CHAPTER VI.


THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF STRADELLA

There are historians, sour and cynical, who have tried to contradict the
truth of the life story of Stradella as Bourdelot tells it in his
"Histoire de la Musique et de ses Effets," but they cannot offer us any
satisfactory substitute in its place, and without troubling to give
their merely destructive complaints, and without attempting to improve
upon the pompously fascinating English of old Sir John Hawkins, I will
quote the story for your delectation.

Certain it is that there was a composer named Stradella, and that he was
an opera composer to the Venetian Republic, as well as a frequent singer
upon the stage to his own harp accompaniments. He occupies a position in
musical history of some importance. The following story of his
adventures is no more improbable than many a story we read in the daily
newspapers--and surely no one could question the credibility of the
daily newspapers. But here is the story as Hawkins tells it. As the
cook-books say, salt it to your taste.

"His character as a musician was so high at Venice, that all who were
desirous of excelling in the science were solicitous to become his
pupils. Among the many whom he had the instruction of, was one, a young
lady of a noble family of Rome, named Hortensia, who, notwithstanding
her illustrious descent, submitted to live in a criminal intimacy with a
Venetian nobleman. The frequent access of Stradella to this lady, and