The organist pulled out the small flute stops and fooled about over twittering little airs at the top of the key-board, exactly like wrens preening themselves on a sunny wall in winter!
Again, hearing great things of the Corpus Christi music in Rome, I hurried there in company with several Italians bent on the same errand.
They raved all the way of the wonders we should see, dangling before my eyes tiaras, mitres, chasubles, etc., etc.
“But the music?” I asked.
“Oh, signor, there will be an immense choir,” then they went back to their crosses and incense, and bell-ringing and cannon.
“But the music?” I repeated.
“Oh, there will be a gigantic choir.”
“Well, anyway,” I thought, “things will be on a magnificent scale,” and my vivid imagination raced off to the glories of Solomon’s Temple and the colossal pageants of ancient Egypt. Cruel gift of Nature that clothes dull life in a golden veil! It simply made more appalling and impossible the shrill nasal voices of the singers, the quacking clarinets, the bellowing trombones, and the rampant vulgarity of the big drums. It was brutal unadulterated cacophony.
Rome calls this military music!
Then, behold me once more safe at the Villa Medici, welcomed by the director and my comrades, who most kindly and tactfully hid their curiosity concerning my crazy journey. I had gone off having good reason to go; I had come back—so much the better. No remarks, no questions.