II.xiv. Guided Tours

"It is unjust that Italy should claim musical pre-eminence, even forcing Italian on music as its international language, when Italy’s genius is so visual. No nation can build towns as beautiful nor claim a better right to regard nature as a shapeless substance to be redeemed by urbifaction. The Italians are not Wordsworthian. Man fulfils himself in the town. There is too much wild nature in music, and it has to be tamed into simple four-square patterns, as in Verdi and Bellini. The tenor does not proclaim Byronically to the woods and hills: he is a kind of sexy politician for the town piazza. The Italians would listen to Aaron, but not to Moses."
- Anthony Burgess

This morning, my History of Modern Architecture class consisted of a guided tour of San Petronio, the great red brick basilica that dwarfs Bologna's Piazza Maggiore. It was quite basic, and a little bit reminiscent of those broad, vague introductory art history courses, but it was wandering around in a church, and there isn't much I prefer to do no matter how elementary.
    At one point, while our group of fifteen or so was wandering through the aisles, a chorus of women began to sing through a mass that was being celebrated in a side chapel. They were atrocious, and definitely an argument in favour of ordaining women so that they would be able to sing less and speak more.
    Even professor Denzi, usually as oblivious as can be to her surroundings (she speaks at a whisper, even while taking her class through the busy, ear ringing clamor of Bologna's streets), noticed the inability of the old women to carry a tune.
    "Do they sing that badly in church in America?" she asked me.
    "I'm Canadian", I said. The wit of her ad lib diminished quickly.
    "Oh. Well, in Canada do they sing in church? Any better than that?"
    "Um, generally, I suppose", I answered.
    "Good." She said, before continuing to explain column structure to us, as the makeshift choir sang on.