One of the most delicious literary portraits of all time is that of the Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini as penned by the acid-tongued German poet and commentator Heinrich Heine.
“He was tall, slenderly built, moved gracefully – I would say coquettishly, always self-consciously,” wrote Heine of the 33-year-old blond, blue-eyed musician from Sicily. “There was something vague, an absence of character in his features, something milky; and sometimes a sour-sweet expression of sorrow would appear on that milk-face… But it was sorrow without depth; it quivered in his prosaic eyes and flickered without passion on the man’s lips.”
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