Incledon's greatest rival, or peer (for it was 'a rivalry in name rather than reality'), was John Braham. Braham, in addition to his own experience as a cantor, owed a great deal to the refined Italian vocal methods taught by his master, the male soprano Venanzio Rauzzini. Incledon, who had also received instruction from Rauzzini, was decidedly English in his musical outlook and had little time for foreign music, or for people who enthused about songs the words of which they did not understand. The continuing contest between Italian and English styles of composition and singing found an epitome in the materials and style of Incledon and Braham, which, in an age of nationalistic feeling, prompted unworthy anti-semitic commentaries in some quarters against Braham. Incledon himself, however, was good-hearted but of irritable humour, and was easily teased into a fury about the "Italianized humbug" of Braham's style of singing.