Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/145

Rh "Son da bene, son sincera, non ambisco, non pretendo"…

Pimpinone appears. Vespetta, in a German aria, begins to wheedle the old man; in the middle of her song three breves a parte express his satisfaction. A duet, in which the two characters employ the same motive, ends the first scene or intermezzo. In the second, Vespetta begs forgiveness for a trifling fault, and she sets about it in such a way that she is praised.

Finally she brings Pimpinone to the point of proposing that she shall become Pimpinona. But she needs a great deal of persuasion. In the third intermezzo she has become the mistress. Pergolesi did not go as far as this, in which he showed his tact; for the story becomes less amusing. But the Hamburg public would not have been contented without a vigorous use of the stick. So Vespetta rules, leaving Pimpinone not the least vestige of liberty. He appears alone, lamenting his misfortune. He describes a conversation between his wife and a gossip of hers—imitating the two voices—and then a dispute between himself and his wife, in which he has not the last word. Vespetta appears, and there is a fresh dispute. In a final duet Pimpinone, beaten by his wife, whimpers while Vespetta bursts into shouts of laughter. This is one of the first examples of the duet in which the two characters are delineated in an individual manner, which is comic by reason of their very unlikeness. Händel, great though he was as a theatrical composer, never really attempted this new form of art.

Telemann's comic style is still, of course, too Italian; he has yet to assimilate it more closely