Excerpt from Early Italian Songs and Airs, Vol. 1: Caccini to Bononcini for High Voice As a possible remedy to this, the present edition was originated. The Editor has taken the pure, Old melody, - the melody alone, leaving aside original figured bass and everything else that was not the pure melody. He decided that in these pieces there are two distinét elements first, the melody, deriving from that warm, instinétive, almost unconscious power called ln spiration: second, the working-out, which is the cold reasoning Of the scholar, with all the limitations imposed by the imperfect scientific knowledge Of those Old times, and has con cluded that this second element could be absolutely negleéted and discarded. Then he has tried as far as possible to assimilate the melody, almost to the point Of making it his own, working, it out in his own way, but always trying to keep in conformity with the spirit Of the times, both the Old and the new, and with the charaéter of the melody in its most intimate significance and musical meaning. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.