Editing I puritani (section)

====Critical reaction to Pepoli's work on ''Puritani''====
[[File:Disegno per copertina di libretto, disegno di Peter Hoffer per I Puritani (s.d.) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON012420.jpg|thumb|Drawing for a cover of ''I puritani'' (undated)]]
Given Bellini's own expressions of frustration at working with a new librettist for the first time, one musicologist, [[Mary Ann Smart]], provides a different point of view in regard to Pepoli's approach to writing a libretto. Firstly, she addresses the issue of Pepoli's inexperience:
<blockquote>An address that Pepoli delivered to prize-winning students in Bologna in 1830 reveals not only a surprisingly broad grasp of operatic repertoire but also some forceful ideas about how music could provoke political feeling. Pepoli adopts a modern aesthetic agenda, condemning vocal ornamentation as a dilution of dramatic sense and attacking imitation as cheapening music's inherent, nonverbal language. After touching on exemplary passages from operas by [[Francesco Morlacchi]], [[Nicola Vaccai]], and Vincenzo Bellini, Pepoli turns to the "[[Marseillaise]]", arguing that it melds music and poetry perfectly to arouse feeling and provoke action.</blockquote>

Quoting Pepoli, Smart continues: "for this song [the "Marseillaise"] the people fight, win, triumph: Europe and the world shouted ''Liberty!''".<ref name=SMART>{{harvnb|Smart|2010|pp=40–43}}</ref> Smart then examines the relationship between Pepoli's 1830 views and how they appear to be manifested in what he wrote for ''I puritani'':
<blockquote>The Italian phrase Pepoli uses here, [i.e. in discussing the "Marseillaise"] ''gridavano Libertà'', strikingly anticipates the duet "Suoni la tromba" in ''I puritani'', in which the two basses step outside of the opera's dreamy and non teleological plot for an isolated moment of patriotic fervor. For their homeland they will take up arms and gladly face death: ''Suoni la tromba, e intrepido/ Io pugnerò da forte/ Bello è affrontar la morte gridando "Libertà"'' ("Let the trumpet sound, and fearless I'll fight with all my strength. It is beautiful to face death shouting 'liberty')."</blockquote>

Then she recounts how Bellini reacted to what she describes as Pepoli’s "hotheaded patriotism" which appears in librettist's poetry. When he wrote to Pepoli that his "liberal bent..terrifies me", Bellini's other concern, which proved to be correct, was that words such as ''libertà'' would have to be removed if the opera was to be performed in Italy.

Nevertheless, the ''Suoni la tromba'' which Bellini described as his "Hymn to Liberty" and which had initially been placed in the opera's first act was enthusiastically received by the composer: "My dear Pepoli, I hasten to express my great satisfaction with the duet I received by post this morning ... the whole is magnificent..."<ref>Bellini to Pepoli, 30 May 1834, in {{harvnb|Weaver|1987|p=17}}</ref>