which carries the expression of long-restrained feeling to its highest point. Throughout a restless, hurrying Allegro agitato (6-8) the voice has almost always interrupted passages, and seldom tries its powers in a sustained note or a melodious phrase. The orchestra remains in continual motion; at first a tender violin passage is introduced, then the oboes and bassoons alternate with each other, and with the voice. The whole is a single continuous thread of lovely melody and richly varied harmony, with one fundamental idea as its starting-point, and upon it rests the magic of grace and beauty. To the expression of excited passion follows that of resignation; both are manifestations of a nature tender and noble indeed, but neither grand nor strong.
Mozart's correct judgment led him to moderate the expression of passion in Sandrina to a degree befitting the heroine of a comic opera, while giving due prominence to her dignity and grace when she appears as the gardener's girl. She displays her true self most unreservedly in the cavatina (11) in which she bewails her unhappy love:—
Geme la tortorella
Lungi dalla compagna,
Del suo destin si lagna
E par, che in sua favella
Vogli destar pietà.
Io son la tortorella, &c.
Sonnleithner has noted the happy effect produced by the entrance of the voice, not at the beginning of the theme, but a little behind it, as if roused from abstraction:—
{"LÀ FINTA GIARDINIERA"—BELFIORE.}
[See Page Image] A gentle spirit, not altogether lost in sadness, yet not able entirely to throw it off, is in Sandrina united to tender womanly grace, and both find due expression in the music. Even when she plays the gardener's girl, she does it with pleasant mirth never sinking to vulgarity. The air (4) in which she undertakes the defence of women against men to Ramiro (a rondo with a lively coda, 6-8), is gay and sparkling, but not very pronounced in tone.
When she seeks by her cajoleries to appease the sulky Podestà without exactly telling him that she loves him, she reveals a certain amount of coquetry, and in her exaggerated expressions of dismay at his reproaches, approaches the buffo character; but even here the moderation, delicacy, and grace of Sandrina's character is in strong contrast to that of Serpetta.
Both the comic and the pathetic aspects are combined in the Contino Belfiore, whose burlesque character appears to have been excellently represented by the buffo Rossi. His attempt on Violante's life sets him before us as a man of passion; the wavering of his inclinations between Arminda and Violante is the less comical, since he expresses his admiration of Arminda's beauty with simple and manly OPERA BUFFA. dignity (6), but gives vent to his love for Sandrina, whom he recognises as Violante, in a fine outburst of true emotion. The conclusion of this song (15), being buffo in character, readjusts the situation. He has not remarked that Sandrina has gone out, and the Podestà taken her place, and he seizes the hand of the Podestà to kiss it; his confusion and annoyance required comic expression. He takes part elsewhere in comic scenes and situations; but his first appearance as a vain, supercilious coxcomb is misleading and inconsistent, and only intended to give occasion for a grand buffo air (8). The pride and loquacity with which Belfiore details his genealogy are wittily rendered by Mozart; but as a buffo song this evident concession to the taste of the singer and the public is without marked individuality. Still less happy is the idea of making the Contino, and afterwards Sandrina, go crazy. Madness is only representable in music in so far as sympathy with it as a misfortune can be aroused, which deprives it of any comic effect; the absurdities which excite to laughter cannot be rendered musically, and only in rare cases can music produce an analogous effect. In the second finale, when Sandrina and Belfiore, surrounded by bitter enemies, suddenly imagine themselves Arcadian shepherds, and sing shepherd songs, a contrast might be produced which would at least support the idea of insanity. But their mythological illusions: "Io son Medusa orribile! Io son Alcide intrepido!" could not be expressed by the music. In the terzet (24) Nardo, in order to escape the importunities of the crazy pair, points towards heaven, and tells them with increasing animation how the sun and moon quarrel, and the stars engage in love adventures; when he has set the pair gazing fixedly upwards, he makes off. Broadly represented, this gay, lively terzet must have made an effect, but it would have been equally comic had Nardo fixed their attention on anything else, since the effect depends on the vivacity and humour with which the composer grasps the situation, and withdraws the attention of the audience from the nonsense which the poet has put into the mouths of the characters.
But even this was impossible in the accompanied recitative during which Belfiore loses his senses before the eyes of the "LA FINTA GIARDINIERA"—BUFFO PARTS. audience (19). At first, when he is beset by contending emotions, music is in its place; when he believes himself to be dead and in Elysium, Mozart has certainly constructed a characteristic, well-rounded movement, but a specific expression of the illusion it is not and cannot be. The song in which, restored to his senses, he expresses his joy at still living (in tempo di minuetto) is lively, and appeals to the senses like dance music, but after what has gone before it makes no comic impression.
