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Up to that date no opera of Lulli's seems to have been produced, but he was none the less a master of music, and he could hand on what he had learnt of Carissimi's technique. Humphries, highly gifted, swift, returned to England knowing all Lulli could teach him.
Capuzzi on the stage patted Pasquarello on the shoulder, and said he could confide to a faithful servant like him, that the truth was that he really knew nothing whatever about music, and that the aria he had been mentioning, like all the arias he had ever written, was cribbed from Frescobaldi's canzone, and Carissimi's motets.
Those three worthies meet together of evenings, and sit on the balcony, singing motetts of Carissimi's till all the dogs and cats in the neighbourhood yell and howl, and the human beings within earshot devote the hellish trio to all the thousand devils.
He had not Purcell's rich imagination, nor his passion, nor that torrential flow of ever-fresh melody; but it cannot be doubted that he was of immense service in indicating new paths and new ways of doing things. He had at second hand we must admit Carissimi's methods and new impulse; and, at the very least, he saved Purcell the trouble of a journey to Paris.
It is true enough that Purcell learnt something from Carissimi; but Carissimi's effects are very often of that kind that look better on paper than they sound in performance. The variations over ground-basses are marvellously ingenious, but more marvellous than the ingenuity are the charming delicacy and expressiveness of the melodies woven in the upper parts.
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