSI M I LI A NO GU I DO

Historical improvisation is like a wide river that has been accumulating momentum, fed by tributaries, which are the research and performance projects that have been running at different universities and institutions across Europe and North America for the last five years.1 This field of studies is gaining considerable strength in changing the attitudes of many scholars and musicians around the world. The chapters in this book demonstrate why historical improvisation is becoming a discipline on its own, as it breaks the banks of performance practice departments by involving musicologists and theorists in the common effort of achieving a better understanding of the music of the past.