- Performer Name:
- Performance Venue:
- Performance Date:
- Author:
- Date Written:
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art
- Article Title:
- The Improvisatore
- Page Numbers:
- 59:716-17
- Additional Info:
- Vol. 59, 30 May 1885
- Publisher:
- Place of Publication:
- London
- Date Published:
- 1885
Text:
[716] Nothing is more easy than to rhyme in Italian, the difficulty is to abstain from doing so. The absence of the apparently inevitable jingle is one of the chief charms in the prose of such writers as Dante, Boccaccio, and Machiavelli; and its natural and easy recurrence was probably one of the causes which rendered the earlier critics of the country so exacting with respect to the external form of the verses they considered worthy of their attention. But what the critic loathes the amateur loves, and the half-cultured will often listen agape with admiration to declamations that are neither prose nor verse, and admire the man who produces a torrent of unreasoned and badly-rhymed twaddle as if it were a work of art, though it has neither the substance nor the form of poetry. Thus Italy was for centuries the fatherland of the improvisatore. He has fortunately fallen with other and better things before the strong inflow of a larger and healthier national life, and, like Prince Florizel, been compelled to shift for himself; but, being unfortunately without the genius, the force of character, and the most admirable moral sentiments of that inimitable Prince, he has continued his old business of intellectual princelet, though on a sadly reduced scale.
Occasionally when you are seated in the Villa before one of the cafés a man will appear, and glance furtively round to see if Germans are present. His coat is seedy and his air dejected. The quick eye at once recognizes in him all the tokens of a misunderstood and somewhat damaged genius. He seems to be a note of interrogation, a being who passes his whole life in silently apologizing for his own existence. The Germans are supposed to be sentimental; they have certainly a habit of being kind to the man of talent whose wardrobe is less perfectly adjusted and fully furnished than his mind, and it is to them that the shabby-genteel improvisatore makes his appeal. If he finds a company likely to recognize his merits, at least to the amount of fivepence, he steps forward hurriedly, takes a fitting place, and begins to declaim a suitable piece. He knows three or four of them by heart. One treats of the greatness of Germany, another of the unity of Italy and the efforts by which it was accomplished, generally with a passage referring to the speaker's own real or imaginary deeds. This is rather out of date now in Naples, but it is still effective in radical country towns, and often with Germans who are enjoying their honeymoon, and sometimes look as if gall had been substituted for the honey. The most forcible of these introductions, however, deals with the misfortunes of genius and the want of liberality in our own age. When his first part is finished, he moves round among the guests, and receives such soldi as may not be wanted for better purposes. If no one gives him a comparatively large sum, he moves off in the same sad undecided way in which he came; if he receives more than twopence from any table, he informs its occupants of his true character, and offers to rhyme on any subject they may suggest. If they accept his proposal, he expects a lira for the first piece, and half a one for each that follows. If he gets more, he is pleased; if less, he is apt to become disagreeable in his own shy, apologetic manner. He thanks his patrons profusely for their bounty, and then begs leave to add just one more piece, not for any profit, but merely to amuse them. If the request is granted, he ridicules every one at the table, and concludes by an ironical praise of their generosity, announcing and showing the sum he has received; if not, he moves to some table near, and delivers the same address, after the permission of its occupants has been asked and granted, in a voice loud enough to be heard by all the guests.
To use a term which certainly is not classical, the improvisatore is a fraud; and, if he appeals to Germans rather than Englishmen, it is because the former generally endeavour to gain at least a smattering of the language of a country before they visit it. They are also probably more familiar with Andersen's romance, which casts a halo over what is, at least at present, a dull and sordid trade. The practitioner learns some half-dozen sets of verses by heart which may each be from a hundred to two hundred lines in length. He has usually paid some one else to write them for him, though they are generally sorry enough to have been produced by his own brain. Whatever subject may be given, he soon finds an opportunity of deviating into one of his stock pieces. This is true even of his satire. He has lines ready to castigate the good or naughty child, the father, the mother, or the maiden aunt, which he applies as occasion may suggest. Even his denunciations of avarice have been prepared beforehand; he expected your parsimony, and takes it as a mere matter of business which may lead to fuller donations from the neighbouring tables. The only art of which he is really a master is that of declaiming thoughts and rhymes in a way which makes them seem the creations of the moment. If he has something particularly good in versification to produce, he will hesitate beforehand, as if he were in difficulty, and then throw off his masterpiece with an unconscious air that adds to its effect.
The lazzaroni will not endure such humbug. The improvisatore of the smaller taverns often appears barefoot and with a ragged coat; but he must have a guitar in his hand, and be ready to submit to tests his shabby-genteel rival would consider unworthy of his dignity. He is generally a man of comfortable face and figure, and he begins his performance by singling out some one from the crowd that throngs the tavern garden and singing something personally appropriate and complimentary about her or him—it is usually her. This is not so difficult as it might appear. The measure, the rhymes, and the tune being given, the rest is filled up without much difficulty. Even in English blue may easily be substituted for black in praising an eye, and golden for dusky hair, as many lovers as well as poets have already discovered. If he makes a hit, the performer is beckoned to a table, and given some such task as this—"Sing a verse about every one here present to such and such a tune"; or, "We want to hear you declaim—we will each of us make a figure on the papers which the host has given us, and the one whose paper is drawn shall name the subject, each of us will choose a word that must be introduced as a rhyme." The improvisatore retires to a distant part of the garden and the [717] family consult together. The most difficult subject is chosen and the hardest rhymes are agreed upon. It is rarely that a performer fails to fulfil his task. But if his verse is really spontaneous, his jokes are apt to be hackneyed, and of a kind that an English audience would resent.
In private houses you may fare either better or worse than in the places of public entertainment, as the case may be; the probability is that you will fare worse. The son of your acquaintance perhaps thinks himself a master of the art. He pesters you for subjects, and afterwards bores you with a long strong of feeble threadbare sentiments and discordant rhymes. This is perhaps almost the only occasion on which a well-bred Italian shows a want of the tact which otherwise seems inherent in the race. But now and then in private society you may meet a born improvisatore who will leap at a great subject and treat it greatly, who can descend to the lowest and treat it with real humour. Of such men of course we do not speak when we say that the improvisatore as seen by foreigners is a delusion and a snare.
Notes:
- Collected by:
- AE