He does not like the Italian masters:
They spent the whole evening singing the best piece of musique counted on all hands in the world, made by Seignor Charissimi, the famous master in Rome. Fine it was, indeed, and too fine for me to judge of.[1]
I was not taken with this at all. … The composition as to the musique part was exceedingly good, and this justness in keeping time much before any that we have. … Yet I do from my heart believe that I could set words in English and make musique of them more agreeable … than any Italian musique set for the voice.[2] …
Nor has he any love for Italian singers; above all, he detests the voices of the castrati. He acknowledges only the excellent time and the consummate experience of these artists; but in the matter of taste they remain alien to him and he does not attempt to understand them.[3]
Still less does he care for the contemporary English school, the school of Cooke, which will at a later date produce Pelham Humphrey, Wise, Blow, and Purcell:
It was indeed both in performance and composition most plainly below what I heard last night,[4] which I could not have believed.[5]
Nor is he any fonder of French music:
Impartially I do not find any goodnesse in their ayres (though very good) beyond ours when played by the same hand, I observed in several of Baptiste's (the present great composer) and our Bannister's.[6]
