The Great Rivalry

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 The Italian composer and cellist Giovanni Bononcini was in London between 1720 and 1732, where for a time his popularity equaled George Frideric Handel’s, the latter having arrived in 1712.  In general the Tories favoured Handel, while the Whigs preferred Bononcini; and the lively competition between them inspired this epigram:

Some say, compar'd to Bononcini
That Mynheer Handel's but a Ninny
Others aver, that he to Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a Candle
Strange all this Difference should be
'Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee!

John Byrom

     Hmmmm...I just can't get worked up over this.

     The operas at this time were chaotic in that the audiences rarely were all listening to the music, a football game gets far more attention than the aristocrats of the time gave the performers.  After all, musicians were servants, skilled, but still servants.  Castrati were greatly in demand, on stage and elsewhere, the singers were much gossiped about and often got into fights on stage, and Handel would be in attendance to play harpsichord, which he did with gusto.  Think of Jerry Lee Lewis in a peruke.  In short these sound like operas that I could get behind, nothing bores me more than sitting and listening to music, and drugs, alcohol, and tobacco are frowned upon in today's staid and frightfully dull establishments.  Our public radio here on Saturdays is all opera, and we have no other stations worthy of listening to.  There was a chamber pot named after a famous preacher of the XVIII century, Louis Bourdaloue.  His sermons were so captivating and long that the ladies had recourse to such an item.  I imagine the men pissed in a corner of the church while farting loud enough to be heard two streets over and blowing their noses on the floor before, during, and after the show.  This is precisely how I feel about opera, and I would send a bourdaloue to this radio station except that would pearls before swine, all these liberal art majors learn in college is how to spit on the flag and flip the bird.  Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive, says Molière, although he was unacquainted with American senators.  The only thing worse than opera is disco music, the devil's afflatus.  Anyway, judging by my social standing in any society if I was in 18th century London I would be bundled off to the nearest Royal Navy ship by the evening's press gang faster than you can say 'Jack Robinson' in Polari, so all of this is of mere academic concern.  Here is a tune more fit for such as I-

 
Chip chop chip chop the last man is dead.


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