Beorn
01-25-2009, 11:36 PM
Edward Bulwer-Lytton - Zanoni (http://nsl-archiv.com/Buecher/Fremde-Sprachen/Bulwer-Lytton,%20Edward%20-%20Zanoni%20%28EN,%201845,%20224%20p.%29.pdf)
CHAPTER 1.I.
Vergina era
D' alta belta, ma sua belta non cura:
...
Di natura, d' amor, de' cieli amici
Le negligenze sue sono artifici.
"Gerusal. Lib.," canto ii. xiv.-xviii.
(She was a virgin of a glorious beauty, but regarded not her beauty...Negligence itself is art in those
favoured by Nature, by love, and by the heavens.)
At Naples, in the latter half of the last century, a worthy artist named Gaetano Pisani lived and
flourished. He was a musician of great genius, but not of popular reputation; there was in all his
compositions something capricious and fantastic which did not please the taste of the Dilettanti of
Naples. He was fond of unfamiliar subjects into which he introduced airs and symphonies that
excited a kind of terror in those who listened. The names of his pieces will probably suggest their
nature. I find, for instance, among his MSS., these titles: "The Feast of the Harpies," "The Witches
at Benevento," "The Descent of Orpheus into Hades," "The Evil Eye," "The Eumenides," and many
others that evince a powerful imagination delighting in the fearful and supernatural, but often
relieved by an airy and delicate fancy with passages of exquisite grace and beauty. It is true that in
the selection of his subjects from ancient fable, Gaetano Pisani was much more faithful than his
contemporaries to the remote origin and the early genius of Italian Opera.
CHAPTER 1.I.
Vergina era
D' alta belta, ma sua belta non cura:
...
Di natura, d' amor, de' cieli amici
Le negligenze sue sono artifici.
"Gerusal. Lib.," canto ii. xiv.-xviii.
(She was a virgin of a glorious beauty, but regarded not her beauty...Negligence itself is art in those
favoured by Nature, by love, and by the heavens.)
At Naples, in the latter half of the last century, a worthy artist named Gaetano Pisani lived and
flourished. He was a musician of great genius, but not of popular reputation; there was in all his
compositions something capricious and fantastic which did not please the taste of the Dilettanti of
Naples. He was fond of unfamiliar subjects into which he introduced airs and symphonies that
excited a kind of terror in those who listened. The names of his pieces will probably suggest their
nature. I find, for instance, among his MSS., these titles: "The Feast of the Harpies," "The Witches
at Benevento," "The Descent of Orpheus into Hades," "The Evil Eye," "The Eumenides," and many
others that evince a powerful imagination delighting in the fearful and supernatural, but often
relieved by an airy and delicate fancy with passages of exquisite grace and beauty. It is true that in
the selection of his subjects from ancient fable, Gaetano Pisani was much more faithful than his
contemporaries to the remote origin and the early genius of Italian Opera.