Part 2

The talk was all in French or Italian, and almost all between the two Doctors, Burney and Maty; we rest, being only auditors, except when something striking was said upon music, or upon some musician; and then the hot thin Italian, who is probably a Neapolitan, jumped up, and started forth into an abrupt rhapsody, with such agitation of voice and manner, that every limb seemed at work almost as nimbly as his tongue.

But la Signora Agujari sat always in placid, majestic silence, when she was not personally addressed.

Signor Colla expressed the most unbounded veneration for il Signor Dottore Borni; whose learned character, he said, in Italy, had left him there a name that had made it an honour to be introduced to _un si célebre homme_. My father retorted the compliment upon the Agujari; lamenting that he had missed hearing her abroad, where her talents, then, were but rising into renown.

Nevertheless, though he naturally concluded that this visit was designed for granting him that gratification, he was somewhat diffident how to demand it from one who, in England, never quavers for less than fifty guineas an air. To pave, therefore, the way to his request, he called upon Mr. Burney and the Hettina to open the concert with a duet.

They readily complied; and the Agujari, now, relinquished a part of her stately solemnity, to give way, though not without palpably marvelling that it could be called for, to the pleasure that their performance excited; for pleasure in music is a sensation that she seems to think ought to be held in her own gift. And, indeed, for vocal music, Gabrielli is, avowedly, the only exception to her universal disdain.

As Mr. Burney and the Hettina, however, attempted not to invade her excluding prerogative, they first escaped her supercilious contempt, and next caught her astonished attention; which soon, to our no small satisfaction, rose to open, lively, and even vociferous rapture. In truth, I believe, she was really glad to be surprised out of her fatiguing dumb grandeur.

This was a moment not to be lost, and my father hinted his wishes to Dr. Maty; Dr. Maty hinted them to Signor Colla; but Signor Colla did not take the hint of hinting them to La Bastardella. He shrugged, and became all gesticulation, and answered that the Signora would undoubtedly sing to the Signor Dottore Borni; but that, at this moment, she had a slight sore throat; and her desire, when she performed to il Signor Dottore Borni was, _si possible_, he added, to surpass herself.

We were all horribly disappointed; but Signor Colla made what amends he could, by assuring us that we had never yet known what singing was! “_car c’est une prodêge, Messieurs et Mesdames, que la Signora Agujari_.”

My father bowed his acquiescence; and then enquired whether she had been at the opera?

“‘O no;’ Signor Colla answered; ‘she was too much afraid of that complaint which all her countrymen who travelled to England had so long lamented, and which the English call catch-cold, to venture to a theatre.’

“Agujari then condescended to inquire whether _il Signor Dottore_ had heard the Gabrielli?

“‘Not yet,’ he replied; ‘he waited her coming to England. He had missed her in Italy, from her having passed that year in Sicily.’

“‘_Ah Diable!_’ exclaimed the Bastardini, ‘_mais c’est dommage!_’

“This familiar ‘_Diable!_’ from such majestic loftiness, had a very droll effect.

“‘_Et vous, Signora, l’avez-vous entendue?_’

“‘_O que non!_’ answered she, quite bluffly; ‘_cela n’est pas possible!_’

“And we were alarmed to observe that she looked highly affronted; though we could not possibly conjecture why, till Signor Colla, in a whisper, represented the error of the inquiry, by saying, that two first singers could never meet.

“‘True!’ Dr. Maty cried; ‘two suns never light us at once.’

“The Signora, to whom this was repeated in Italian, presently recovered her placid dignity by the blaze of these two suns; and, before she went away, was in such perfect amity with _il Signor Dottore_, that she voluntarily declared she would come again, when her sore throat was over, and _chanter comme il faut_.”

* * * * *

CONCERT.—EXTRACT THE THIRD.

“My dear Mr. Crisp,

“My father, now, bids me write for him—which I do with joy and pride, for now, now, thus instigated, thus authorised, let me present to you the triumphant, the unique Agujari!

“O how we all wished for you when she broke forth in her vocal glory! The great singers of olden times, whom I have heard you so emphatically describe, seem to have all their talents revived in this wonderful creature. I could compare her to nothing I have ever heard, but only to what you have heard; your Carestini, Farinelli, Senesino, alone are worthy to be ranked with the Bastardini.

“She came with the Signor Maestro Colla, very early, to tea.

“I cannot deign to mention our party,—but it was small and good:—though by no means bright enough to be enumerated in the same page with Agujari.

“She frightened us a little, at first, by complaining of a cold. How we looked at one another! Mr. Burney was called upon to begin; which he did with even more than his usual spirit; and then—without waiting for a petition—which nobody, not even my dear father, had yet gathered courage to make, Agujari, the Bastardella, arose, voluntarily arose, to sing!

“We all rose too! we seemed all ear. There was no occasion for any other part to our persons. Had a fan,—for I won’t again give you a pin,—fallen, I suppose we should have taken it for at least a thunder-clap. All was hushed and rapt attention.

“Signor Colla accompanied her. She began with what she called a little minuet of his composition.

“Her cold was not affected, for her voice, at first, was not quite clear; but she acquitted herself charmingly. And, little as she called this minuet, it contained difficulties which I firmly believe no other singer in the world could have executed.

“But her great talents, and our great astonishment, were reserved for her second song, which was taken from Metastatio’s opera of Didone, set by Colla, ‘_Non hai ragione, ingrato!_’

“As this was an _aria parlante_, she first, in a voice softly melodious, read us the words, that we might comprehend what she had to express.

“It is nobly set; nobly! ‘Bravo, il Signor Maestro!’ cried my father, two or three times. She began with a fullness and power of voice that amazed us beyond all our possible expectations. She then lowered it to the most expressive softness—in short, my dear Mr. Crisp, she was sublime! I can use no other word without degrading her.

“This, and a second great song from the same opera, _Son Regina_, and _Son Amante_, she sang in a style to which my ears have hitherto been strangers. She unites, to her surprising and incomparable powers of execution, and luxuriant facility and compass of voice, an expression still more delicate—and, I had almost said, equally feeling with that of my darling Millico, who first opened my sensations to the melting and boundless delights of vocal melody.[6] In fact, in Millico, it was his own sensibility that excited that of his hearers; it was so genuine, so touching! It seemed never to want any spur from admiration, but always to owe its excellence to its own resistless pathos.

“Yet, with all its vast compass, and these stupendous sonorous sounds, the voice of Agujari has a mellowness, a sweetness, that are quite vanquishing. One can hardly help falling at her feet while one listens! Her shake, too, is so plump, so true, so open! and, to display her various abilities to my father, she sang in twenty styles—if twenty there may be; for nothing is beyond her reach. In songs of execution, her divisions were so rapid, and so brilliant, they almost made one dizzy from breathless admiration: her cantabiles were so fine, so rich, so moving, that we could hardly keep the tears from our eyes. Then she gave us some accompanied recitative, with a nobleness of accent, that made every one of us stand erect out of respect! Then, how fascinately she condescended to indulge us with a rondeau! though she holds that simplicity of melody beneath her; and therefore rose from it to chaunt some church music, of the Pope’s Chapel, in a style so nobly simple, so grandly unadorned, that it penetrated to the inmost sense. She is just what she will: she has the highest taste, with an expression the most pathetic; and she executes difficulties the most wild, the most varied, the most incredible, with just as much ease and facility as I can say—my dear Mr. Crisp!

“Now don’t you die to come and hear her? I hope you do. O, she is indescribable!

“Assure yourself my father joins in all this, though perhaps, if he had time to write for himself, he might do it more Lady Grace like, ‘soberly.’ I hope she will fill up at least half a volume of his history. I wish he would call her, The Heroine of Music!

“We could not help regretting that her engagement was at the Pantheon, as her evidently fine ideas of acting are thrown away at a mere concert.

At this, she made faces of such scorn and derision against the managers, for not putting her upon the stage, that they altered her handsome countenance almost to ugliness; and, snatching up a music book, and opening it, and holding it full broad in her hands, she dropt a formal courtesy, to take herself off at the Pantheon, and said; ‘_Oui! j’y suis là comme une statue! comme une petite ecolière!_’ And afterwards she contemptuously added: ‘_Mais, on n’aime e guerre ici que les rondeaux!—Moi—j’abhorre ces miseres là!_’

One objection, however, and a rather serious one, against her walking the stage, is that she limps.

Do you know what they assert to be the cause of this lameness? It is said that, while a mere baby, and at nurse in the country, she was left rolling on the grass one evening, till she rolled herself round and round to a pigstie; where a hideous hog welcomed her as a delicious repast, and mangled one side of the poor infant most cruelly, before she was missed and rescued. She was recovered with great difficulty; but obliged to bear the insertion of a plate of silver, to sustain the parts where the terrible swine had made a chasm; and thence she has been called ... I forget the Italian name, but that which has been adopted here is Silver-sides.

“You may imagine that the wags of the day do not let such a circumstance, belonging to so famous a person, pass unmadrigalled: Foote, my father tells us, has declared he shall impeach the custom-house officers, for letting her be smuggled into the kingdom contrary to law; unless her sides have been entered at the stamp office. And Lord Sandwich has made a catch, in dialogue and in Italian, between the infant and the hog, where the former, in a plaintive tone of soliciting mercy, cries; ‘_Caro mio Porco!_’ The hog answers by a grunt. Her piteous entreaty is renewed in the softest, tenderest treble. His sole reply is expressed in one long note of the lowest, deepest bass. Some of her highest notes are then ludicrously imitated to vocalize little shrieks; and the hog, in finale, grunts out, ‘_Ah! che bel mangiar!_’

“Lord Sandwich, who shewed this to my father, had, at least, the grace to say, that he would not have it printed, lest it should get to her knowledge, till after her return to Italy.”

The radical and scientific merits of this singular personage, and astonishing performer, are fully expounded in the History of Music. She left England with great contempt for the land of Rondeaux; and never desired to visit it again.

LA GABRIELLI.

Of the person and performance of Gabrielli, the History of Music contains a full and luminous description. She was the most universally renowned singer of her time; for Agujari died before her high and unexampled talents had expanded their truly wonderful supremacy.

Yet here, also, no private detail can be written of the private performance, or manners, of La Gabrielli, as she never visited at the house of Dr. Burney; though she most courteously invited him to her own; in which she received him with flattering distinction. And, as she had the judgment to set aside, upon his visits, the airs, caprices, coquetries, and gay insolences, of which the boundless report had preceded her arrival in England, he found her a high-bred, accomplished, and engaging woman of the world; or rather, he said, woman of fashion; for there was a winning ease, nay, captivation, in her look and air, that could scarcely, in any circle, be surpassed. Her great celebrity, however, for beauty and eccentricity, as well as for professional excellence, had raised such inordinate expectations before she came out, that the following juvenile letters upon the appearance of so extraordinary a musical personage, will be curious,—or, at least, diverting, to lovers of musical anecdote.

CONCERT.—EXTRACT IV.

TO SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ.

_Chesington._

_October, 1775._

“My dear Mr. Crisp,

“‘Tis so long since I have written, that I suppose you conclude we are all gone fortune-hunting to some other planet; but, to skip apologies, which I know you scoff, I shall atone for my silence, by telling you that my dear father returned from Buxton in quite restored health, I thank God! and that his first volume is now rough-sketched quite to the end, Preface and Dedication inclusive.

“But you are vehement, you say, to hear of Gabrielli.

“Well, so is every body else; but she has not yet sung.

“She is the subject of inquiry and discussion wherever you go. Every one expects her to sing like a thousand angels, yet to be as ridiculous as a thousand imps. But I believe she purposes to astonish them all in a new way; for imagine how sober and how English she means to become, when I tell you that she has taken a house in Golden-square, and put a plate upon her door, on which she has had engraven, “Mrs. Gabrielli.”

“If John Bull is not flattered by that, he must be John Bear.

“Rauzzini, meanwhile, who is to be the first serious singer, has taken precisely the other side; and will have nothing to do with his Johnship at all; for he has had his apartments painted a beautiful rose-colour, with a light myrtle sprig border; and has ornamented them with little knic-knacs and trinkets, like a fine lady’s dressing-room.

My father dined with them both the other day, at the manager’s, Mrs. Brookes, the author, and Mrs. Yates, the _ci-devant_ actress. Rauzzini sang a great many sweet airs, and very delightfully; but Gabrielli not a note! Neither did any one presume to ask for such a favour. Her sister was of the party also, who they say cannot sing at all; but Gabrielli insisted upon having her engaged, and advantageously, or refused, peremptorily, to come over.

“Nothing can exceed the impatience of people of all ranks, and all ways of thinking, concerning this so celebrated singer. And if you do not come to town to hear her, I shall conclude you lost to all the Saint Cecilian powers of attraction; and that you are become as indifferent to music, as to dancing or to horse-racing. For my own part, if any thing should unfortunately prevent my hearing her first performance, I shall set it down in my memory ever after, as a very serious misfortune. Don’t laugh so, dear daddy, pray!

_Written the week following._

“How I rejoice, for once, in your hard-heartedness! how ashamed I should have been if you had come, dearest Sir, to my call! The Gabrielli did not sing! And she let all London, and all the country too, I believe, arrive at the theatre before it was proclaimed that she was not to appear! Every one of our family, and of every other family that I know,—and that I don’t know besides, were at the Opera House at an early hour. We, who were to enter at a private door, per favour of Mrs. Brookes, rushed past all handbills, not thinking them worth heeding. Poor Mr. Yates, the manager, kept running from one outlet to another, to relate the sudden desperate hoarseness of la Signora Gabrielli; and, supplicate patience, and, moreover, credence,—now from the box openings, now from the pit, now from the galleries. Had he been less active, or less humble, it is thought the theatre would have been pulled down; so prodigious was the rage of the large assemblage; none of them in the least believing that Gabrielli had the slightest thing the matter with her.

“My father says people do not think that singers have the capacity of having such a thing as a cold!

“The murmurs, ‘What a shame!’—‘how scandalous!’—‘what insolent airs!’—kept Mr. Yates upon the alert from post to post, to the utmost stretch of his ability; though his dolorous countenance painted his full conviction that he himself was the most seriously to be pitied of the party; for it was clear that he said, in soliloquy, upon every one that he sent away: ‘There goes half a guinea!—or, at the least, three shillings,—if not five, out of my pocket!’

“We all returned home in horrible ill-humour; but solacing ourselves with a candid determination, taken in a true spirit of liberality, that though she should sing even better than Agujari, we would not like her!

My father called upon the managers to know what all this meant; and Mrs. Brookes then told him, that all that had been reported of the extraordinary wilfulness of this spoilt child of talent and beauty, was exceeded by her behaviour. She only sent them word that she was out of voice, and could not sing, one hour before the house must be opened! They instantly hurried to her to expostulate, or rather to supplicate, for they dare neither reproach nor command; and to represent the utter impossibility of getting up any other opera so late; and to acknowledge their terror, even for their property, upon the fury of an English audience, if disappointed so bluffly at the last moment.

To this she answered very coolly, but with smiles and politeness, that if _le monde_ expected her so eagerly, she would dress herself, and let the opera be performed; only, when her songs came to their symphony, instead of singing, she would make a courtesy, and point to her throat.

“‘You may imagine, Doctor,’ said Mrs. Brookes, ‘whether we could trust John Bull with so easy a lady! and at the very instant his ears were opening to hear her so vaunted performance!’

* * * * *

“Well, my dear Mr. Crisp, now for Saturday, and now for the real opera. We all went again. There was a prodigious house; such a one, for fashion at least, as, before Christmas, never yet was seen. For though every body was afraid there would be a riot, and that Gabrielli would be furiously hissed, from the spleen of the late disappointment, nobody could stay away; for her whims and eccentricities only heighten curiosity for beholding her person.

“The opera was Metastasio’s Didone, and the part for Gabrielli was new set by Sacchini.

“In the first scene, Rauzzini and Sestini appeared with la Signora Francesca, the sister of Gabrielli. They prepared us for the approach of the blazing comet that burst forth in the second.

“Nothing could be more noble than her entrance. It seemed instantaneously to triumph over her enemies, and conquer her threateners. The stage was open to its furthest limits, and she was discerned at its most distant point; and, for a minute or two, there dauntlessly she stood; and then took a sweep, with a firm, but accelerating step; and a deep, finely flowing train, till she reached the orchestra. There she stopt, amidst peals of applause, that seemed as if they would have shaken the foundations of the theatre.

“What think you now of John Bull?

“I had quite quivered for her, in expectation of cat-calling and hissings; but the intrepidity of her appearance and approach, quashed all his resentment into surprised admiration.

“She is still very pretty, though not still very young. She has small, intelligent, sparkling features; and though she is rather short, she is charmingly proportioned, and has a very engaging figure. All her notions are graceful, her air is full of dignity, and her walk is majestic.

“Though the applause was so violent, she seemed to think it so simply her due, that she deigned not to honour it with the slightest mark of acknowledgment, but calmly began her song.

“John Bull, however, enchained, as I believe, by the reported vagaries of her character, and by the high delight he expected from her talents, clapped on,—clap, clap, clap!—with such assiduous noise, that not a note could be heard, nor a _notion_ be started that any note was sung. Unwilling, then,

“To waste her sweetness on the clamorous air,”

and perhaps growing a little gratified to find she could “soothe the savage breast,” she condescended to make an Italian courtesy, _i.e._ a slight, but dignified bow.

“Honest John, who had thought she would not accept his homage, but who, through the most abrupt turn from resentment to admiration, had resolved to bear with all her freaks, was so enchanted by this affability, that clapping he went on, till, I have little doubt, the skin of his battered hands went off; determining to gain another gentle salutation whether she would or not, as an august sign that she was not displeased with him for being so smitten, and so humble.

“After this, he suffered the orchestra to be heard.

“Gabrielli, however, was not flattered into spoiling her flatterers. Probably she liked the spoiling too well to make it over to them. Be that as it may, she still kept expectation on the rack, by giving us only recitative, till every other performer had tired our reluctant attention.

“At length, however, came the grand bravura, ‘_Son Regina, e sono Amante_.’

“Here I must stop!—Ah, Mr. Crisp! why would she take words that had been sung by Agujari?

“Opinions are so different, you must come and judge for yourself. Praise and censure are bandied backwards and forwards, as if they were two shuttlecocks between two battledores. The _Son Regina_ was the only air of consequence that she even attempted; all else were but bits; pretty enough, but of no force or character for a great singer.

“How unfortunate that she should take the words, even though to other music, that we had heard from Agujari!—Oh! She is no Agujari!

“In short, and to come to the truth, she disappointed us all egregiously.

However, my dear father, who beyond any body tempers his judgment with indulgence, pronounces her a very capital singer.

“But she visibly took no pains to exert herself, and appeared so impertinently easy, that I believe she thought it condescension enough for us poor savage Islanders to see her stand upon the stage, and let us look at her. Yet it must at least be owned, that the tone of her voice, though feeble, is remarkably sweet; that her action is judicious and graceful, and that her style and manner of singing are masterly.”

CONCERT.—EXTRACT V.

“You reproach me, my dear Mr. Crisp, for not sending you an account of our last two concerts. But the fact is, I have not any thing new to tell you. The music has always been the same: the matrimonial duets are so much _à-la-mode_, that no other thing in our house is now demanded.

“But if I can write you nothing new about music—you want, I well know you will say, to hear some conversations.

“My dear Mr. Crisp, there is, at this moment, no such thing as conversation. There is only one question asked, meet whom you may, namely; ‘How do you like Gabrielli?’ and only two modes, contradictory to be sure, but very steady, of reply: either, ‘Of all things upon earth!’ or, ‘Not the least bit in the whole world!’

“Well, now I will present you with a specimen, beginning with our last concert but one, and arranging the persons of the drama in the order of their actual appearance.