monica shake, which you wouldn't let her bring in, is a
thing which I detest! it makes me feel quite ill. Then all that
clambering up among the ledger-line notes, isn't it a mere, unnatural
forcing of the proper voice--the real voice--the only voice that
touches the listener? What I admire are the middle and lower registers.
A tone which goes to the heart, a genuine _portamento di voce_, I
prefer to everything else. None of those meaningless _embellimenti_--a
firm, steady, full utterance of the note--something like decision and
accuracy of intonation; that is real singing, and that is how I sing
myself. If you can't bear Lauretta longer, don't forget that there is
Teresina, who is your devoted friend: and you can be my _maestro_ and
composer quite in your own special style. Don't be vexed with me, but
all your florid _canzonettas_ and _arias_ are nothing in comparison
with _the_ one."

"'Teresina sang, in her rich pathetic tones, a simple _canzone_ in
church style which I had written a few days before. Never could I have
imagined that it could ever possibly have sounded like that. Tears of
rapture rolled down my cheeks: I seized her hand, and pressed it to my
lips a thousand times: I vowed that nothing on earth should ever part
us.

"'Lauretta looked upon my alliance with Teresina with angry jealousy,
which she concealed as best she could. I was indispensable to her at
the time; because, clever as her singing was, she couldn't learn
anything new without assistance. She was a wretched hand at reading,
and extremely shaky over her time. Teresina could read everything at
sight, and the accuracy of her time was incomparable. Lauretta's
tempers and caprices never came out in such full force as when she was
being accompanied. The accompaniment never pleased her. She looked upon
it in the light of a necessary evil, she wanted the piano to be barely
audible, always _pianissimo_. She was always dragging and altering the
time, every bar different, just as she happened to take it in her head
at the moment. I set to work to resist this firmly. I combatted those
evil habits of hers; I showed her that there must be a certain energy
about an accompaniment, that breadth of phrasing was one thing, and
meaningless dragging quite another. Teresina backed me up staunchly. I
gave up writing everything but the church style, and gave all the solos
to the contralto voice. Teresina dragooned me pretty smartly, too; but
I didn't mind that. She