“But how we wished for our dear Mr. Crisp! Do pray, now, leave your gout to itself, and come to our next music meeting. Or if it needs must cling to you, and come also, who knows but that music, which has
“‘Charms to sooth the savage breast,
To soften rocks, and bend a knotted oak—’
may have charms also, To soften Gout, and Unbend Knotted Fingers?”
* * * * *
Previously to any further perusal of these juvenile narrations, it is necessary to premise, that there were, at this period, three of the most excelling singers that ever exerted rival powers at the same epoch, who equally and earnestly sought the acquaintance and suffrage of Dr. Burney; namely,
Miss Cecilia Davies, detta l’lnglesina,
La Signora Agujari, detta la Bastardella,
And the far-famed Signora Gabrielli.
CECILIA DAVIES, DETTA LINGLESINA.
Miss Cecilia Davies, during a musical career, unfortunately as brief as it was splendid, had, at her own desire, been made known to Dr. Burney in a manner as peculiar as it was honourable, for it was through the medium of Dr. Johnson; a medium which ensured her the best services of Dr. Burney, and the esteem of all his family.
Her fame and talents are proclaimed in the History of Music, where it is said, “Miss Davies had the honour of being the first English woman who performed the female parts in several great theatres in Italy; to which extraordinary distinction succeeded that of her becoming the first woman at the great opera theatre of London.”
And in this course of rare celebrity, her unimpeachable conduct, her pleasing manners, and her engaging modesty of speech and deportment, fixed as much respect on her person and character, as her singularly youthful success had fastened upon her professional abilities.
But, unfortunately, no particulars can be given of any private performance of this our indigenous brilliant ornament at the house of Dr. Burney; for though she was there welcomed, and was even eager to oblige him, the rigour of her opera articles prohibited her from singing even a note, at that time, to any private party.
AGUJARI, DETTA LA BASTARDELLA.
“To SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ.
“My dear Mr. Crisp,
“My father says I must write you every thing of every sort about Agujari, that you may get ready, well or ill, to come and hear her. So pray make haste, and never mind such common obstacles as health or sickness upon such an occasion.
“La Signora Agujari has been nick-named, my father says, in Italy, from some misfortune attendant upon her birth — but of which she, at least, is innocent — La Bastardella. She is now come over to England, in the prime of her life and her fame, upon an engagement with the proprietors of the Pantheon, to sing two songs at their concert, at one hundred pounds a night! My father’s tour in Italy has made his name and his historical design so well known there in the musical world, that she immediately desired his acquaintance on her arrival in London; and Dr. Maty, one of her protectors in this country, was deputed to bring them together; which he did, in St. Martin’s-street, last week.
“Dr. Maty is pleasing, intelligent, and well bred; though formal, precise, and a rather affected little man. But he stands very high, they say, in the classes of literature and learning; and, moreover, of character and worthiness.
He handed the Signora, with much pompous ceremony, into the drawing-room, where — trumpets not being at hand — he introduced her to my father with a fine flourish of compliments, as a phenomenon now first letting herself down to grace this pigmy island.
This style of lofty grandeur seemed perfectly accordant with the style and fancy of the Signora; whose air and deportment announced deliberate dignity, and a design to strike all beholders with awe, as well as admiration.
She is a handsome woman, of middle stature, and seems to be about twenty-four or twenty-five years of age; with a very good and healthy complexion, becomingly and not absurdly rouged; a well-shaped nose, a well-cut mouth, and very prominent, rolling, expressive, and dyingly languishing eyes.
She was attended by Signor Colla, her maestro, and, as some assert, her husband; but, undoubtedly, her obsequious and inseparable companion. He is tall, thin, almost fiery when conversing; and tolerably well furnished with gesture and grimace; made up of nothing else.
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 prodige, 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 c
ried; ‘ 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. 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 I 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 courtesey, to take herself off at the Pantheon, and said; ‘Oui! j’y suis la comme une statue! comme une petite ecoliére!’ And afterwards she contemptuously added: ‘Mais, on n’aime guerici que les ron deaux! — Moi — jabhorre ces miseres lá!’
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 customhouse officers, for letting het 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.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 396