BRIGNOLI, Pasquale, singer, born in Naples, Italy, in 1824; died in New York City, 30 October, 1884. He received a fine musical education, and became a pianist of some ability. It is said that at the age of fifteen he wrote an opera, and, disgusted at the way in which the finest aria was sung, rushed upon the stage and sang it himself, to the delight of all. He paid little attention, however, to the cultivation of his voice until after he was twenty-one. Success in the concert-room encouraged him to appear in opera, in Paris and London. He came to the United States with Strakosch in 1855, and soon attained a popularity that lasted almost to the end of his life. His voice in his best days was a tenor of great volume and sweetness, and even in his sixtieth year he was still heard with delight in concert and English opera. He was unrivalled in grace of execution and facility in phrasing. He supported Madame Patti on her first appearance in the United States, and afterward sang with La Grange, Parepa, Nilsson, Titiens, and many other celebrated artists. Brignoli made three trips to Europe; but this country became his adopted home. Notwithstanding the large sums of money that he made by his singing, he died in poverty.

Source: http://www.famousamericans.net/pasqualebrignoli/

1. Walt Whitman readily acknowledged his admiration for Italian opera and stressed its importance to his poetry, even claiming that the method of “A Child’s Reminiscence” (1859; later “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”) was “strictly that of the Italian Opera” (Robert D. Faner, Walt Whitman & Opera [Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1951], p. v). Late in his career he again emphasized this influence in “The Dead Tenor” (1884), a memorial tribute to Pasquale Brignoli: “How much from thee! the revelation of the singing voice from thee!/ …How through those strains distill’d—how the rapt ears, the soul of me, absorbing / Fernando’s heart, Manrico’s passionate call, Ernani’s , sweet Gennaro’s .”

Jeff and Walt often attended operas together, especially during the period 1854-62. After the poet left Brooklyn for Washington, Jeff continued, in spite of the war conditions and a shortage of funds, to attend the opera “quite often” on his own. He and Walt shared similar tastes, as those composers, operas, and performers that Jeff mentions—Verdi’s Il Trovatore , Donizetti’s La Favorita , and the singers Amodio, Francesco Mazzoleni, and Josephine Medori—were ones that Walt praised in essays, notebook jottings, and letters. As Jeff’s appreciation for the opera grew, he instructed his former teacher by guiding Walt to the latest arrivals on the New York stage and encouraging him to hear them.

and 11: “(As perfume’s, color’s, sunlight’s correlation:)”

Notice the ommission of the conjunctions in these lines. The opposite of polysyndeton, this rhetorical device is called asyndeton.

Cantabile: “: in a singing manner — often used as a direction in music” (M-W)

transmuting: “1 : to change or alter in form, appearance, or nature and especially to a higher form” (M-W)

Fernando is the main character in “La Favorita”, a story of a love triangle between him, his lover Leonora, and the Spanish King Alfonso XI.

Manrico is the tenor role in the opera “Il trovotore”, a troubador and army officer.

“Ernani” is the eponymous name of an opera about a bandit and his doomed love for a woman who is set to marry her uncle.

Gennaro is the tenor voice in “Lucrezia Borgia”, a young nobleman in the service of the Venetian Republic.

“the quality given to a sound by its overtones: as
a: the resonance by which the ear recognizes and identifies a voiced speech sound
b: the quality of tone distinctive of a particular singing voice or musical instrument” (from Merriam Webster).

An example of timbre is noticing the difference between the sound of a trumpet and the sound of the saxophone, even if they’re the same pitch and loudness.