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

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160-1

text excerpt

After dinner to music at the Franciscan's church - where the 3 conservatorios were to furnish music and musicians for a great festival of 8 successive days... The band was very numerous, consisting of above 100 voices and instruments, in a long occasional gallery totally covered with gold and silver gilding. Tho’ the band seemed a very good one, and the leader very careful and attentive, yet by its great length it was impossible the performers could always be together. The composition which in many movements was admirable, was by Signor Gennaro Manni, who beat the time. The opening was in a rough Handelian style, after which, this species of overture was made an accompaniment to a chorus which was well written. Then several airs and a duet succeeded which pleased me infinitely. There was fancy, contrivance and light and shade, and tho’ the singing was not of the first sort yet there were a counter-tenor and a base voice which pleased me much – the former was one of the most powerful I ever heard – it made its way through the whole band in the loudest and most tumultuous parts of the choruses. When he had an air to sing alone, his shake was good and his style plain, but his portamento a little deficient: rather savouring of what we call, in England, the cathedral manner of singing thro’ the throat. -The air which was given to the base was as ingeniously written as any one I ever heard. The accompaniment full without destroying the melody of the the voice part. Instead of shortening or mutilating its passages, the instruments seemed to continue and finish them in giving the singer time for respiration. In a duet between two sopranos the accompaniments were likewise admirable, as they were in a chorus in which were many solo parts. -After this the author did not seem so happy- there were some trifling and some heavy movements in which there was no other novelty than in throwing the accent upon the wrong note, for instance, upon the 2nd instead of the first or, in common time, upon the 3rd instead of the 4th. This even may have its merit in comic operas where some humour is seconded by it, but surely such a poor expedient is beneath the dignity of church music where a gravity and decency of style should be preserved even in rapid movements... 

excerpt from 'Music, men and manners in France and Italy, 1770 / Charles Burney' pp. 160-1 (404 words)

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