The Life of Rossini

But as Heine says of a composer whose friends had boasted that he was “not obliged to write,” – a windmill might as well say that it is not obliged to turn. If there is wind, it must turn; and when it ceases to turn, we know that the wind has gone down.

What makes the puzzle of Rossini’s silence puzzling indeed, is, that he does not seem quite to have known why he was silent himself. It is astonishing how many persons had the coolness, not to say impertinence, to ask Rossini why he never composed anything for the stage after “Guillaume Tell;” and it is amusing, though also provoking, to find that to most of these inquisitive persons he returned very evasive answers.

But, from Rossini’s recorded conversations with his friend Ferdinand Hiller, it is evident that it was not one cause alone which made him determine to produce no more operas. It struck Hiller, with reference to the maestro’s physical condition in the year 1854, that, “when a man has composed operas during twenty entire years, and been worshipped during five-and-forty, it is really not surprising that he should feel somewhat worn out.” “But a nabob is a nabob,” he continues, “even after losing two or three thousand thalers, and in the same manner Rossini’s mind is still what it always was; his wit, his memory, his lively powers of narration, are undiminished. And as he has written nothing for twenty years, he has at least not given any one the right of asserting that his musical genius has deteriorated, – the last work he wrote was ‘Guillaume Tell.’”

It was just at this time that Rossini exchanged some remarks with the Chevalier Neukomm on the subject of industry and idleness, which again throw a little light on the much vexed and certainly most interesting question of Rossini’s prolonged silence. “You are still indefatigable,” he observed to Neukomm.

“Whenever I am no longer able to work,” replied the latter, “you may place me between six planks and nail me down, for I shall not desire to have anything more to do with life.”

“You have a passion for industry; I always had a passion for idleness,” exclaimed Rossini.

“The forty operas you have composed are not a proof of that,” answered Neukomm.

“That was a long time ago. We ought to come into the world with packthread instead of nerves,” said the maestro, somewhat seriously; “but let us drop the subject.”

On several occasions Ferdinand Hiller seems to have asked Rossini point blank the great question – why, after “William Tell,” he ceased to write.

“Is it not one of the greatest of all wonders that you have not written anything for twenty-two years – what do you do with all the musical ideas which must be welling about in your brain?” asked Hiller, who was thinking perhaps of Heine’s windmill.

“You are joking,” replied the maestro, laughing.

“I am not joking in the least,” returned Hiller; “how can you exist without composing?”

“What!” said Rossini, “would you have me without motive, without excitement, without a definite intention, write a definite work? I do not require much to be excited into composition, as my opera texts prove, but still, I do require something.”

At another time Ferdinand Hiller succeeded in obtaining far more explicit reasons for Rossini’s premature retirement, which neither the want of a libretto, nor the plea of constitutional idleness, nor shaken nerves, sufficed to explain.

“Had you not the intention,” Hiller asked, “of composing an opera on the text of ‘Faust?’”

“Yes,” answered Rossini, “it was for a long period a favourite notion of mine, and I had already planned the whole scenarium with Jouy; it was naturally based upon Goethe’s poem. At this time, however, there arose in Paris a regular “Faust” mania; every theatre had a particular “Faust” of its own, and this somewhat damped my ardour. Meanwhile, the Revolution of July had taken place; the Grand-Opera, previously a royal institution, passed into hands of a private person; my mother was dead, and my father found a residence in Paris unbearable, because he did not understand French – so I cancelled the agreement, which bound me by rights to send in four other grand operas, preferring to remain quietly in my native land, and enliven the last years of my old father’s existence. I had been far away from my poor mother when she expired; this was an endless source of regret to me, and I was most apprehensive that the same thing might occur again in my father’s case.”

The choice of a subject afterwards looked upon as unsuitable, the Revolution of July, the appointment of a private person to the direction of the Opera, the desire of Rossini not to be separated from his father in Italy during the last years of the old man’s life – here is a whole catalogue of reasons given by Rossini himself for producing no more operas, in which we find no mention of the mutilation of “Guillaume Tell,” nor of the composer’s determination to rest on his laurels – a piece of conceit by no means in keeping with the character of Rossini, who, if he had had anything more to say would certainly not have been prevented from saying it by his own admiration for “Guillaume Tell.”

Nor was there anything in the fate of “Guillaume Tell” to frighten him, and we have seen that his supposed laziness did not prevent his setting to work on a new opera, which he must have commenced immediately after “Guillaume Tell” had been produced.

Rossini went to live with his father in Bologna, it is true; but he did not go there until 1836, so that this could have had little influence in making him determine to send back his librettos six years before.

Rossini is neither a greater nor a smaller man, because, having produced thirty-nine operas when he was thirty-seven years of age, it did not, for no matter what reason, suit him to complete the fortieth. He was destined to write thirty-nine operas, of which he wrote thirty-four during the first thirteen years of his career. Ferdinand Hiller was no doubt right in saying that a man cannot go on perpetually writing operas with impunity for twenty years – and such operas as Rossini’s, and at such a rate of production! Even when he had become comparatively inactive, Rossini produced four operas at the Académie in four successive years. Meyerbeer, his immediate successor at the Académie, brought out no more than three works at that establishment, and one at the Opera Comique, in twenty years: (“Robert le Diable,” 1831, “Les Huguenots,” 1836, “Le Prophète,” 1849, “L’Etoile du Nord,” 1851).

Of course, a composer is finally to be judged by his works, and not by the time it takes him to produce them. I am only considering whether the excessive labours of Rossini in the midst of his alleged idleness may not, after twenty years’ continuance, have thoroughly fatigued him.

No one seems to know what Rossini’s precise agreement with the Académie was. M. Castil-Blaze states that Rossini had engaged to write three operas, of which “Guillaume Tell” was the first. According to Ferdinand Hiller, he had undertaken to write four operas in addition to “Guillaume Tell;” and it is certain that immediately after “Guillaume Tell,” he seriously meditated a “Faust.” M. Castil-Blaze says positively that M. Scribe had, in execution of a contract, furnished to Rossini, and received back from him, the libretto of “Gustave III.,” the foundation of one of Auber’s greatest works, and the “Duc d’Albe,” on which Donizetti was engaged when he was attacked by the terrible malady to which he succumbed.

Whatever influence the Revolution of 1830 may have exercised on Rossini’s productive powers, it had a certain effect upon his pecuniary position. The Civil List of the dethroned king was abolished, and with it the pension of eight hundred a year, payable to Rossini. After going to law, the composer succeeded in getting a retiring pension of six thousand francs a year allowed him; and if one more reason for Rossini’s abandoning dramatic composition be required, it may be looked for in the litigation to which he was now obliged to have recourse.

About this time, and in reference to the subject of this very lawsuit, Rossini had occasion to see M. Guizot, who, in his Memoirs has left a very interesting account of the interview. M. Guizot was not a dilettante, and judged Rossini as a man of the world. His general estimate of his visitor is perhaps for that reason all the more valuable; and the minister’s statement as to Rossini’s position with regard to the Civil List in the year 1830, must be accepted as unimpeachable.

“The same day,” writes M. Guizot,34 “M. Lenormant brought to breakfast with me M. Rossini, to whom the revolution of July had caused some annoyances, which I wished to make him forget. King Charles X. had treated him with well-merited favour; he was inspector-general of singing, and received, in addition to his author’s rights, a salary of seven thousand francs; and some months previously, after the brilliant success of “Guillaume Tell,” the Civil List had signed a treaty with him, by which he undertook to write two more great works for the French stage. I wished the new government to show him the same good will, and that he in return should give us the promised masterpieces. We talked freely, and I was struck by the animation and variety of his wit, open to all subjects, gay without vulgarity, and satirical without bitterness. He left me after half-an-hour’s agreeable conversation, but which led to nothing; for it was not long before I resigned. I remained with my wife, whom M. Rossini’s person and conversation had much interested. My little girl Henrietta, who was just beginning to walk and to chatter, was brought into the room. My wife went to the piano and played some passages from the master who had just left us, from ‘Tancredi’ among other works. We were alone; I passed I cannot say how long in this manner, forgetting all external occupations, listening to the piano, watching my little girl, who was trying to walk, perfectly tranquil and absorbed in contemplation of these objects of my affection. It is nearly thirty years since, – it seems as though it were yesterday. I am not of Dante’s opinion,

‘Nessun maggior dolore,Che ricordasi tempo feliceNella miseria.’

“A great happiness is, on the contrary, in my opinion, a light, the reflection of which extends to spaces which are no longer brightened by it. When God and time have appeased the violent uprisings of the soul against misfortune, it can still contemplate with pleasure in the past the charming things which it has lost.”

CHAPTER IX

THE “STABAT MATER.”

ROSSINI, though he wrote no more for the stage, did not all at once cease to write. In 1832, a distinguished Spaniard, Don Varela, prevailed upon him to compose a “Stabat Mater,” which was not intended to be made public. Rossini fell ill, and being unable to complete the work himself, got Tadolini to finish three of the pieces. Nine years afterwards, Don Varela being dead, his heirs sold the “Stabat” to a music publisher, when Rossini claimed at law the copyright of the work, and gained his action. He now composed three pieces to replace those of Tadolini, and sold his “Stabat” thus complete to Troupenas.

Rossini had previously retired to Bologna, where he discovered the talent of Alboni, then a young girl, and taught her, very carefully, all the great contralto parts in his operas. He also allowed himself to be appointed honorary director of the Lyceum of Bologna, where the duties he assumed were by no means nominal. He took a great interest in the institution, as the school in which he had received his own education, and did all he could to improve it during a residence at Bologna of some dozen years. It amused him, he said, to hear the pupils, who formed a complete orchestra, play all possible kinds of orchestral works.

In the summer of 1836, Rossini paid a short visit to Frankfort, where he met Mendelssohn, and passed several days in his society.

“I had the pleasure,” says Ferdinand Hiller, “of seeing almost daily in my father’s house the two men, one of whom had written his last, the other, his first great work. The winning manners of the celebrated maestro captivated Mendelssohn, as they did everyone else; and Mendelssohn played for him as long, and as much as he wished, both his own compositions and those of others. Rossini thought of those days with great interest, and often turned the conversation to the master who was so soon torn from us. He informed us that he had heard his ‘Ottetto’ very well executed in Florence, and I was obliged to play for him, four-handed, the symphony in A minor with Madame Pfeiffer, a very excellent pianist from Paris, who was then stopping at Trouville.”

Between Rossini’s visit to Frankfort and visit to Trouville, an interval of eighteen years had elapsed, during which Rossini lost his first wife (1845) and married again (Madame Olympe Pelissier, 1847).

Duprez had now appeared with the most brilliant success in “Guillaume Tell;” but the enthusiastic admiration which Rossini’s admirable dramatic music at last elicited, in no way shook his determination never to write again for the stage.

The “Stabat Mater” too, performed in public for the first time in 1842, had increased the composer’s reputation by exhibiting his genius in a new light. Some critics, it is true, complained that the music was not sufficiently devotional, that it was terrestrial, theatrical, essentially operatic in its character.

Rossini told Ferdinand Hiller, that he had written the “Stabat Mater” mezzo serio; but perhaps Rossini was only mezzo serio himself in saying so.

Much nonsense has been written about this very beautiful work, which, on its first production, was severely though clumsily handled in several quarters, from a parochial point of view. Its lovely melodies are indeed admirably unlike the music of the psalms sung in our churches; there is also a little more naiveté, a little more inspiration, in the poetry of the “Stabat Mater” than in the tortured prose, measured into lengths, after the fashion of Procrustes, which certain poetical firms have arranged, in pretended imitation of David, for the use of our Protestant congregations. The poem of the “Stabat Mater” is full of beauty and tenderness; and even in the passages most terrible by their subject, the versification never loses its melody and its grace. Whatever else may be said of Rossini’s “Stabat,” it cannot be maintained that it is not in harmony with the stanzas to which it is set.

Besides the “Stabat Mater” was composed, as Raphael’s Virgins were painted, for the Roman Catholic Church, which at once accepted it, without ever suspecting that Rossini’s music was not religious in character.

Doubtless the music of the “Stabat” bears a certain resemblance to Rossini’s operatic music; but that only means that the composer, in whatever style he may write, still preserves something of his individuality. The resemblance between Handel’s opera music and oratorio music is far greater, and, indeed, in the case of some airs, amounts, as nearly as possible, to identity. At least, in Rossini’s “Stabat Mater,” there are no bravura airs. The style throughout is simple, fervent, sincere.

“The ‘Stabat’ of Rossini,” wrote Heine to the Allgemeine Zeitung, in 1842, “has been the great event of the season. The discussion of this masterpiece is still the order of the day, and the very reproaches which, from the North German point of view, are directed against the great maestro, attest in a striking manner the originality and depth of his genius; ‘the execution is too mundane, too sensual, too gay for this ideal subject. It is too light, too agreeable, too amusing.’ Such are the grievous complaints of some dull and tedious critics who, if they do not designedly affect an outrageous spiritualism, have at least appropriated to themselves by barren studies very circumscribed and very erroneous notions on the subject of sacred music. As among the painters, so among the musicians, there is an entirely false idea as to the proper manner of treating religious subjects. Painters think, that in truly Christian subjects, the figures must be represented with cramped, narrow contours, and in forms as bleached and colourless as possible; the drawings of Overbeck are their prototype in this respect. To contradict this infatuation by a fact, I bring forward the religious pictures of the Spanish school, remarkable for the fulness of the contours, the brightness of the colouring, and yet no one will deny that these Spanish paintings breathe the most spiritualised, the most ideal Christianity; and that their authors were not less imbued with faith than the celebrated masters of our days, who have embraced Catholicism at Rome in order to be able to paint its sacred symbols with a fervour and ingenuous spontaneity which, according to their idea, only the ecstasy of faith can give. The true character of Christian art does not reside in thinness and paleness of the body, but in a certain effervescence of the soul, which neither the musician nor the painter can appropriate to himself either by baptism or by study; and in this respect I find in the ‘Stabat’ of Rossini a more truly Christian character than in the ‘Paulus’ of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, an oratorio which the adversaries of Rossini point to as a model of the Christian style. Heaven preserve me from wishing to express by that the least blame against a master so full of merits as the composer of ‘Paulus;’ and the author of these letters is less likely than any one to wish to criticise the Christian character of the oratorio in question from clerical, or, so to say, pharisaical reasons. I cannot, however, avoid pointing out, that at the age when Mendelssohn commenced Christianity at Berlin (he was only baptised in his thirteenth year), Rossini had already deserted it a little, and had lost himself entirely in the mundane music of operas. Now he has again abandoned the latter, to carry himself back in dreams to the Catholic recollections of his first youth – to the days when he sang as a child in the choir of the Pesaro cathedral, and took part as an acolyte in the service of the holy mass.”

Heine, in his brilliant article, goes on to exalt Rossini (according to his invariable method) by depreciating Mendelssohn; a proceeding for which Rossini would not have thanked him. Nor would Heine himself have been pleased to see the criticism in which he expresses so poetically, and in such an admirable form, the true character of the “Stabat” music, represented by a mere fragment. Still the fragments of some writers are better than the complete articles of others; and the passages in which Heine, as a poetical appreciator, not as a musical critic, points out the error of condemning Rossini’s entrancing music from the gloomy churchwarden point of view, are admirable.

The “Stabat Mater,” was, at one time, regarded as Rossini’s final utterance; but a mass, the production of the last few years of his life, has just been made public, and bids fair to eclipse the fame of the earlier religious work. However, of the “Stabat” it may already be said that the music, as music, whatever significance may be attached to it, will certainly live. It gains every year in popularity, and is at this moment better known than any of Rossini’s operas, except “William Tell” and the “Barber.”

The “Messe Solennelle” (or “Petite Messe Solennelle,” its original title) was performed for the first time in presence of Meyerbeer, Auber, and a certain number of private friends at Paris, in the year 1864. The composer had not at that time arranged it for the orchestra, and the instrumentation of the mass occupied him at intervals almost until the autumn of last year, when, at the age of seventy-seven, he was attacked by the illness which carried him off.

Rossini had the happiness not to survive his capacity for production, – far less his reputation, which the performance throughout Europe of his last work cannot fail to enhance. He was surrounded to the last by admiring and affectionate friends; and if it be true that, like so many other Italians, he regarded Friday as an unlucky day, and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday, the 13th of November, he died.

Incomparably the greatest Italian composer of the century, and the greatest of all Italian composers for the stage, he will be known until some very great change takes place in our artistic civilisation by at least three great works in three very different styles – “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” a comic opera of the year 1813, “Guillaume Tell,” a serious opera of the year 1829, and the “Stabat Mater,” a religious poem of the year 1841.

LIST OF ROSSINI’S WORKS,WITH THE DATE OF THEIR PRODUCTION IN PUBLIC

1. Il Pianto d’Armonia. Cantata, 1808.

2. Orchestral Symphony, 1809.

3. Quartet for Stringed Instruments, 1809.

4. La Cambiale di Matrimonio. Opera, 1810.

5. L’Equivoco Stravagante. Opera, 1811.

6. Didone Abbandonata. Cantata, 1811.

7. Demetrio e Polibio. Opera, 1811.

8. L’Inganno Felice. Opera, 1812.

9. Ciro in Babilonia. Opera, 1812.

10. La Scala di Seta. Opera, 1812.

11. La Pietra del Paragone. Opera, 1812.

12. L’Occasione fa il Ladro. Opera, 1812.

13. Il Figlio per Azzardo. Opera, 1813.

14. Tancredi. Opera, 1813.

15. L’Italiana in Algeri. Opera, 1813.

16. L’Aureliano in Palmira. Opera, 1814.

17. Egle e Irene. Cantata (unpublished), 1814.

18. Il Turco in Italia. Opera, 1814.

19. Elisabetta. Opera, 1815.

20. Torvaldo e Dorliska. Opera, 1816.

21. Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Opera, 1816.

22. La Gazetta. Opera, 1816.

23. Otello. Opera, 1816.

24. Teti e Peleo. Cantata, 1816.

25. Cenerentola. Opera, 1817.

26. La Gazza Ladra. Opera, 1817.

27. Armide. Opera, 1817.

28. Adelaide di Borgogna. Opera, 1818.

29. Mosè. Opera, 1818.

30. Adina. Opera (written for Lisbon), 1818.{344}

31. Ricciardo e Zoraïde. Opera, 1818.

32. Ermione. Opera, 1819.

33. Eduardo e Cristina. Opera, 1819.

34. La Donna del Lago. Opera, 1819.

35. Cantata in honour of the King of Naples. 1819.

36. Bianca e Faliero. Opera, 1820.

37. Maometto II. Opera, 1820.

38. Cantata in honour of the Emperor of Austria. 1820.

39. Matilda di Sabran. Opera, 1821.

40. La Riconoscenza. Cantata, 1821.

41. Zelmira. Opera, 1822.

42. Il Vero Omaggio. Cantata, 1822.

43. Semiramide. Opera, 1823.

44. Il Viaggio a Reims. Opera, 1825.

45. Le Siège de Corinthe. Opera, 1826.

46. Moïse. Opera, 1827.

47. Le Comte Ory. Opera, 1828.

48. Guillaume Tell. Opera, 1829.

49. Les Soirées Musicales. Douze morceaux de chant, 1840.

50. Quatre Ariettes Italiennes, 1841.

51. Stabat Mater. 1842.

52. La Foi, l’Espérance et la Charité. Trois chœurs, 1843.

53. Stances à Pie IX., 1847.

54. Messe Solennelle, 1869.

THE END

1

Cenni di una donna gia contante sopra il maestro Rossini.

2

If Miçkiewicz had known, that the composer of the “Barber of Seville” was descended from the Russini, he would have claimed him as a Slavonian.

3

The Italian theatres are for the most part named after the parishes in which they stand.

4

The serious opera consisted of the following persons: The soprano or primo uomo [homo, but not vir], prima donna (generally a mezzo soprano or contralto) and tenor; the secondo uomo (soprano) seconda donna and ultima parte (bass). The company for the comic opera consisted of the primo buffo (tenor) prima buffa, buffo caricato (bass), seconda buffa and ultima parte (bass). There were also the uomo serio and donna seria, generally the second man or woman of the serious opera.

5

Durante passed from one Conservatory at Naples to another, and was necessarily professor at all three.

6

M. Azevedo’s idea on the subject is certainly the best. “Since its production,” he says, “on the stage and in the universe it has been made the subject of a canticle for the Catholic Church, like all other successful airs. But a litany before the air and a canticle after the air are not the same thing.” M. Azevedo also rejects the rice.

7

“Le ombreggiature per le messe di voce, il cantar di partarrenti, l’arte di fermare la voce per farla fluire equale nel canto legato, l’arte di prender flato in modo insensibile e senza troncare il lungo periodo vocale delle arte antiche.” This passage is from Carpani. Stendhal, not finding it easy to translate, gives it, in Italian, as his own, and endeavours to explain his use of the Italian language by saying that he finds “an almost insurmountable difficulty in writing about singing in French.” This mania for “adaptation” makes one doubt the originality of everything Stendhal has done.