The unaccompanied violin fantasias of Nicola Matteis the Younger: critical edition and contextual study

This Doctor of Musical Arts thesis presents a new source-based critical edition of Nicola Matteis the Younger’s two unaccompanied violin works, Fantasia in C minor (in two movements) and Alia Fantasia, preserved together in the sole known manuscript source now held at the Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden (SLUB), shelfmark Mus.2045-R-1.

This project brings together four areas of work: a source examination of the Dresden manuscript; a biographical and historical study of Matteis the Younger; a contextual chapter on unaccompanied violin practice in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; and a fully documented editorial methodology explaining all modern interventions.

By providing a clear, annotated critical edition alongside a historically grounded study, this project aims to make Matteis the Younger’s unaccompanied works more accessible to performers and scholars and to bring them to greater prominence in today’s standard violin repertoire.