metry-, though petite, and a beautiful countenance, full of fire and intelligence; she was pleasant, amiable, and prudent, while Cuzzoni was disagreeable, ill-natured, and recklessly extravagant. As singers, the rivals were nearly on an equality; for Faustina's voice, while surpassing that of Cuzzoni in power of execution and a distinct manner of singing rapid passages, yet fell short of that command of expression which enabled Cuzzoni at will to bathe her audience in tears. Dr. Burney describes Cuzzoni's voice as being "equally clear, sweet, and flexible," and says that it was difficult for the hearer to determine whether she most excelled in slow or rapid airs. "A native warble enabled her to execute divisions with such facility as to conceal every appearance of difficulty; and so soft and touching was the natural tone of her voice, that she rendered pathetic whatever she sang, in which she had leisure to unfold its whole volume. The art of conducting, sustaining, increasing, and diminishing her tones by minute degrees, acquired for her among professors the title of complete mistress of her art. In a cantabile air, though the notes she added were few, she never lost a favorable opportunity of enriching the cantilena with all the refinements and embellishments of the time. Her shake was perfect; she had a creative fanccy, and the power of occasionally accelerating and retarding the measure in the most artificial manner by what the Italians call tempo rubato. Her high notes were unrivaled in clearness and sweetness, and her intonations were so just and fixed that it seemed as if it were not in her power to sing out of tune."
Of Faustina's voice, Quantz, the celebrated instructor of Frederick II., gave Dr. Burney a striking description. He was in London in 1727, and heard her sing. "Faustina," he says, "had a mezzo-soprano voice, that was less clear than penetrating. Her compass now was only from B flat to G in alt; but after this time she extended its limits downward. She possessed what the Italians call un cantar granito; her execution was articulate and brilliant. She had a fluent tongue for pronouncing words rapidly and distinctly, and a flexible throat for divisions, with so beautiful a shake, that she put it in motion upon short notice, just when she would. The passages might be smooth, or by leaps, or consisting of iterations of the same note; their execution was equally easy to her as to any instrument whatever. She was, doubtless, the first
