676 MUSIC 



Porpora has left us no written account of his manner of teaching, 

 and his solfeggi, or vocalises, differ from others of his time in being 

 more exclusively directed to the development of flexibility of the voice. 

 To a profound knowledge of the human voice and an intuitive sym- 

 pathy with singers, Porpora must have united the genius of imposing 

 his will on others. It is said of him that he kept his pupil Caffarelli to 

 a sheet of exercises for five years, and on the pupil asking if he might 

 not be allowed to sing an aria, the master replied, " Go, my son, I 

 have nothing more to teach you, you are the greatest singer in 

 Europe." Caffarelli excelled in slow and pathetic airs as well as in 

 the bravura style, and v/as unapproachable in beauty of voice and in 

 the execution of the trill. 



Porpora's pupil, Farinelli, when the Emperor Charles the Sixth 

 expressed his regret that so consummate an artist should devote him- 

 self entirely to exhibitions of skill and bravura, struck by the truth 

 of the criticism, resolved to appeal more to emotion, and proved ade- 

 quate by becoming the most pathetic as he had been the most brilliant 

 of singers. 



Farinelli had an inimitable power of swelling a note by minute 

 degrees to an amazing volume and afterwards diminishing in the 

 same manner to a mere point. This singer excited such enthusiasm 

 in his audiences that one lady ejaculated the phrase (perpetuated by 

 the painter Hogarth in " The Eake's Progress") " One God and one 

 Farinelli." It was Farinelli who sang a cadence in a song with a trum- 

 pet obligate, and after finishing a long note, so that the trumpeter 

 had to give up out of breath, extended the cadence with a further vocal 

 passage in the same breath. 



Farinelli, however, was not so fortunate when singing with his 

 great rival Bernacchi, whom I have already mentioned, for on their 

 meeting in public, after Farinelli had sung an air with great effect, 

 Bernacchi repeated this with the same trills, roulades, and cadenza in 

 such a superior manner that Farinelli, who possessed the sweetest and 

 most modest disposition, owned his defeat, and entreated his con- 

 queror to give him further instruction, which Bernacchi generously 

 did. Farinelli thus perfected his style, and became the most remark- 

 able singer, perhaps, who ever lived. 



Pachiorotti, who, with a defective voice, possessed high intelligence, 

 and made himself a consummate artist, was followed by many great 

 singers. Among them were Gizziello and later on Crescentini. 



In the time of Mozart the singer Faustina was credited with such 

 extraordinary powers of respiration that it was supposed she could 

 sing while taking in as well as sending out the breath. 



The roll of famous artists in modern times includes among others 

 Catalani, Malibran, Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, Lablache, Guiglini, 

 Mario, down to Adelina Patti, Santley and Jenny Lind. The last 



