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TOC
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ment, meet with but little notice or en-
couragement, so that music here begins
to degenerate and decline very much; to
which the high salaries given to fine
voices and singers of great abilities in the
numerous operas throughout Italy, and,
indeed, all over Europe, greatly contribute.
By little and little, all those embellish-
ments and refinements in the execution
of ancient music, as well as the elegant
simplicity for which that of this chapel
is so celebrated, seem likely to be lost.
Formerly, even the Canto Fermo was here
infinitely superior to that of every other
place, by its purity, and by the expressive
manner in which it was chanted.
I had indeed been told, before my ar-
rival at Rome, by a friend who had re-
sided there nineteen years, that I must
not expect to find the music of the Pope's
chapel so superior in the performance
to that of the rest of Italy, as it had been
in times past, before operas were invented
and such great salaries given to the principal
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