gurative of all languages.
He used it principally in narration, with a gayety, a truth, and a
pantomimic expression after the manner of his country, which delighted
all his friends, and made his stories intelligible even to those who
knew Italian but slightly."

As a musician Piccini was noticeable, according to the judgment of his
best critics, for the purity and simplicity of his style. He always
wished to preserve the supremacy of the voice, and, though he well knew
how to make his instrumentation rich and effective, he was a resolute
opponent to the florid and complex accompaniments which were coming into
vogue in his day. His recorded opinion on this subject may have some
interest for the musicians of the present day: "Were the employment
which Nature herself assigns to the instruments of an orchestra
preserved to them, a variety of effects and a series of infinitely
diversified pictures would be produced. But they are all thrown in at
once and used incessantly, and they thus overpower and indurate the
ear, without presenting any picture to the mind, to which the ear is
the passage. I should be glad to know how they will arouse it when it
is accustomed to this uproar, which will soon happen, and of what new
witchcraft they will avail themselves.... It is well known what occurs
to palates blunted by the use of spirituous liquors. In a few
months everything may be learned which is necessary to produce these
exaggerated effects, but it requires much time and study to be able to
excite genuine emotion." Piccini followed strictly the canons of the
Italian school; and, though far inferior in really great qualities to
his rival Gluck, his compositions had in them so much of fluent grace
and beauty as to place him at the head of his predecessors. Some curious
critics have indeed gone so far as to charge that many of the finest
arias of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini owe their paternity to this
composer, an indictment not uncommon in music, for most of the great
composers have rifled the sweets of their predecessors without scruple.

V.

Paisiello and Cimarosa, in their style and processes of work, seem to
have more nearly caught the mantle of Piccini than any others, though
they were contemporaries as well as successors. Giovanni Paisiello,
born in 1741, was educated, like many other great musicians, at the
conservatory of San Onofrio. During his early life he produced a great
number of pieces for the Italian theatre