pleasantness?! — the charm of this undoubtedly amazing showman?! — this truly dazzling entertainment artist?! — at which point one or two members of the audience tried to indicate an uncertain “no” with their heads, who they?! — never would they think of any such thing, never would it even have occurred to them, they could cautiously indicate this with their heads, the lecturer was already seized by zeal and went on saying no, it was not his obligation, and particularly not here, within the context of a lecture such as this — to pronounce his opinions and analyze those who came after this Monteverdi, this Purcell, this Bach in the Classical era, it was generally speaking not his task to slander them — although he could slander the Classical era, or launch into an attack, although he could attack the Romantics and so on; his task here instead, he opined, was to praise that which can be praised, and the music of the Baroque unconditionally fell into this category; precisely, only it belonged in this category; because only this was praiseworthy, to which it was now important for him to add, he said, that he, first and foremost, wished to share his perceptions concerning the vocal music of the Baroque; he did not, in every one of his lectures, speak only of that, but today yes, perhaps because at the center of the anecdote he had selected in this lecture, there was a vocal piece, the aria that Caldara wrote for a certain mezzo-soprano, perhaps this was the point where he might betray that although he did not always speak about the vocal music of the Baroque, when he