The Life of Rossini

The explanation is, that the question of Rossini’s merit had become, to a certain extent, a political question, like the disputes between the Gluckists and the Piccinnists; and at an earlier period (1752) between the supporters of Italian and the supporters of French music.

Shortly before the French Revolution of 1789, the party of Marie Antoinette believed only in Gluck, while the party of Madame Dubarry swore by Piccinni.

During the Restoration and until the Revolution of 1830, it was the sign of a good royalist to praise Rossini’s music, and a sign of liberalism to condemn it. This had nothing whatever to do with Rossini’s own political opinions, which were never very marked. But Rossini’s music and the romantic school of poetry and painting were classed together, and the romantic school, with Victor Hugo, Lamartine, and Alfred de Vigny at its head, began by being royalist.

Balzac describes somewhere a hero of this period as devoted to “Byron’s poetry, Géricault’s painting, Rossini’s music;” and persons who entertained these tastes were looked upon as Royalists, and denounced accordingly by the Liberals.

It was absurd, but so it was. Of course, too, there were limits to the absurdity; and it must have been near its end when Armand Carrel went out on the boulevard to applaud the overture to “Guillaume Tell.”

CHAPTER IV

ROSSINI AND HIS CRITICS

“Now I think of it,” said Rossini, a great many years afterwards, to Ferdinand Hiller, “what was not written against me when I went to Paris! Old Berton even made verses on me, and called me ‘Signor Crescendo’ in them. But it all blew over without injury to life or limb.”

Rossini was too philosophical, and, without being in the least vain, was sufficiently conscious, no doubt, of his own talent to care much what was thought of his music either by ordinary critics or by the general public. At the first performance of the “Barber,” when everyone was hissing, he turned round and applauded.

He himself said that he was tolerably calm at a success as well as at a failure; “and for this,” he added, “I have to thank an impression I received in my earliest youth, and which I shall never forget. Before my first operetta was brought out I was present at the performance of a one-act opera by Simon Mayer. Mayer was then the hero of the day, and had produced in Venice perhaps twenty operas with the greatest success. In spite of this, however, the public treated him on the evening to which I refer as if he had been some ignorant young vagabond; you cannot form an idea of such a piece of grossness. I was really astounded. Is it thus that you recompense a man who for so many years has produced you enjoyment? Dare you take such a liberty because you have paid two or three paoli for admittance? If such is the case, it is not worth while to take your judgment to heart, I thought; and I have always acted as much as possible in conformity with that opinion.”

In regard to printed criticism, he showed himself more considerate to critics than critics sometimes showed themselves to him. When Weber was passing through Paris, in 1826, on his way to London, he called on Rossini, but hesitated before doing so on the ground that a dozen years before he had published a hostile criticism on “Tancredi.”

Instead of feeling any resentment, Rossini said that if he had only known when he was twenty-one that a foreign composer had taken any notice of “Tancredi” he should certainly have felt very much flattered by the attention.

But the malicious Berton did not confine himself to criticising Rossini’s music, he attempted to cast ridicule on Rossini personally, whom he called, among other facetious nicknames, “Signor Vacarmini,” and “Signor Crescendo.” This could not please Rossini, but he did not mind the impertinence very much.

Rossini had, of course, been preceded in Paris by his reputation, and his reputation by his music. But it was not until the public had learned its true superiority from the very manœuvre which Paer had adopted in order to demonstrate its worthlessness that Rossini’s music was accepted by the Parisians at anything like its value.

“L’Italiana in Algeri” had already been played in Paris, in the year 1817, when Garcia, the original Almaviva, proposed that the “Barber” should be produced for his benefit.

Publishers were not so expeditious then as they are now in getting out the scores of new operas, and the music of the “Barber” had not at that time been engraved, or at least not in a complete form. Garcia, however, had provided himself with a manuscript copy, and in spite of repeated objections from Paer and others, continued to request that the work might be put into rehearsal.

The first reply with which Garcia was met is worth recording. The directors of the Italian Opera of Paris informed him that “only masterpieces could be performed at their theatre, and that “Il Barbiere,” a work of secondary merit, by an author almost unknown, was not worthy of being presented to the Parisian public.”

Garcia, however, was of a different opinion; and in renewing his engagement for the year following, made it a special condition that the “Barber” should be brought out. Accordingly in the autumn of the following year, 1819, this “work of secondary merit” was actually represented.

The audience must have been delighted; but several critics were not. One thought that Figaro’s cavatina was “wanting in character!” and added, with super-journalistic absurdity, that “the composer might have made much more out of the air of “La Calunnia.” Another said of it that “its success would serve to enhance that of “Agnese,” a very celebrated opera of that day by Paer; a third, that Paisiello’s “Barber” ought to be given, and with particular care, so that the triumph of the old master over his competitor “might be rendered not more sure, but more striking.”

The hint was meant to be acted upon, and Paisiello’s veteran “Barber,” supported only by stringed instruments, was brought out to crush the vigorous young “Barber” of Rossini, full of life, and with musical instruments of all kinds to depend upon. Paisiello had been the favourite Italian composer of the Empire (the Emperor, according to Paisiello’s own naive observation, liked his music “because it did not prevent his thinking of other things);” but his “Barber” had grown old and feeble apparently, without anyone suspecting the change.

Three times this respectable but unattractive musical invalid was brought forth; the third time there was scarcely anyone to meet him; and Paisiello’s “Barber” was not heard of again, until, only a few years ago, he was introduced to the public of “Les Fantaisies Parisiennes,” not as the possible competitor of anyone, but merely as an interesting relic of a past age.

In the meanwhile Rossini’s “Barber” had been reproduced, to be followed by “Il Turco in Italia,” “La Pietra del Paragone,” and “La Gazza Ladra.” With the general public Rossini’s music was now in the highest favour, and “La Gazza Ladra,” like “Il Barbiere,” drew crowded audiences.

The late M. Berlioz, whose antipathy to Rossini’s music was so great as to be absolutely unintelligible to those who have not heard M. Berlioz’s music, had not at that time the ear – I mean, of course, the literary ear – of the French public. Otherwise, without delaying Rossini’s triumph, he certainly would have increased the number of Rossini’s enemies.

“If,” he afterwards said, “it had been in my power to place a barrel of powder under the Salle Louvois and blow it up, during the representation of “La Gazza Ladra” or “Il Barbiere,” with all that it contained, I certainly should not have failed to do so.”

This was worse than the young Milanese drumhater, who wished to murder Rossini, but Rossini only, for his overture to “La Gazza Ladra.”

Rossini insisted on being introduced to the eccentric student of Milan. Had he known of Berlioz’s existence he would have wanted to cultivate his intimate acquaintance.

CHAPTER V

ROSSINI AT THE ITALIAN OPERA OF PARIS

THE ingenious Berton, in his anti-Rossinian pamphlet entitled “De la Musique mécanique et de la Musique philosophique,” relates how he once asked Maelzel, the metronomist, whether he could construct a machine to compose music; to which Maelzel replied that he could, but that the music so composed would be like that of Rossini, and not up to the mark of Sacchini, Cimarosa and Mozart.

Somehow Maelzel abstained from proving his terrible power; but Berton boasted that his friend possessed it, and argued therefrom that Rossini’s music could not be anything very sublime, but on the contrary, must be essentially mechanical.

But Berton ceased this folly when Rossini arrived in Paris, and even showed a disposition to treat him with civility and respect. He is said to have secretly endeavoured to keep up the national cry against the composer; but the verses about “Signor Vacarmini” and “Signor Crescendo” were written while Rossini was still in Italy.

Paer, too, saw that the time had gone by for describing Rossini’s operas as “works of secondary importance.” He was accused long afterwards of doing his best to undermine Rossini’s reputation as a great musician, but, as it seems to me, without sufficient proof. In these musical feuds, in which perhaps the opposing parties are irreconcileable in proportion as the ground of difference between them is incapable of being defined, every sort of meanness is attributed by one side to the other as a matter of course.

Rossini made Berton’s acquaintance in Paris, and must have had frequent relations with Paer at the Italian Opera, of which he at last assumed the direction.

In this matter Rossini behaved with great consideration towards his jealous rival. He positively declined to displace Paer, and on being pressed to accept the post of director, consented to do so only on condition of Paer’s remaining at the theatre without a diminution of salary, but, on the contrary, with a slight increase.

The salary payable to Rossini from the Civil List, in virtue of his office as Director of the Italian Theatre, was twenty thousand francs a year. The engagement was for eighteen months.

Rossini not only knew his work well and practically as director of an orchestra, but was also thoroughly versed in all the duties of manager. He began his artistic life as conductor. When he was a boy at the Lyceum of Bologna, he got up a quartet of stringed instruments, and superintended the production of some important orchestral pieces.

“You should have been present,” he once said, “when I directed the performance of the ‘Creation’ at the Liceo; I did not let the executants miss a single point, for I knew every note by heart.”

As for the details of management, though M. Fétis thinks Rossini must have been incapable of descending to such things, he assured Hiller that when he was at the San Carlo he attended to all Barbaja’s affairs, great and small, so that not a bill was paid until he had countersigned it.

In Paris so much could scarcely have been required of him. But it seems so improbable that a composer like Rossini should also be a good manager, that many persons, with that comprehensively inaccurate writer, M. Fétis, among the number, have at once concluded that he must have neglected his work.

He was, of course, not expected to wait “in the front of the house” to see that the public were provided with proper accommodation. His business was to bring out new singers, to produce new operas, and especially his own; and there was, naturally, no one in Europe who could discharge these duties in so advantageous a manner as Rossini.

In fact, he engaged his old friend, Esther Mombelli, the first of his prima donnas, for “La Cenerentola,” in which her success surpassed that of the original heroine, Madame Giorgi-Righetti; he brought over from Italy two of the most celebrated tenors of the day, Donzelli and Rubini; he appointed Herold maestro al piano; he produced Meyerbeer’s “Crociato,” his own “Otello,” and “Donna del Lago;” and finally he composed specially for the theatre “Il Viaggio a Reims,” the chief portion of which was afterwards reproduced in that charming work, “Le Comte Ory.”

“Il Viaggio a Reims,” an occasional piece composed in honour of Charles X.’s coronation, was, nominally, in only one act, but the act was a long one. It lasted three hours; it contained fifteen or sixteen pieces, including a ballet; and it was divided into three parts. The execution must have been admirable, the characters being assigned to Mesdames Pasta, Esther Mombelli and Cinti; MM. Donzelli, Zuchelli, Levasseur, Bordogni, Pellegrini, and Graziani.

The music of “Il Viaggio a Reims,” if we except the numerous important pieces transferred to “Le Comte Ory,” is now only known by report. In the ballet music a duet for two clarinets was particularly remarked. There were two elaborate finales (for a piece in one act a fair supply!), and in the second finale the national airs of nearly all the countries in Europe were introduced. Prominent among them was, of course, the French royalist air, “Vive Henri Quatre,” which was harmonised in the most varied manner, and presented finally with an elaborate and quasi-religious accompaniment for the harp.

“Il Viaggio a Reims,” having been written for the coronation of a king in 1825, was revived, with some necessary alterations in the libretto, to celebrate the proclamation of a republic in 1848. It was a droll idea, but it seems to have been adopted and carried out without the slightest satirical intention. “Andiamo a Parigi” the piece was called.

In “Il Viaggio a Reims,” some people in an inn are talking about the coronation, and arrange to make a journey to Reims to see the ceremony.

In “Andiamo a Parigi” some people in an inn are talking about the Revolution, and arrange to make a journey to Paris to see the barricades.

The Viscount de la Rochefoucauld, as director of the “Civil List,” offered Rossini the present of a large sum of money; but the composer, considering himself already sufficiently well paid, and wishing perhaps that the opera should be looked upon as a homage from him to the French nation and sovereign, declined to accept it. Thereupon a service of Sèvres china was sent to him on the part of the king.

Rossini, too, caused Malibran to be re-engaged (she had appeared at Paris some years previously, before the full development of her talent, in “Torwaldo e Dorliska”), and introduced to the French public Sontag and Pisaroni, who appeared together in “Tancredi;” Galli, Lablache, and Tamburini. It was Rossini, too, who discovered and brought out Giulia Grisi.

In fact, he raised the Théâtre Italien of Paris to the position of the first Italian Opera in Europe.

Soon after the production of “Il Viaggio,” Rossini brought out “Semiramide” and “Zelmira.” Indeed, during the eighteen months over which his contract extended, he made the French acquainted with all his greatest works. Add to this that he wrote an entirely new opera for Paris, and that he was the means of introducing Meyerbeer, both through his works and in person, and the sum total of Rossini’s doings at the Théâtre Italien will not seem insignificant.

The French public knew nothing of Meyerbeer’s music; it is true he had not written much besides “Emma di Rosburgo” and “Il Crociato,” when Rossini undertook the production of the latter work at the Théâtre Italien. As soon as the opera was nearly ready, he asked the Viscount de la Rochefoucauld to invite the composer to attend the last rehearsals; and it was really in consequence of Rossini’s express recommendation that Meyerbeer came to Paris.

Rossini was equally the means of bringing Bellini, Donizetti and Mercadante to France. To Bellini in particular he was the kindest possible friend, as may be judged from the following letter, addressed to Rossini by Bellini’s father, just after the young man’s death.

“You always encouraged the object of my eternal regret in his labours,” wrote the unhappy father; “you took him under your protection; you neglected nothing that could increase his glory and his welfare. After my son’s death, what have you not done to honour his memory and render it dear to posterity! I learnt this from the newspapers; and I am penetrated with gratitude for your excessive kindness, as well as for that of a number of distinguished artistes, which also I shall never forget. Pray, sir, be my interpreter, and tell these artistes, that the father and family of Bellini, as well as our compatriots of Catania, will cherish an imperishable recollection of this generous conduct. I shall never cease to remember how much you did for my son; I shall make known everywhere in the midst of my tears what an affectionate heart belongs to the great Rossini; and how kind, hospitable, full of feeling are the artistes of France.”

CHAPTER VI

ROSSINI AT THE ACADÉMIE

ROSSINI’S engagement as director of the Théâtre Italien came to an end in 1826; but he continued to take part in its management, and rendered great services by his recommendations of singers and composers.

He continued, also, to receive twenty thousand francs a year from the Civil List; and as it was necessary this pension, for such it really was, should be assigned to him in consideration of certain official duties, he was named “Inspector of Singing.”

One would have thought “auditor” a better word; but the appointment was chiefly a pretext for keeping Rossini in France, where it was understood that he was to compose a series of works for the French Opera.

Looking back, it is from the date of this new contract that Rossini’s French career would seem to commence. As director of the Théâtre Italien, he had already produced one work; but all the principal pieces in that opera were afterwards transferred to the “Comte Ory” composed for the Académie.

Without thoroughly changing his style, Rossini certainly modified it in writing for the French stage. He became more simple in his musical phrases, which he presented entirely without ornament, and more complex in his vocal and instrumental combinations. M. Azevedo points to Rossini’s unsuccessful opera of “Ermione” as an example of what in Rossini’s notion, conceived some years before he wrote anything for the French theatre, a dramatic opera should be. But Rossini himself did not entertain any high opinion of that work, and told Ferdinand Hiller that in his endeavour to be exceedingly dramatic, he had only succeeded in being dull – a common result when the composer neglects or is unable to cultivate with felicity the essential lyrical element in opera.

“And your opera, ‘Ermione,’ which one of your biographers informs us you preserve mysteriously to bequeath to posterity – what has become of that?” asked Hiller; to which Rossini replied, that it was with his other scores, lost or left at some theatre, he knew not where. To the question whether Rossini had not once said that he had treated “Ermione” too dramatically, and that it was in consequence damned, the maestro replied that the public had judged his work fairly enough, and that it was in truth very tedious. “There was really nothing,” he continued; “it was all recitative and declamation.”

In fact, so-called dramatic operas, in which the characters, instead of comporting themselves lyrically, instead of singing melodies, declaim recitative in alleged imitation of the language of real life, are about as interesting as tragedies without poetry, or comedies without wit.

In composing for the French stage, Rossini adopted no new theory of the lyric drama. He made his style less ornate, more expressive, and, in doing so, probably did not forget that his ordinary Italian manner would suit neither French singers nor French audiences. A taste, moreover, for simple, expressive music seems to have grown upon him, and he held, justly no doubt, that with advancing years this taste generally manifested itself.

But wherever we have seen Rossini at work he has always adopted a compromise; he subjects circumstances to himself, but he is also obliged to subject himself a little to circumstances. At many of the Italian theatres he had an indifferent orchestra and chorus – sometimes, as at the San Mosè, no chorus at all; and his only means of success lay in writing attractive airs for the principal singers.

At the San Carlo, where he found the finest orchestra in Italy, he paid particular attention to the instrumentation of his operas.

At the Académie, where the superiority of the orchestra and chorus was still more remarkable, he thought more than ever of orchestral and choral writing, and was not tempted by special excellence on the part of his singers to sacrifice anything to the vocal solos.

At the same time the Académie was really the first theatre at which Rossini found himself free to pursue his ideal of an opera, if any such ideal possessed him. There, too, he could work at his leisure, and instead of scrambling through the rehearsals, have just as many as he required. That is one of the numerous advantages presented by a State theatre. A private speculator cannot afford to delay very long the production of a new piece, for by doing so he delays the return of the money he has invested. Such considerations are not important at a Government institution, where singers and instrumentalists are all engaged for a long period and permanently. Besides, at a theatre supported by the Government, the reputation of the establishment is the first thing to be considered.

At Rossini’s recommendation, two French artistes, Levasseur and Mademoiselle Cinti, of the Théâtre Italien, were now engaged at the Académie, where the principal tenor was the great dramatic singer, Adolphe Nourrit. Here, then, already was the nucleus of an admirable company. Levasseur and Mademoiselle Cinti were accustomed to the Italian school of vocalisation. Nourrit was less Italianised, but he is said to have profited greatly by the counsels of the great Italian maestro during the production of the works which Rossini now composed or arranged for the French stage.

The first of this series was “Le Siège de Corinthe,” based on “Maometto Secondo.” Soumet, the French dramatic poet, and Balocchi, the author of “Il Viaggio a Reims,” arranged the libretto of the new work, Soumet occupying himself with the dramatic, Balocchi with the lyrical portion.

Although Rossini borrowed for the “Siège de Corinthe” a number of pieces which had already figured in “Maometto,” he remodelled many of them. He moreover altered some of the principal airs in a very significant manner, cutting out his Italian fioriture, either because he thought them unsuited to the French taste, or to the capacity of the French singers, or because he considered them absolutely undramatic; perhaps for all these reasons.

Although “Le Siège de Corinthe” is often spoken of as a mere French adaptation of “Maometto Secondo,” it does not include more than half the pieces contained in the latter work; while, on the other hand, Rossini composed specially for it the magnificent overture, the recitative, “Nous avons triomphé,” the allegro of the finale to the first act, the ballad “L’Hymen lui donne,” the recitative “Que vais-je devenir?” the allegro of the duet in the second act, “La Fête d’Hyménée,” the whole of the ballet music, the chorus “Divin Prophète,” the trio “Il est son Frère,” the finale to the second act “Corinthe nous défie,” the entre-acte preceding the third act, the recitative “Avançons!” the air “Grand Dieu,” the recitative of the trio “Cher Cléomène,” the scene of the Blessing of the Standards, and the finale to the third act.

The scene of the Blessing of the Standards is conceived in Rossini’s grandest and broadest dramatic style, – a style which he did not adopt absolutely for the first time in writing for the French stage, since we had already an example of it in the magnificent finale to the first act of “La Donna del Lago,” but which he nevertheless carried out more consistently and with more success in France than he could possibly have done in Italy, where it will be remembered “La Donna del Lago” was not by any means appreciated.

The production of “Le Siège de Corinthe” was accompanied by one rather important incident in Rossini’s life, in which, indeed, it may be said to form an epoch. It was the first opera that he sold to a music publisher. His thirty-four Italian works had been left absolutely at the disposition of every publisher or manager who chose to take them, to engrave or represent, with or without additions, in no matter what form; the one thing clear and certain in the matter being that no profit from the sale or representation of his works could by any possibility reach the composer.