Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/161

Rh serene politeness. La Romanina's reproaches seemed to him "punctual and inevitable, like a quartan fever." She died on the 26th February, 1734, in Rome, at the age of forty-eight, her love offering Metastasio the supreme affront of naming him residuary legatee.—"This," she said, "I do not merely in token of my gratitude for his advice and his help in my misfortunes and my long illness, but also in order that he may more conveniently devote himself to those studies which have won so much fame for him."—Metastasio, blushing at this generosity, renounced his inheritance in favour of Bulgarelli, and suffered bitter remorse on thinking of "la povera e generosa Marianna" … "I have no longer any hope that I shall succeed in consoling myself; and I believe the rest of my life will be savourless and sorrowful." (13th March, 1734.)

Such was this love-story, which is closely bound up with the destinies of music, since it was owing to the influence of this woman that Metastasio became the Racine of Italian opera. The echo of La Romanina's voice is still heard in his verses, "which are so liquid and musical," says Andrès, "that it seems as though one could read them only by singing them."

This quality of his poetry, as of vocal melody set to words, impressed his contemporaries. Marmontel remarked that "Metastasio arranged the phrases, the rests, the harmonies and all the parts of his airs as though he sang them himself."

And he did indeed sing them. When composing his dramas he used to sit at the harpsichord, and he often wrote the music for his own verses. We are reminded of Lully singing at the harpsichord the poems of Quinault, and remodelling them. Here