A Toccata of Galuppi’s

by Robert Browning
I
  
Oh Galuppi, Baldassare, this is very sad to find!  
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;  
But although I take your meaning, ’tis with such a heavy mind!  
   
II
 
Here you come with your old music, and here’s all the good it brings.  
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings, 5
Where St. Mark’s is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?
  
   
III
  
Ay, because the sea’s the street there, and ’tis arched by . . . what you call  
. . . Shylock’s bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:  
I was never out of England — it’s as if I saw it all.  
   
IV
  
Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?  10
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
  
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?  
   
V
  
Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red, —  
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,  
O’er the breast’s superb abundance where a man might base his head? 15
   
 VI
  
Well, and it was graceful of them — they’d break talk off and afford
  
— She, to bite her mask’s black velvet — he, to finger on his sword,  
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?  
   
VII
  
What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,  
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions—“Must we die?” 20
Those commiserating sevenths—“Life might last! we can but try!”  
   
VIII
  
“Were you happy?” — “Yes.” — “And are you still as happy?” — “Yes. And you?”  
— “Then, more kisses!” — “Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?”  
Hark, the dominant’s persistence till it must be answered to!  
   
IX
  
So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say! 25
“Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!  
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!”  
   
X
  
Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,  
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,  
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun. 30
   
XI
  
But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,  
While I triumph o’er a secret wrung from nature’s close reserve,  
In you come with your cold music till I creep through every nerve.
  
   
XII
  
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:  
“Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned. 35 
The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.  
   
XIII
  
“Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,  
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
  
Butterflies may dread extinction, — you’ll not die, it cannot be!  
   
XIV
 
“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop, 40
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:  
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?  
   
XV
  
“Dust and ashes!” So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
  
Dear dear women, with such hair, too—what’s become of all the gold  
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old. 45
 
A Toccata of Galuppi’s — A toccata (which literally means touch-piece) is a musical composition intended to demonstrate the player’s manual dexterity and skill. Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785) was a Venetian composer particularly famous for his comic operas. However, by Browning’s time, he had been almost forgotten. Browning — a skilled musician in his own right — owned two manuscript volumes of Galuppi’s compositions.
 
I — the speaker in this poem is a fictional unnamed pianist
 
misconceive — misunderstand, with the further connotation of get the wrong mental image of
 
St. Mark’s — The name is used for both the Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco and for the square or plaza next to it, which is the civic center of Venice. Galuppi served as the vice-maestro at St. Mark’s from 1748-1762 and as the maestro from 1762-1776, which meant he led the composed music for religious and official occasions and managed the choir.
 
Doges used to wed the sea with rings — The doge was the senior elected official of Venice. Venice was a republic, but the doge was elected for life by a group of powerful families. (The procedure for electing a new doge was extraordinarily complicated; it was intended to prevent any one family or small group of families from maintaining power from one generation to the next.) Because Venice’s power depending entirely on its sea power, both in terms of trade and naval ships, one of the major ceremonies in which the doge participated involved casting a ring into the sea to symbolize the marriage between it and the city.
 
the sea’s the street there — Venice, of course, is a city built on 118 islands separated by canals and linked by bridges
 
Shylock’s bridge — The Rialto Bridge, one of the four bridges across the Grand Canal, is sometimes called Shylock’s Bridge (especially by English people) because Shylock mentions it in Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice.
 
base — lay
 
mask’s black velvet — During Carnival, a long and often wild celebration leading up to Lent (think of Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnivale in Brazil), women traditionally wore masks (more accurately half-masks, the kind that only cover the top part of the face) , often made of black velvet.
 
clavichord — A keyboard instrument and precursor of the piano, a clavichord used metal blades called tangents to strike the strings. Unlike a harpsichord, a clavichord does allow the player to alter the volume of the notes, but a clavichord cannot play loudly.
 
lesser thirds — the combination of the first and middle note of a standard minor (sad-sounding) chord, also called a plaintive third (example C-E flat or G-B flat)
 
sixths diminished — chords in which the second and third notes are lowered a half-tone, and the fourth note is the sixth interval (C-E flat-G flat-A or G-B flat-D flat-E)
 
sevenths — chords in which the seventh note is added; the word commiserating here suggests these chords are also either minor or diminished
 
dominant — a chord built on the dominant (5th step) note of another chord; for example, a C’s dominant chord is a G chord, and an A’s dominant chord is a D chord. Browning is probably specifically referring here to the dominant seventh chord, which traditionally is followed by the initial chord because the combination sounds natural. In other words, the G-seventh chord leads the listener to expect the C chord after it.
 
octave — two notes an octave apart, such as two Ds, two Gs, and so on. (Literally an octave represents a doubling or halving of musical frequency.)
 
degree — a reference to the Great Chain of Being, an old conception of the universe in which everything from God to matter was linked in a single chain, with God at the top, followed by angels, then humanity, then animals, then plants, then rocks and minerals. Within each category, everything also had a position, with archangels above angels, kings above nobles, nobles above commoners, men above women, lions above other animals, trees above grasses, gold above silver, and so on. The idea is that everything in he universe has its predetermined place. This conception began to collapse as opportunities for education and accumulating wealth meant that people did not necessarily have to stay in the same position for their entire lives, or even from one generation to the next. The line refers to how human beings, who according to Christian doctrine had souls (whereas animals did not), would rise upon death.