A Toccata of Galuppi's - Robert Browning
Reflections on ephemeral pleasures conjured by music
Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!
Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,
Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?
Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by ... what you call
... Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:
I was never out of England—it's as if I saw it all.
Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?
Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,—
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head?
Well, and it was graceful of them—they'd break talk off and afford
—She, to bite her mask's black velvet—he, to finger on his sword,
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?
What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions—"Must we die?"
Those commiserating sevenths—"Life might last! we can but try!"
"Was I happy?" "Yes." "And are you still?" "No." "Then, more's the pity."
"But I cannot choose but mutter, how shall I help?" "What, not one hit?
Grow your heart more close and close, or your parted lips more pretty?"
So an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play."
Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.
But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,
In you come with your old music, till I creep through every nerve.
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:
"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.
The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.
Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction,—you'll not die, it cannot be!
As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?
Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
In Robert Browning’s “A Toccata of Galuppi’s,” the speaker imagines hearing a composition by the Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi. While the poet listens, he conjures scenes of Venice’s past—a lively city of masked balls, romantic flirtations, and a glittering social life. These visions contrast starkly with the speaker’s more somber reflections on mortality and the passage of time. As the music plays, it calls to mind not only the splendor of bygone days but also the inevitable end that comes for everyone, including those who once indulged in rich pleasures.
Across its stanzas, the poem balances two worlds: the colorful, sensuous world of old Venice and a present haunted by the knowledge that those revelers have long since faded into “dust and ashes.” Browning’s speaker imagines youths dancing until midday, exchanging mischievous glances, and reveling in life. Yet, layered over these images, the speaker’s questioning reveals an underlying melancholy: all those pleasures ultimately disappear as time marches on. The music itself, with its “lesser thirds” and “commiserating sevenths,” becomes an artistic link between the past and the present, allowing the speaker to experience both beauty and sorrow.
The poem underscores how art, especially music, can revive the vanished past but cannot halt the forces of decay. Each chord stirs memories of laughter and flirtation, yet also reminds the listener that this spirited existence has ended. The speaker oscillates between a sense of wonder at Galuppi’s ability to capture fleeting joy and a profound sadness for the ephemeral nature of human life.
In the final lines, the speaker feels “chilly and grown old,” suggesting that meditating on the revels of the past only accentuates present loneliness and the unstoppable movement toward mortality. However, by reading or hearing the poem, modern readers partake in a continuum of memory that preserves the essence of those bygone joys, even if only briefly.
Overall, Browning’s verse merges historical imagination, musical imagery, and philosophical rumination on life’s brevity, urging us to reflect on how art can illuminate and mourn the past all at once.
Key points
1. Music can serve as a bridge between eras, connecting present listeners to long-forgotten lives.
2. Beauty and pleasure, while enchanting, are always transient.
3. Reflecting on past joys can invoke a sense of loss, highlighting mortality’s universal reach.
4. Art offers a means to preserve memories, even if it cannot halt the passage of time.