Nothing is more diverting than to see the Greeks in pleasure-boats here, stopping to hear the Ambassador's musicians play, which they do every evening. I must first tell you that they are Germans, sent to Mr. de Choiseul from Vienna, and the best performers I have heard, playing always the finest Italian or German music. The Greeks, in their parties upon the water, have generally a lyre, a fiddle, and a guittar or two in the boats. With these instruments they make a horrid noise, each performer playing in a different key, and if they sing, all in discordant tones; the sound of the clarinets stops them before the windows, but after listening a little time, they shake their heads, and with one accord begin their abominable noises again, and row away from sounds which they think much inferior to those they produce. The servants often ask them if their master's music is not fine, but they are all of opinion it is very disagreeable. This puzzles all my ideas concerning harmony; because nature has fixed the rules of it so well that any person, possessing a good ear for music, will compose in all the perfection of harmony without knowing the rules of composition, or even a note of music. Why then do not these Greeks find out they make nothing but discordant sounds when they sing or play? -- I confess it seems to me a very strange thing. << less