excerpt from 'Music, men and manners in France and Italy, 1770 / Charles Burney' pp. 184-5 (244 words)
excerpt from 'Music, men and manners in France and Italy, 1770 / Charles Burney' pp. 184-5 (244 words)
| part of | Music, men and manners in France and Italy, 1770 / Charles Burney |
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| in pages | 184-5 |
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This morning I went with young Oliver to his conservatorio of S. Onofrio, and visited all the rooms, where the boys practice, sleep and eat. On the 1st flight of stairs was a trumpeter screaming upon his instrument till he was ready to burst - on the 2nd a French horn bellowing in the same manner - in the common practicing room was a dutch concert, consisting of 7 or 8 harpsichords, more than as many fiddles, and several voices all performing different things in different keys - other boys were writing in the same room, but it being holiday time not near all were there who study and practice in the same room. This method of jumbling them all together may be convenient for the house and may teach the boys to stand fire, by obliging them to attend their own parts with firmness whatever else may be going forward at the same time. It may likewise give them force, in obliging them to play loud in order to hear themselves, for nothing but noise can pervade noise, but in the midst of such jargon and continued dissonance it is wholly impossible to acquire taste, expression or delicacy - there can be no polish or finishing given to their performance and that seems to account for the slovenliness and coarseness remarkable in their public exhibitions, and for the total want of taste, neatness and expression in these young performers till they have acquired it elsewhere. |
| appears in search results as | excerpt from 'Music, men and manners in France and Italy, 1770 / Charles Burney' pp. 184-5 (244 words) |
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