The whole delivery in short, should show delicacy of intuition and a thorough understanding of the laws of the good Italian style. The singing must be simple, unaffected, tranquil, legato the tempi quiet, without any precipitation whatever the embellishments executed with studious attention, to insure clearness and accuracy words and tones welded to form one indissoluble whole, so that the hearer cannot fail to comprehend their meaning.
In the interpretation of these ancient songs, therefore, a prime requisite is the avoidance of any exaggeration of coloris, of all strained delivery.
O cessate di piagarmi analysis full#
The music of to-day on the contrary, is neurotic, full of startling effects and violent contrasts. The main characteristics peculiar to the composers of the 17th and 18th centuries are clearness and simplicity of form, depth of feeling, and a suave serenity whose grateful influence permeates their entire style. Having explained the scope of this publication, a few observations on the correct mode of interpreting the music will be offered. Obsolete abbreviations were written out in full, and the melodies so selected that none overstep the range of an ordinary voice, thus making them accessible to all.įurther, in adding the accompaniments and harmonizing the bassi continui, care was taken to insert nothing out of keeping with the words or character of the compositions, or with the style of the author and his period.ĭuring this work constant reference was made to the models left by the greatest masters in this style of chamber-music, placed in centuries past at the lofty elevation which is theirs of right. In transcribing the melodies the utmost care was taken to alter nothing in the originals, and often various manuscripts were consulted to ascertain the most elegant and correct form. In undertaking this work of exhumation, such an abundance of material was unearthed that the task of rejection, necessitated by the modest proportions of this volume, became difficult and grievous. These arias were gleaned from old manuscripts and ancient editions, where they lay in unmerited oblivion. "The more, because it has appeared for some time as if such a resurrection would interest patrons of art far more than current novelties.įor these two reasons, then, the time seemed to be ripe for the present publication and it cannot fail to be a source of real benefit to our beloved art of song, to point out a means for certain improvement both on the aesthetic and practical side. "And since the new is no-a-days growing scarcer and scarcer, its place may fortunately be filled by the resurrection of the ancient."
This assertion appears like, and in fact is, a paraphrase of the well-known saying of our great modern melodramatist, the sense of which may perhaps be more directly and forcibly felt in the original general form." "While in all art a loving investigation of ancient forms is an unfailing bourn whence flow the most fitting resources for the purification of taste, this applies most fully to opera, which, eluding plastic realism, can readily derive from grand models whatever it may need for the improvement and development of its productions." Arianna.Ĭavalli Delizie contente, che l’alma beate Jommelli Chi vuol comprar la bella calandrina Eteocle.Īlessandro Scarlatti O cessate di piagarmi.