§ 6. Gentlemen Moderns, can you possibly deny, but that you laugh among yourselves, when you have Recourse to your long-strung Passages in the Cadences, to go a begging for Applause from the blind Ignorant? You call this Trick by the Name of an Alms, begging for Charity as it were for those E Viva's, which, you very well know, you do not deserve from Justice. And in return you laugh at your Admirers, tho' they have not Hands, Feet, nor Voice enough to applaud you. Is this Justice? Is this Gratitude?——Oh! if they ever should find you out! My beloved Singers, tho' the Abuses of your Cadences are of use to you, they are much more prejudicial to the Profession, and are the greatest Faults you can commit; because at the same time you know yourselves to be in the Wrong. For your own Sakes undeceive the World, and employ the rare Talent you are endowed with on Things that are worthy of you. In the mean while I will return with more Courage to my Opinions.
§ 7. I should be very desirous to[83] know, on what Foundation certain Moderns of Reputation, and great Name, do on the superior Cadences always make the Shake on the third in Alt to the final Note; since the Shake (which ought to be resolved) cannot be so in this Case, by reason of that very third, which being the sixth of the Bass hinders it, and the Cadence remains without a Resolution. If they should go so far as to imagine, that the best Rules depended on the Mode, I should notwithstanding think, they might sometimes appeal to the Ear, to know if That was satisfied with a Shake beaten with the seventh and the sixth on a Bass which makes the Cadence; and I am sure it would answer. No. From the Rules of the Ancients we learn, that the Shake is to be prepared on the sixth of the Bass, that after it the fifth may be heard, for that is its proper Place.
§ 8. Some others of the same Rank make their Cadences in the Manner of the Basses, which is, in falling a fifth, with a Passage of Swift Notes descending gradually, supposing that by this Means they cover the Octaves, which, tho' disguised, will still appear.
§ 9. I hold it also for certain, that no Professor of the first Rank, in any Cadence whatsoever, can be allowed to make Shakes, or Divisions, on the last Syllables but one of these Words,—Confonderò—Amerò, &c. for they are Ornaments that do not suit on those Syllables which are short, but do well on the Antecedent.[84]
§ 10. Very many of the second Class end the inferior Cadences in the French Manner without a Shake[85], either for want of Ability to make one, or from its being easy to copy them, or from their Desire of finding out something that may in Appearance support the name of Modern. But in Fact they are mistaken; for the French do not leave out the Shake on the inferior Cadences, except in the Pathetick Airs; and our Italians, who are used to over-do the Mode, exclude it every where, tho' in the Allegro the Shake is absolutely necessary. I know, that a good Singer may with Reason abstain from the Shake in the Cantabile; however, it should be rarely; for if one of those Cadences be tolerable without that pleasing Grace, it is absolutely impossible not to be tired at length, with a Number one after another that die suddenly.
§ 11. I find that all the Moderns (let them be Friends or Foes to the Shake) in the inferior Cadences beforementioned go with an Appoggiatura to the final Note, on the penultimate Syllable of a Word; and this likewise is a Defect, it appearing to me, that on such Occasions the Appoggiatura is not pleasing but on the last Syllable, after the Manner of the Ancients, or of those who know how to sing.[86]
§12. If, in the inferior Cadences, the best Singers of these Days think they are not in the wrong in making you hear the final Note before the Bass[87], they deceive themselves grossly; for it is a very great Error, hurts the Ear, and is against the Rules; and becomes doubly so, going (as they do) to the same Note with an Appoggiatura, the which either ascending or descending, if not after the Bass[88], is always very bad.
§ 13. And is it not worst of all, to torment the Hearers with a thousand Cadences all in the same Manner? From whence proceeds this Sterility, since every Professor knows, that the surest way of gaining Esteem in Singing is a Variety in the Repetition?
§ 14. If among all the Cadences in the Airs, the last allows a moderate Liberty to the Singer, to distinguish the end of them, the Abuse of it is insufferable. But it grows abomable, when the Singer persists with his tiresome Warbling, nauseating the Judicious, who suffer the more, because they know that the Composers leave generally in every final Cadence some Note, sufficient to make a discreet Embellishment; without seeking for it out of Time, without Taste, without Art, and without Judgment.[89]
§ 15. I am still more surprised when I reflect, that the modern Stile, after having exposed all the Cadences of the theatrical Airs to the Martyrdom of a perpetual Motion, will likewise have the Cruelty to condemn to the same Punishment not Those in the Cantata's only, but also the Cadences of their Recitatives. Do these Singers pretend, by their not distinguishing the Chamber-Musick from the immoderate Gargling of the Stage, to expect the vulgar E Viva's in the Cabinet of Princes?