Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/182

170 Burney, "is the post of honour for composers, the Romans being regarded as the severest judges of music in Italy. It is considered that an artist who has had a success in Rome has nothing to fear from the severity of the critics in other cities."

The first emotion produced by Neapolitan music on foreign travellers was rather surprise than pleasure. Those who were more sincere, or finer judges, were even disappointed at the outset. They found, as Burney did, that the execution was careless, or the time and the pitch were equally at fault, or the voices were harsh, or there was a natural brutality, something immoderate, "a taste," according to Grosley, "for the capricious and extravagant." The records of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are agreed upon this point. A French traveller, J. J. Bouchard, states, in 1632:

And Burney, in 1770, writes:

"The Neapolitan singing in the streets is much less agreeable, although more original than elsewhere. It is a