Music, men and manners in France and Italy, 1770 / Charles Burney

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text excerpt

[...] in the afternoon we went to the Minister's, Mr. Hamilton, at whose house there was much company and the chief musical performers of Naples. [...] Among the performers was Barbella and Orgitano, Lord Fortrose's master and one of the best harpsichord players and writers for that instrument here. - But Mrs. H. herself is a much better performer on that instrument than either him or any Italian I have heard since I crossed the water. She has great neatness and more expression and meaning in her playing than any lady I ever heard, for ladies, it must be owned, tho' often neat in execution, seldom aim at expression. Barbella rather disappointed me; his performance has nothing very superiour in it now. He is not young indeed, and solo playing is never wanted or minded here; so that teaching and orchestra playing were his chief employments. The best thing he did was to play me the famous Neapolitan air which the people here constantly play at Xmas to the Virgin: this he performed admirably with a drone kind of bag-pipe base. - As a solo player he is far inferior to Nardini and indeed to several others in Italy, but seems to know music and to have a good deal of fancy in his compositions with a spice of not disagreeable madness.

excerpt from 'Music, men and manners in France and Italy, 1770 / Charles Burney' pp. 180-1 (220 words)

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