Great Italian and French Composers | Page 5

hundred live
horses, porticoes adorned with tapestry, and a great palace in the
perspective. In the course of the piece there were representations of the
hunting of the boar, the stag, and the lions. The whole concluded with a
huge globe descending from the skies, and dividing itself in lesser
globes of fire on which stood allegorical figures of fame, honor,
nobility, virtue, and glory. The theatriccal manager had princes and
nobles for bankers and assistants, and they lavished their treasures of
art and money to make such spectacles as the modern stagemen of
London and Paris cannot approach.
In Evelyn's diary there is an entry describing opera at Venice in 1645.
"This night, having with my lord Bruce taken our places before, we
went to the opera, where comedies and other plays are represented in
recitative musiq by the most excellent musicians, vocal and
instrumental, with variety of scenes painted and contrived with no lesse
art of perspective, and machines for flying in the aire, and other
wonderful motions; taken together it is one of the most magnificent and
expensive diversions the wit of man can invent. The history was
Hercules in Lydia. The sceanes changed thirteen times. The famous
voices, Anna Rencia, a Roman and reputed the best treble of women;
but there was a Eunuch who in my opinion surpassed her; also a
Génoise that in my judgment sung an incomparable base. They held us
by the eyes and ears till two o'clock i' the morning." Again he writes of
the carnival of 1640: "The comedians have liberty and the operas are
open; witty pasquils are thrown about, and the mountebanks have their
stages at every corner. The diversion which chiefly took me up was
three noble operas, where were most excellent voices and music, the
most celebrated of which was the famous and beautiful Anna Rencia,

whom we invited to a fish dinner after four daies in Lent, when they
had given over at the theatre." Old Evelyn then narrates how he and his
noble friend took the lovely diner out on a junketing, and got shot at
with blunderbusses from the gondola of an infuriated rival.
Opera progressed toward a fixed status with a swiftness hardly
paralleled in the history of any art. The soil was rich and fully prepared
for the growth, and the fecund root, once planted, shot into a luxuriant
beauty and symmetry, which nothing could check. The Church wisely
gave up its opposition, and henceforth there was nothing to impede the
progress of a product which spread and naturalized itself in England,
France, and Germany. The inventive genius of Monteverde, Carissimi,
Scarlatti (the friend and rival of Handel), Durante, and Leonardo Leo,
perfected the forms of the opera nearly as we have them today. A line
of brilliant composers in the school of Durante and Leo brings us down
through Pergolesi, Derni, Terradiglias, Jomelli, Traetta, Ciccio di Majo,
Galuppi, and Giuglielmi, to the most distinguished of the early Italian
composers, Nicolo Piccini, who, mostly forgotten in his works, is
principally known to modern fame as the rival of the mighty Gluck in
that art controversy which shook Paris into such bitter factions. Yet,
overshadowed as Piccini was in the greatness of his rival, there can be
no question of his desert as the most brilliant ornament and exponent of
the early operatic school. No greater honor could have been paid to him
than that he should have been chosen as their champion by the
Italianissimi of his day in the battle royal with such a giant as Gluck, an
honor richly deserved by a composer distinguished by multiplicity and
beauty of ideas, dramatic insight, and ardent conviction.
II.
Niccolo Piccini, who was not less than fifty years of age when he left
Naples for the purpose of outrivaling Gluck, was born at Bari, in the
kingdom of Naples, in 1728. His father, also a musician, had destined
him for holy orders, but Nature made him an artist. His great delight
even as a little child was playing on the harpsichord, which he quickly
learned. One day the bishop of Bari heard him playing and was amazed
at the power of the little virtuoso. "By all means, send him to a

conservatory of music," he said to the elder Piccini. "If the vocation of
the priesthood brings trials and sacrifices, a musical career is not less
beset with obstacles. Music demands great perseverance and incessant
labor. It exposes one to many chagrins and toils."
By the advice of the shrewd prelate, the precocious boy was placed at
the school of St. Onofrio at the age of fourteen. At first confided to the
care of an inferior professor, he revolted from the arid teachings of a
mere human machine. Obeying the dictates of his daring