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Updated: June 6, 2025
More educated, more brilliant organs there may be, like those of Pasta or Velluti, poor fellow! more satisfying to the ear, but none, I believe, so satisfying to the heart; none that so surely lifts you off your feet, and blinds and deafens you to all defects, and sets you wandering far away through the empyrean of musical sounds, till you are lost in a labyrinth of triumphant harmonies.
Leigh Hunt, in one of his letters to Procter in 1831, says: "As to Pasta, I love her, for she makes the ground firm under my feet, and the sky blue over my head." I cannot remember all the good things I heard that day, but some of them live in my recollection still. Hunt quoted Hartley Coleridge, who said, "No boy ever imagined himself a poet while he was reading Shakespeare or Milton."
Pasta is certainly less exuberant in point of ornament, and more expressive in point of majesty and simplicity," observed one critic, "than any of the first-class singers who have visited England for a long period.... She is also a mistress of art," continues the same writer, "and, being limited by nature, she makes no extravagant use of her powers, but employs them with the tact and judgment that can proceed only from an extraordinary mind.
I, who recollected Pasta, Malibran, Grisi, Rubini, and others of that epoch, could not help agreeing with him when I compared them to the singers I heard at the Pergola and elsewhere. The theatre, too, was good at Bologna, and we frequently went to it. One evening we were sitting on the balcony of the hotel, when we saw a man stab another in the back of the neck, and then run away.
Madame Pasta, struck with the genius displayed by her young rival, exclaimed: "Tu iras loin! tu prendras ma place! tu seras Pasta!" Bellini, who was then in Milan, engaged in the composition of his "Norma," overwhelmed her with applause and congratulations, intermingled with allusions to the part he had in contemplation for her that of Adalgiza.
And yet those were still more to blame who of old gave leave that criminals, to what sort of death soever condemned, should be cut up alive by the physicians, that they might make a true discovery of our inward parts, and build their art upon greater certainty; for, if we must run into excesses, it is more excusable to do it for the health of the soul than that of the body; as the Romans trained up the people to valour and the contempt of dangers and death by those furious spectacles of gladiators and fencers, who, having to fight it out to the last, cut, mangled, and killed one another in their presence: "Quid vesani aliud sibi vult ars impia ludi, Quid mortes juvenum, quid sanguine pasta voluptas?"
At the age of seventeen, she heard Pasta in Paris; flew up in a fire of youthful enthusiasm; and the next morning, all alone and without introduction, found her way into the presence of the prima donna and begged for lessons. Pasta made her sing, kissed her when she had done, and though she refused to be her mistress, placed her in the hands of a friend. But Mrs.
It was said that, "if Malibran must yield the palm to Pasta in point of acting, yet she possessed a decided superiority in respect of song"; and, even in acting, Malibran's grace, originality, vivacity, piquancy, spontaneity, feeling, and tenderness, won the heart of all spectators.
I must urge these things to Gibson, for except these copyrights be saved our plans will go to nothing. Walter and Anne went to hear Madame Pasta sing after dinner. I remained at home; wrote to Sir William Knighton, and sundry other letters of importance. November 16. There was little to do in Court to-day, but one's time is squandered, and his ideas broken strangely.
"All right, get ready for something downright delectable! If you don't come back for seconds, I'm no longer the King of Harpooners!" After a few minutes, the parts of the fruit exposed to the fire were completely toasted. On the inside there appeared some white pasta, a sort of soft bread center whose flavor reminded me of artichoke.
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