Gli ultimi giorni di Domenico Cimarosa
Pubblichiamo un testo, datato Gennaio 1872 e apparso nello stesso anno all'interno del periodico americano "Dwight's Journal of Music". Il testo è firmato da John Braham, il tenore ingaggiato dal teatro La Fenice di Venezia e per cui Cimarosa compose la parte di Araspe nella sua nuova (e ultima) opera "Artemisia". Braham, in questo documento, racconta brevemente al Direttore della rivista la sua permanenza a Venezia e la sua consuetudine, in quei giorni, col maestro Cimarosa durante i suoi ultimi giorni di vita.
E' un documento assai importante anche perché, a quanto ci risulta, fu pubblicato solo in quel numero del periodico e mai riportato successivamente da alcun biografo del compositore. Lo proponiamo nel testo originale in inglese, esattamente come Braham lo concepì e come apparve nel periodico.
"Sir,
in reading an account of Cimarosa in the papers of the day, I thought the following communication might not be unaceptable to the musical world. I think it was about the year 1800 I was engaged at the Fenice, at Venice. Cimarosa was the composer of a new opera (his last) called “Artemisia”; the libretto by Il Conte Colloredo). I was with the illustrious composer almost every day. He was evidently dying, though full of wit, spirits, and repartee. He took a great quantity of cicuta. The mistress of the house in which he resided called one morning, and begged he would pray to the saint of her parish, assuring him was very powerful. Cimarosa thanked her exceedingly, but said he was afraid it would be of no use, as not belonging to her parish the saint would, very probably, pay no attention to him. He knew his time was come, and prepared for death, and died like a good Catholic and sincere Chistian. The part of “Tenore Principale” he had written for me, but never having heard me sing, he composed the principal arias merely form what he bad heard of me from others; and surely never was music better adapted. He wrote for me a beautiful scena, con coro, that had a wonderful effect, it was so delightfully instrumented. I regret I could not get a copy of it. The copyst was so outrageously exacting in his demands that I was obliged to leave Venice without the aria. Poor Cimarosa left the opera of “Artemisia” unfinished. Mayer, the celebrated German composer, was requested to finish it, but he, from real modesty, refused. The opera was performed in its unfinished state. The music was applaused to the very echo, mingled with the tears of the audience. Unfortunately the poem was very mediocre. I assisted at Cimarosa's funeral, sung a song, and in a “Quartetto” composed by Bertoni. A funeral movement was performed and, in the midst of the most solemn and soul-striking harmonies, little snatches of musical phrases, taken from celebrated operas of the composer – from the “Gli Orazi e i Curiazi” and “Il matrimonio” were heard from some wind instruments placed in a distant part of the church: subdued in “pianissimo” seeming to come from the clouds – they has a startling and uncarthy effect. My heart trembled and tears started from my eyes. Little did I then think it would he my fate to sing in the last immortal operas of two of the greatest composers – Cimarosa and Weber – I am, Sir, your most obedient servand, Giovanni Braham."
Dwight's Journal of Music”, Boston, Saturday, January 27, 1872.