OF
STENDHAL Translated by Richard N. Coe
This is the first complete translation of Stendhal's great study, which has been called by Ernest Newman the best appreciation of Rossini ever written. A layman with a passion for music, Stendhal was the first to recognise the genius of this important composer who again today has resumed his place among the most popular of Italian composers.
Stendhal's introduction gives a history of the interregnum between the depar ture of Cimarosa and the coming of Rossini. Details of the early iiie of Rossini are followed by penetrating discussion on the operas, libretti, personalities of the period and on Rossini's own character. A whole chapter is devoted to his wild sense of humor.
Written by a layman for laymen, this is not only a book for music lovers, but also for lovers of great literature, who will find in this book a faithful trans lation of one of the great flowers of French prose ^riling.
AUG 61978
780.92 R83b
Beyle
Life of Rossini
67-10590
LIFE OF ROSSINI
through the air, ike Wafers with a thr ead'aT) out their feWt:*"~~" - Aristophanes.
Rossini
LIFE
OF ROSSINI
BY
STENDHAL
Translated by RICHARD N. COE
CRITERION BOOKS NEW YORK
Copyright © 1957 by Criterion Books, Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 57-6600
All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD
KAWSAS CITY (MO.) PUBLIC LIBRARY
H,
TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD
. ENRI BEYLE, whom the public was already coming to know as Stendhal, was about thirty-one years old, and had already experi enced much of the world — including the retreat from Moscow — when he chanced to hear a German military band in Milan playing a curiously lilting melody in an unfamiliar idiom. He enquired after the composer, more from idle curiosity, perhaps, than from any other motive, and learnt that the maestro was "a young man named Rossini", and that the tune which had so intrigued him was the duet : Ti rivedrd, mi rivedrai ... from an opera called TancredL
The year was 1814, and Rossini was enjoying the first upsurge of his amazing popularity; but Henri Beyle was a most obstinate indi vidualist, and by no means inclined to echo the hysterical and un reasoning applause of the crowd. Rossini, admittedly, was a glorious sun compared with the dim candle-light of a Portogallo, a Zingarelli or a Simon Mayr ; but what was Rossini beside a Mozart, a Cimarosa, or even a Paesiello? Rossini's brittle and superficial tunefulness was to be enjoyed rather than revered; and for some years, Beyle con tinued to be cool in his appraisal, and moderate in his judgment.
But if Rossini was all the rage in Italy, in France he was treated as an ill-bred parvenu, whose cheap popularity was an insult to a great musical tradition. Not merely did the ponderous Berton reflect the attitude of the Conservatoire in a series of hostile critical articles ; but, thanks to the jealous machinations of Paer, who was at that time director of the Theatre Italien, Rossini's operas were offered to Parisian audiences in so mutilated a form that the music which was heard under the misleading titles of Tancredi or Vltaliana in Algeri was little more than a travesty of the true score. So, if Beyle's refusal to move with the crowd had, while he remained in Milan, tended to make him cool in his attitude towards Rossini, this same contrari ness, once he had travelled northwards over the Alps towards Paris, served to imbue him with the purest fire of Rossinian ardour. And, from 1821 onwards, he was in fact obliged to live in Paris, since the Milanese authorities, suspecting him of being a French secret agent,
Vlii LIFE OF ROSSINI
had requested him to leave the country. Thus it comes about that, in 1822, we find Beyle constituting himself the most fervent advocate of Rossinian opera in a society which is still largely indifferent to this new genius from Pesaro.
The first contribution which he was to make to the furthering of his newly-adopted cause was an article on Rossini written for an English journal published in France, the Paris Monthly Review (January 1822). Proof that the subject was of interest to the general reader was not long in forthcoming, for the article was promptly pirated by two major English reviews of the period, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (October 1822) and Galignani's Monthly Review (November 1822) ; while in Italy, not only did the substance of Beyle's study reappear in translation in a Milanese periodical, but this same version was subsequently reprinted in book form.1
If the French and English readers received their first survey of Rossini and Ms music, all in all, with favourable interest, the Italians were profoundly shocked; for Beyle, whose musical insight is both sensitive and profound, still obstinately maintained at least a part of his original critical position, and insisted that the music of the Barber, for all its piquant and delicious gaiety, was still less powerful, less evocative, and perhaps even less permanent, than the music of Don Giovanni: Such contempt for the national hero on the lips of an impudent foreign calumniator was hardly to be borne, least of all while the original Ro$ina, Signora Geltrude Giorgi-Righetti, was there to defend her adored maestro. The defence was published in Bologna in 1823, under the title of Reminiscences of a sometime prima-donna, concerning the composer Rossini ...;2 and this curious document constitutes one of the earliest authentic studies of Rossini by a person who had a comparatively intimate personal knowledge of him.
Meanwhile, Beyle, encouraged by the unexpected success of his first venture, had decided to follow up this initial victory with a History of Music in Italy,, 1800-1823, which he intended to have trans lated and published in England. For various reasons, however, the
1 Rossini e la sua Musica. Milano, dalla tipografia di Felice Rusconi, contrada di S.Paolo, No. 11 77 (1824).
2 See Bibliography. The work (which is very rare in the original) has been reproduced in full in Henry Prun&res' edition of the Vie de RossinL vol. 2, pp. 433-474.
TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD ix
MS. was withdrawn at the last minute; reluctant to waste good work done, the author began to cast about for some means of using at least part of what he had already written in a new shape; and so the months from January to September 1823 were spent converting much of the material accumulated into a Life of Rossini.
Warned by his experience with Signora Giorgi-Righetti, who had not failed to point out the wretched "English journalist's" criminal ignorance in matters of detail, Beyle this time was at some pains to make certain of his facts; and a first draft of the book — based almost entirely upon this laboriously accumulated factual evidence — was ready in the spring of 1823. At about the same time, it began to be rumoured that Rossini was to visit England; and the English pub lishers, anxious to meet this sudden market with a * 'best-seller", hurriedly had the MS. translated, and published it as rapidly as possible (January 1824). Meanwhile, however, Beyle had taken up his original draft, which was neat, balanced, factual and dull, and was rapidly destroying every claim to neatness, factuality and balance which it had ever possessed, in the joyous process of turning it into one of the great masterpieces of musical criticism. In April, 1824, when the first French edition appeared, the simple narrative of Rossini's career had almost disappeared beneath a most wondrous mass of anecdotes and descriptions, tables and footnotes, theatrical admonitions and philosophical speculations; and the volume which finally took its place on the bookshelves of enthusiasts in every country was well over twice the length of the little opportunist pamphlet which had been released on the occasion of Rossini's visit to London.
In 1824, when the Life was published, Rossini himself was thirty- two; and he had another forty-four years to live. Yet in spite of this, Beyle's analysis covers almost everything which is of lasting musical value in Rossini's work, with the exception of Le Comte Ory, Guillaume Tell, and the collection of miscellaneous musical satires and cameos entitled Peches de Vieillesse, which Respighi, many years later, was to weave into the ballet-suite La Boutique Fzntasque. As a pure biographer, obviously Beyle is at a greater disadvantage; never theless, the fact remains that the majority of those who have written subsequent Lives of Rossini have been quite content to dismiss the
X LIFE OF ROSSINI
last forty years of the composer's existence in a final, abrupt chapter or so at the end of the book; with the result that this "amateur" bio graphy, with all its inaccuracies and its fatal weakness for anecdote, has formed the basis for every serious study which appeared in print between the day of its original publication, and the day, over a century later,, when Professor Radiciotti's authoritative three-volume Vita came at last to replace the delicious inaccuracies of the dilettante with the matter-of-fact realities of the scholar. But if Beyle is no longer satisfying as a factual biographer, he remains unrivalled in penetration and interest as a critic; for his criticism is not so much analysis as interpretation— the very personal interpretation of a man of genius, who was a rebel against the taste of his own century, and deeply sympathetic in his appeal to the imagination of our own.
Our last glimpse of Rossini in the Life is of his marriage to Isabella Colbran and his final farewell to Naples; the last opera which Beyle describes is Semir amide (Feb. 1823). In March 1822, the Rossinis had included in their honeymoon a four-months' stay in Vienna, where Zelmira had been produced on 13th April; this visit was the occasion of the famous meeting with Beethoven, and of a notorious outburst of jealousy and ill-temper from Weber, already broken by ill-health and overwork. The winter of 1822-3 was spent largely in Venice working on Semiramide; and in the autumn, after a quiet summer, Rossini and Isabella set out for London to fulfil a contract at the King's Theatre. En route, they had their first glimpse of Paris (where the/ft^ and banqueting reached such proportions that they inspired a mordant little satirical vaudeville from Scribe: Rossini a Paris, ou Le Grand Diner) ; and on the 7th of December, in a violent storm, they crossed the Channel.
Rossini's visit to England (then at one of its periodical musical low ebbs) was extremely profitable financially, and is rich in anecdote for the historian; but musically it produced nothing more valuable than an insignificant octet for voices: // Pianto delle Muse in Morte di Lord Byron (9th June 1824). Six months after his arrival, Rossini left these philistine shores with 175,000 francs already in his pocket, and the promise of a contract with the Italian Opera in Paris to con vince him that his hand-to-mouth existence as a wandering musician was really ended. In the autumn of 1824, the contract was confirmed; he was to receive 20,000 francs a year to direct the Theatre Italien in
TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD xi
the place of his old enemy Paer; yet, with unwonted tact or gener osity, he insisted that Paer should remain his associate. Nevertheless, partly because of the reorganization required, and partly because of his own laziness, nearly a year passed before his first new opera was produced.
And even then, it turned out to be scarcely more than a morceau de circonstance: II Viaggio a Reims, ossia VAlbergo del Giglio d'Oro, written for the coronation of Charles X (19th June 1825); such success as it had was short-lived, and Rossini soon discarded it, reserving its better numbers for incorporation elsewhere when the time came. The remainder of the year was taken up, ostensibly, with the first production of Meyerbeer's // Crociato (September 1825), but in fact with a slow and important inner revolution: the assimilation of the French operatic tradition. Two milestones reveal the progress made by Rossini in this conscious process of de-italianization: Le Siege de Corinthe (9th October 1826), which is a French re-writing of the Italian Maometto II; and Mo'ise (26th March 1827), in which a similar process of transformation is applied to the older Italian Mosb in Egitto. Although both these operas were highly successful, and had something positive to contribute to the musical climate of the time (Le Siege has been called "the first Grand Opera"), neither is strictly speaking a new or original work. In fact, over five years separate Semiramide from Rossini's next major opera, Le Comte Ory, which was produced on 20th August 1828.
Le Comte Ory reveals the extent of the transformation which had taken place in Rossini's musical technique; for not merely was it designed specifically to please a French audience, but in fact it suc ceeded to such a degree that it may be considered as the source of a new genre altogether — the French operetta of the XlXth century tra dition; and if, on the one hand, Rossini's influence may be traced in composers such as Donizetti, Bellini, Mercadante and even the young Verdi, on the other, his musical disciples must certainly be held to include Auber, Messager and Offenbach.
A year after Le Comte Ory came the second, and final, major opera of the Parisian period: Guillaume Tell (3rd August 1829). In Le Comte Ory, Rossini, for the first time since the Barber, had been blessed with a supremely competent libretto;1 it is the tragedy of
1 By Scribe.
Xli LIFE OF ROSSINI
Guillaume Tell that Jouy's bathetic text based on Schiller's drama is almost beyond redemption. Guillaume Tell is a "musician's opera" ; no student of Rossini can deny the power and originality of its score; and yet, somehow, like Victor Hugo's Burgraves, it seems to belong to that strange class of indigestible masterpieces whose greatness is so much beyond dispute that we would rather listen to something else. Yet it marks the climax of an epoch in more ways than one, for, on 13th August 1829, Rossini left Paris en route for Milan and Bologna. He was now thirty-seven, he had composed some thirty-nine operas in nineteen years, and he felt that he had earned a rest. The "rest" was to last until 13th November 1868— -the day of his death.
Many reasons have been advanced to explain Rossini's "great renunciation". He himself insisted above all that he felt his music to be dangerously out of harmony with the political drift of the eighteen- thirties and eighteen-forties. Other biographers have maintained that he had simply written himself out ; that he was ill, disastrously ill, and in fact had already been having serious neurasthenic attacks as early as August 1825; that he was jealous of "the Jews" (Hal6vy and Meyerbeer); that the type of singer for whom he was accustomed to score his works was to grow increasingly rare after 1 830, and that this fact upset the whole delicate balance of his musical sensitivity; that he was violently offended by the cancellation of his Paris contract after the revolution of 1830; or finally, that he was simply idle by nature, and that, if poverty had forced him to work for a living in his youth, success had taken from him the last obligation to exert himself at the irksome and uncongenial labour of composition. The probable truth is that all these were in some degree contributory causes to his ultimate decision. However, the fact remains that, apart from one or two works of a very different character (notably the Stabat Mater (1842), the Petite Messe Solennelle (1864), and the delightfully miscel laneous Peches de Vieillesse (1857-68), to which reference has already been made, Rossini's musical biography ends with Guillaume Tell
The remainder of his life is strangely uneventful. His adored mother had died in 1827; his father, to whom in the end he became scarcely less devoted, followed her in 1839. The marriage with Isabella Colbran was a disastrous failure, and was ended by an official separation (1836-7); but already in 1832 Rossini had made the acquaintance of Olympe Pelissier, a retired demi-mondaine with
TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD xiii
strong maternal instincts, who was to become his most faithful mistress, companion and watch-dog, and eventually (August 1846), after the death of Isabella, his second wife. It was Olympe who nursed him through his terrible nervous illnesses of 1852-5, and who, in the last calm period in Paris, organized his household, "rationed" his constant flow of visitors, and presided over the famous "Saturday evenings", whose informal music-making was to be the envy of Europe. It was she also who watched over her husband's table; for Rossini's final reputation as a gourmet was almost as notable as his earlier fame as a composer; and tournedos Rossini still sometimes figures on the menu in those great houses where dining is considered an art rather than a process. His intimate friends were the composer Carafa, and (until his death in 1842) the banker Aguado; to the caricaturists of his day, he was an avaricious cynic with a biting, satirical wit; but to his closer acquaintances he was the patient and conscientious reformer of the Liceo Musicale at Bologna, and the generous patron and protector of Bellini, of the tenor Ivanoff, of Bizet, Gabrieli, and of that pious-minded and desperately serious young man from London— Arthur Sullivan. In 1836, he was so upset by a jaunt in a railway-train in Antwerp that he vowed never to travel again by this devilish means of locomotion; in 1848, a few insults hurled against his idle political indifference by a rioting mob in Bologna, soured for ever his delight in that great city; and hence forward he was to live in Florence and Paris until the end of his days. In 1860, he received a memorable visit from Wagner; and in 1868, he was serenaded by the soloists and orchestra of the Paris opera in the middle of the Chauss6e d'Antin— for Guittaume Tell had just received its 500th performance. But on the whole, few subjects interested him less than his own music; his modesty increased as his achievements receded; the more he heard of Wagner, the more he revered Bach; and in the end, when a visitor had the impertinence to ask him which he thought the greatest of his operas, he snapped back: Don Giovanni!
Such are the latter days of the boisterous, irrepressible practical joker, from whom, in Beyle's company, we take leave in 1823.
This translation of the Vie de Rossiniis based on the critical edition by Henry Prunieres (2 vols., Champion 1922), which is included in
XIV LIFE OF ROSSINI
the Oeuvres Completes de Stendhal under the general editorship of Paul Arbelet and Edouard Champion. Occasional corrections have been introduced from the edition by Henri Martineau (Le Divan, 2 vols., 1929). The text is given "complete and unabridged", with all its footnotes, digressions and irrelevancies; for only by such a trans lation can the true flavour of Stendhal's masterpiece be preserved. The only serious liberty which has been taken with the original occurs in the section devoted to Otello, where the final paragraphs of Chapter XVIII have been transferred to the beginning of Chapter XIX, in order that the reader who uses the book chiefly as a series of opera-analyses may find all the relevant comments about Otello under one heading.
All Stendhal's critical writings are rich in references to contempor ary personalities — so rich that, in order to avoid losing the original text altogether in a grotesque labyrinth of footnotes (Stendhal's and my own), I have preferred to compile an Index at the end which gives a certain minimum of necessary information. Such few footnotes of my own as have seemed indispensable are signed (Trans.); all others are Stendhal's own additions in the original French. For the section at the end headed Notes (to which references are indicated by an asterisk * in the text), I am heavily indebted to Henry Prunieres, particularly in the matter of correcting Stendhal's many minor errors of fact. I also gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr Frederick May for his help with the various passages of Italian; to Miss Rita Eldon for checking the proofs; and to Mademoiselle Marie-Louise Thyss for her ferocious determina tion to extract some sort of positive meaning from one or two of Stendhal's unhappily less lucid sentences.
RICHARD N. COB,
Leeds, April 1956.
A Note on Currency
The following note was kindly supplied at my request by Mr Walter Newlyn, Lecturer in Economics in the University of Leeds :
In 1823, the franc was worth 9\d. (25 fr. = £1). By combining some very rough index-figures of prices, it would seem reasonable to say that the present (1955) value of the pound is ^ times its 1823 value. This would give a conversion-factor often 1823 francs to to-day's pound.
CONTENTS*
page
Frontispiece facing iii
Translator's Foreword vii
Preface 1
INTRODUCTION
I Cimarosa 3
II Of Certain Differences between German and Italian Music
Anecdote concerning Torquato Tasso, in 1816 — imagina tion paralysed by memory-— physical environment essential to the enjoyment of music: size of theatres; desirable situation of the body; adequate ventilation — bright light fatal to the effect of music. 5
in History of the Interregnum between the De parture of Cimarosa and the Coming of Rossini
General survey of the works and genius of Mayer — the duets from Ariodante and from la Rosa bianca, Mayer's masterpieces — Paer and his principal compositions. 16
iv Mozart in Italy
A certain Nobleman makes a wager concerning Mozart and introduces him to Italy — brief comment on Mozart's style — stylistic differences between Mozart, Cimarosa and Rossini. 27
V Mozart's Style 34
CHAPTER I
Early Years
Civilization born on the shores of the Mediterranean; condition of the peoples of that region in our present time; love and pleasure preferred to war; misfortunes of Italy in consequence of this preference — France and England compared in relation to the Arts — Musical tendencies of Rossini's parents. 41
XVi CONTENTS
CHAPTER II
TANCREDI, Rossini's First Opera Seria
The opening chorus of Tancredi pastoral rather than martial in conception — la Malanotte turns down an aria that Rossini had composed for Tancred's entry; he there fore substitutes the ariardi tanti palpiti — the role of har mony in music compared with the role of description in Walter Scott's novels — martial duet: Ah! se de9 mall miei. 50
CHAPTER III
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI
How to treat the libretto of an opera at the first performance — characteristic features of the music of Vltaliana — curious generosity evinced by the audience of the Thedtre Louvois. 68
CHAPTER IV
LA PIETRA DEL PARAGONE
The famous aria: Eco pietosa suppressed in Paris by per sons who hoped to keep Rossini's genius concealed from French dilettanti — la Pietra delParagone concludes with a grand aria for the prima donna, like Vltaliana and la Cenerentola. 84
CHAPTER V
Conscription and Envy
M. Berton and le Miroir— Rossini guilty of "syntactical errors" and accused of stylistic impurity; unpardonable vices, according to M. Berton. 95
CHAPTER VI
The Impressario and his Theatre Rossini's retort to a certain pedantic Monsignore — re marks on a comedy by Sografi concerning the vanity of the average opera-singer— La prima sera (first per formance). 104
CONTENTS XV11
CHAPTER VII
Of the Wars between Harmony and Melody
The sweet succulence of a peach is finally not preferred to the harshness of more adult tastes— chronological list of the major representatives of the Italian school.
115
CHAPTER VIII
Of the Invasion by the Blunt-Minded, and of the Ideology of Music
Careless scoring by Rossini indicated by a + — the com poser who complicates his accompaniments restricts the freedom of the singer — Rossini's accompaniments are dangerous, not so much for their quality as for their quantity — the orchestra of the Theatre Louvois — the indication piano considered as a sign of weakness. 123
CHAPTER IX
AURELIANO IN PALMIRA
A superb duet: se tu m'ami, o mia regina — DEMETRIO E POLIBIO, Rossini's first opera (spring, 1809) — opening of the new theatre at Como. 131
CHAPTER x IL TURCO IN ITALIA 139
CHAPTER XI
Rossini in Naples
Rossini signs a scrittura with SignorBarbaja — concerning a certain Neapolitan prima donna and the influence of her voice upon Rossini's subsequent work. 147
CHAPTER XII ELISABETTA, REGINA D'lNGHILTERRA 152
CHAPTER XIII
ELISABETTA, REGINA D'lNGHILTERRA (continued) An Italian Ode on the Death of Napoleon, to be compared with Lord Byron's ode on the same topic, and with
xviii CONTENTS
Lamartine's Meditations-— -Rossini's style criticized by the older generation of Neapolitan dilettanti, who had been contemporaries of Cimarosa and Paesiello. 157
CHAPTER XIV
The ten Operas of Rossini's "Neapolitan" Period 1 65
CHAPTER XV TORVALDO E DORLISKA 169
CHAPTER XVI
IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA
Cimarosa made no use of discords in ilMatrimonio segreto, in spite of the popularity which Mozart's major operas had already won— Rossini's adventures in Rome. 171
CHAPTER XVII
Of the Public in General, Considered in Relation to Art
Solitude and church-singing—origins of "taste" in operatic music— of the provinces, considered in relation to art. 1 97
CHAPTER XVIII
OTELLO
Analysis of jealousy as a valid source of dramatic emotion — curious observation by the abb6 Girard (1746), con cerning married women, who are permitted to be flirtatious, but forbidden to be passionate— the librettist of Otello fails to develop the dramatic situations which are inherent in so noble a theme — Mr Kean, the greatest tragic actor of our age — his fame not universal, because no major popular author, such as Madame de Stael, has yet sung his praises as he deserves. 206
CHAPTER XIX
OTELLO (continued)
Which is the finest number in this opera? — the music set to the line: Impia, ti maledico, is better suited to some
CONTENTS Xix
different words, such as: Out of my sight! I do no longer love thee! — the Willow Song — dramatic representation of the death of Desdemona in certain Italian theatres — story of the death of Stradella. 215
CHAPTER XX LA CENERENTOLA
Music incapable of portraying rapid dialogue — melody incapable of half-finished sketches—delightful duet be tween the Prince and his valet — Paccini — laughter ban ished from the soil of France — the "national ideal" in music, and its relation to climatic conditions — three operas by Rossini which conclude with a "grand aria'9 for the prima donna. 234
CHAPTER XXI
Velluti
Comparison between Velluti and M. Martin. 254
CHAPTER XXII LA GAZZA LADRA
Immense popularity of this opera — overture — musical analysis. 258
CHAPTER XXIII
LA GAZZA LADRA (continued)
The orchestra of the Thedtre Louvois — the majority of Rossini's tempi radically altered by the conductor of this orchestra. 279
CHAPTER XXIV
Of the Quality of Admiration in France, or An Essay concerning Grand Opera
Political and moral transformation of the state of France between 1765 and 1823 — Napoleon Bonaparte; the com plete master of truth — epigram by Tortoni. 292
CHAPTER XXV
Of the Two Enthusiasts 301
XX CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXVI
MOSE IN EGITTO
Musical analysis — overwhelming effect of the prayer: Dal
tuo stellato soglio — comparison of Rossini with Goethe. 307
CHAPTER XXVII
Concerning the Revolution which Rossini has brought about in the Art of Singing
Napoleon compared with Sulla — anecdote concerning Canova and the Savage. 318
CHAPTER XXVIII
Some General Considerations: the History of Rossini's Development, examined in relation to Developments in the Art of Singing 324
CHAPTER XXIX
Revolution
Rossini's system — Rossini as an accomplished singer- Rossini's "second manner". 328
CHAPTER XXX
Of a certain Talent which will be out of date bv 1840 * 334
CHAPTER XXXI
Is Rossini more inclined to repeat himself than other Composers?
Some technical details — aesthetic failings of the Louvois audiences — their failure to develop sound standards of musical taste. 335
CHAPTER XXXII
Some Details concerning the Revolution in augurated by Rossini Paganini, the greatest of Italian violinists. 341
CONTENTS XXI
CHAPTER XXXIII
Excuses
Originality in the performer obliterated by Rossini. 346
CHAPTER XXXIV
Concerning the various Qualities of the Human Voice 357
CHAPTER XXXV
Madame Pasta
Anecdote which reveals the spiritual qualities of this re markable artist — letter written by Napoleon, depicting the true greatness of passionate love. 361
CHAPTER XXXVI
LA DONNA DEL LAGO
Rossini's wild sense of humour. 377
CHAPTER XXXVII
Concerning eight minor Operas by Rossini
Adelaide di Borgogna—Armida — Ricciardo e Zoraide — Ermione — Maometto secondo — Matilde di Shabran — Zelmira — Semir amide. 382
CHAPTER XXXVIII BIANCA E FALIERO 386
CHAPTER XXXIX
ODOARDO E CRISTINA
Project to draw up a list of all passages in Rossini's operas which are genuinely distinctive in character, and of all passages based upon an identical musical idea, indicating the number (duet, trio, etc.) in which this idea appears to best advantage. 388
CHAPTER XL
Concerning Rossini's Style 393
XX11 CONTENTS
CHAPTER XLI
Concerning Rossini's Attitude towards certain Composers among his Contemporaries; and concerning his personal Character 397
CHAPTER XLII
Anecdotes 402
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE WORKS OF
GIOACCHINO ROSSINI, born in Pesaro on the 29th of February, 1792 409
CHAPTER XLIII
The Utopia of the Theatre Italien in Paris
Approximate balance-sheet of this institution — budget of the Italian Opera House in London — -project for con verting the Opera Bpuffe to a system of lessee-manage ment, under the aegis of a watch-committee — some notes on the subject provided by an ex-Administrator — com parison between the achievements of Italian and French decor-artists — comparison between their respective fees — details of the working of the Administrative Committees of the Opera Houses in Turin, Florence, London and Milan— project for the introduction of bel canto into the curriculum of the Conservatoire— Pellegrini or Zuchelli to be nominated Professor; four wealthy Peers of the Realm to form a board of directors — proposal to include two performances per month of Italian opera in the repertoire of the Grand Opfra— project to offer Rossini a two-year contract in Paris— list of other artists who should be offered contracts. 416
CHAPTER XLIV
Of the material Circumstances which affect the Life of the Theatre in Italy
Notification concerning the availability of a magnificent site for an Opera House in Paris, to be built on similar lines to that which already exists in Moscow — concerning the cartetto theatres and their classification— project for legislation obliging the French National Theatres to put on new and original plays at stated intervals — decor. 428
CONTENTS XX111
CHAPTER XLV
Concerning the San-Carlo Theatre, and the present moral Climate of Naples, the Home of Music 441
CHAPTER XLVI
Of the Peoples of Northern Europe, considered as Musicians
Germans — English — Scots. 45 1
APOLOGY
An Apology for those Faults which my Friends are apt to call my Extravagances, my Enthusi asms, my Contradictions., my non-sequiturs, my ... etc., etc. 456
APPENDIX I
Some Notes concerning the Life and Works of Mozart 467
APPENDIX II
List of Rossini9 s Compositions 471
Bibliography 475
Notes 478
Index and Table of References 49 1
PREFACE
N,
APOLEONIS dead; but a new conqueror has already shown him- self to the world; and from Moscow to Naples, from London to Vienna, from Paris to Calcutta*, his name is constantly on every tongue.
The fame of this hero knows no bounds save those of civilization itself; and he is not yet thirty-two ! The task which I have set myself is to trace the paths and circumstances which have carried him at so early an age to such a throne of glory.
If the narrator of this epic may claim to deserve his reader's confi dence, it is because he has lived for eight or ten years in those same towns and cities which Rossini was electrifying with his master pieces; many a time the Author has journeyed a hundred miles and upwards to witness a first performance; and in those days it was rare indeed for him to miss even one of the countless anecdotes which ran like fire from mouth to mouth in Naples, Venice, Rome, or wherever you might find an opera by Rossini.
The Author of this present Work has already composed two or three others, and all upon no less frivolous topics. The critics have warned him that when a man takes to the business of writing, there are certain Precautions to be Observed, certain Rules of Style to be Obeyed, certain Academic Disciplines . . . etc. ; that he will never learn to write a book unless . . . etc., etc. ; nor ever achieve the most coveted distinction of being a Man of Letters. Excellent! Certain persons (whom the reader shall name, not I!) have committed such curious sins beneath the cover of this honoured title, that I can think of at least one honest gentleman who could imagine no greater good fortune than to avoid it altogether.
This work, then, is not a Book. After the fall of Napoleon, the Author of the following pages, finding it both stupid and unprofit able to fritter away his youth in political squabbles, left home, and set out to see the world; and, chancing to be in Italy during the epoch of Rossini's extraordinary triumphs, he had occasion to describe them in letters to certain Polish and English acquaintances.
2 LIFE OF ROSSINI
Scraps and extracts of this correspondence, later copied out and patched together into a book— this is all that the reader will find before him in these pages ; and if he reads them, it must be because he enjoys Rossini, not for any merit in the writing. History, it is said, constitutes an agreeable exercise, no matter what circumstances may have determined the writing of it; and this history was com posed in the very presence of the manifold and trifling events which it records.
I should not be in the least surprised to discover some thirty or forty inaccuracies* among the countless masses of minute detail which go to make up this biography.
There is nothing so difficult as to write the story of a man still living— particularly when that man is like Rossini, whose career leaves neither trace nor monument, but only an ephemeral memory of passing pleasure in every heart. I could sincerely wish that this great artist, who is also a most charming man, would follow the example of Goldoni and write his own Memoir si which, I suspect, would be decidedly more entertaining than those of Goldoni, since Rossini is at least a hundred times wittier, besides being quite pre posterously irreverent. I hope that there may perhaps be just enough inaccuracies in this Life of Rossini to cause him a passing spasm of annoyance, and so goad him into writing the book himself. But before the storm of his annoyance breaks upon my head (if it does), I feel that I must assure him of my very real respect, which is deep and infinitely sincere, and is of a quality very different from that, say, of the respect I bear to some fine Lord whose greatness is the envy of all eyes. In the lottery of Nature*, the noble Lord has drawn his prize in cash; but Rossini has won a name which cannot die, and genius with it, and, best of all, a splendid share of human happiness.
The present treatise was originally destined to appear in English* ; and only the sight of a music-school just off the Place Beauvau* has inspired the author with the courage to publish it in France.
Montmorency, 30th September 1823*
o,
INTRODUCTION
Cimarosa
' N the eleventh of January, 1801, Cimarosa died in Venice, in consequence of the barbarous treatment* he had suffered shortly before in the dungeons of Naples, where he had been imprisoned at the instigation of Queen Caroline.
Paesiello, the charming and graceful, rather than forceful and dynamic composer of il Re Teodoro and la Scuffiard1, lived on until 1816; but it is not unfair to maintain that, ever since the closing years of the previous century, the bright blaze of musical inspiration, which so often kindles young and burns out early, had died and turned to cold ashes within his heart.
The secret of Cimarosa's power to compel the imagination lies in his use of long musical phrases, which are at once fantastically rich and extraordinarily regular. There is an excellent illustration of this manner to be seen in the first two duets of il Matrimonio Segreto, and more especially in the second:
lo ti lascio perche uniti ...2
The human soul can know no beauty more exquisite than these two melodies; yet observe their characteristic regularity, their symmetry so marked that the mind cannot fail to perceive it; this is a serious fault in Cimarosa, for as soon as the listener is sufficiently familiar with three or four such songs, he can, as it were, predict the pattern and development of all the rest from hearing the first few bars. All Cimarosa's weakness lies hidden in that single word predict; and, as we shall shortly see, Rossini's style and all his glory spring from his power to wrestle with this very problem.
1 The reader is referred to the Index for information concerning the various personalities and works mentioned in the Life of Rossini. (Translator's note.)
2 I leave you so that you may unite ...
4 LIFE OF ROSSINI
Paesiello never disturbs such deep currents of feeling as Cimarosa; his music has no power to fill the soul with that mystic imagery whose joyous radiance can touch the innermost springs of passion; the spiritual resources at his command never rise above a certain quality of gracefulness. Yet, in the field which he has chosen, he excels; his gracefulness is the gracefulness of Correggio, gentle, rarely provoca tive, but with its own peculiar, irresistible attraction. Among examples of Paesiello's music which are familiar in Paris, perhaps the most typical is the famous quartet from la Molinara:
Quellila ...,*
from the scene where Pistofolo, the notary, in a most delightful sequence, undertakes to intercede with the Miller's wife on behalf of his two hated rivals, the Governor and his own Liege Lord, convey ing their respective and impassioned declarations.
The most remarkable characteristic of Paesiello's style is his trick of repeating the same phrase or passage over and over again, yet adorned at each return with new and added graces which engrave it ever more deeply on the listener's imagination.
No musical style in the world bears less resemblance to that of Cimarosa, with its glittering array of comic verve, of passion, strength and gaiety. Rossini likewise tends towards repetition, but not with purposeful intent; and a mannerism which, in Paesiello, is a careful climax of exquisite writing, is, in Rossini, incarnate idleness in all its glory! Let me hasten to add, lest I be straightway counted among his detractors and critics, that Rossini alone among all modern composers has earned the right to be compared with these great masters, whose stars faded from the heavens in the early years of the XlXth century. If only we took the trouble to study their scores with the care and attention that they deserve, we should suddenly be startled one fine day to find ourselves perceiving and feeling qualities in their music, whose existence we had never even suspected! In all art, the road to appreciation lies through reflection.
1 Those men there ...
II
Of Certain Differences between German and Italian Music
JN o music will remain deeply imprinted in the memory unless it is of the kind that lends itself to private rehearsal; and no man, alone in his chamber late at night and equipped with nothing but his own voice, can rehearse orchestral harmony.
Fundamentally, this is the real difference between German and Italian music. Take any young Italian, whose whole being is pre occupied with some imperious passion: he may, while it is still at fever-heat, reflect upon it for a time in silence; but sooner or later he will start to sing, softly, perhaps some tune by Rossini; and quite unconsciously he will have selected, among all the tunes he knows, the one which seems most aptly to echo his own mood. Then, a little later, instead of singing softly to himself, he will begin to sing out loud; and, still all unsuspecting, his singing will begin to answer, in subtle shapes and shadings, the peculiar quality of the passion which is raging in his heart. His soul, as it were, has found an echo, and the echo is itself a consolation; his singing is like a mirror in which he can observe his own reflection; previously, he had been exasperated by the unkindness of fate, and his spirit was filled with anger; but now he can see himself, and his final mood will be one of pity for his own misfortune.
Our young Italian, then, sings to escape from his own obsessing thoughts; but after a while, he may suddenly grow aware of the strange, new individuality with which the song of his choosing has been coloured by the quality of his singing; it may fascinate him, enchanting his soul; then, once this odd, ecstatic mood has been created, it is only a step to the making of a new song altogether; and since the climate and the way of life of southern Italy have endowed the inhabitants with excellent voices, as often as not he will find him self well able to compose without a piano.1 I have met with a score
1 This is the origin of those wonderful, but generally plaintive, folk-songs
6 LIFE OF ROSSINI
of young Neapolitans who could compose a song as unconcernedly as young men in London write letters, or young men in Paris pen sets of verses. There is nothing unusual, under the soft, delicious night- sky of Naples, in their going home after the day's work, sitting down at the piano, and whiling away half the hours of darkness with songs and improvisations.* No thought is further from their minds than that of "writing music" or of "becoming a famous composer"; the only motive of their art, the only secret of their happiness, is to have discovered a way of expressing the living emotions within them. In England, a young man in similar circumstances would probably have stretched his hand toward the bookshelf, taken down a volume of some favourite author, and read until one or two o'clock in the morning; but his enjoyment would have been less creative than that of the Italian, his imagination would have been less actively engaged, and consequently his pleasure less real. Improvisation at the piano is an exclusive occupation; the single problem of expression leaves no room for any other anxieties, and mere technical accuracy perforce goes by the board.
To become a competent violinist, a man must practise scales three hours a day for eight years; at the end of which time, callosities as tough as leather will have spread across the fingertips of his left hand, leaving it grotesquely (Reformed; but the notes extracted from the instrument will be perfect. Even the most skilled of violinists still requires his two-hours' daily practice ; and if he should chance to miss it for three or four days, he will find that the purity of his tone is already degenerating, and that his touch is losing its sureness in the more brilliant passages. The degree of patience and perseverance required to perfect this kind of skill is very unusual in the southern parts of Europe, and is rarely found in conjunction with an impetuous temperament*. The violinist or the flautist is perpetu ally conscious of the beauty or the accuracy of his tone, and scarcely ever of the emotional expressiveness of his music. Observe this distinction, for it provides a further key to the riddle, and ex-
which, for countless generations, have been handed down from singer to singer within the Kingdom of Naples, Those who know this lovely country will recog nize, for example, the national anthem, la Cavajola; or tt Pestagatlo, which is peculiar to the Abruzzi. A folk-singer from Aquila, who was teaching me some of these songs, once remarked: La musica & il lamento deW amore, o lapreghiera a gli Dei (Music is the lamentation of Love, or a prayer to the gods). Diary 12th May, 1819.
GERMAN AND ITALIAN MUSIC 7
plains some of the subtle differences between the two schools of music.
During the last century, there were harsh Italian fathers who would condemn an ill-fated son to make himself proficient on the violin or oboe, just as others used to sentence their children to become castrati; but in our own time, the art of instrumental music has wholly taken refuge among the peaceful, patient folk beyond the Rhine. Amid the sighing forests of Germany, this people, its spirit ever filled with dreams, needs no more than the beauty of pure sound, even without melody, to urge it on to ever greater feats of persever ance, and to populate its vagabond imagination with rich and wondrous visions.
There was an occasion, twenty years ago, when Don Giovanni was to be produced in Rome; and for a solid fortnight, the instrument alists struggled like demons to master the complexities of the passage where three orchestras have to play simultaneously during Don Giovanni's supper-scene in the last act. But in vain; to the very end, the best musicians in Rome found such a score beyond the range of their technique. Their very soul was in their playing, but patience was not their, brightest virtue. But in contrast, less than two weeks ago, I went to the rue Lepeletier, and watched the orchestra of the Opera give a superb performance of a positively diabolic symphony by Cherubini at sight', and then fail miserably in trying to accom pany the duet from Armida, sung by Bordogni and Madame Pasta. The Opera is populated with superlative talent, trained and cherished with boundless patience — and without an iota of genu ine musicality.
In Rome, twenty years ago, it grew to be a unanimous opinion that foreigners thought far too highly of Mozart's works, and that the passage for three orchestras, in particular, was a piece of rank absurdity only worthy of the barbarous Teuton.
The probing and meticulous despotism1 which, for two centuries
1 In 1795, an intelligent and at that time very young man, Signer Toni, who has since become extremely well known as a printer and publisher, held a post under the Venetian government at Verona; it was a modest employment, carrying a salary of 1,800 francs, and he was happy and contented, spending his leisure courting the favours of Princess p***. Suddenly he found himself dismissed from his office and threatened with imprisonment. Hastily he set off for Venice, where, after three months of manoeuvring and intrigue, he eventually managed to slip a passing word to a member of the Council of Ten, who replied: "Why the devil did you have to tell your tailor to make you a blue suit? We took you for a Jacobin!" Incidents of a similar character are not unknown in Milan in 1822; in
8 LIFE OF ROSSINI
now, has wrapped its strangling tentacles about the genius of Italy, has forced the only criticism which the censorship will permit to take refuge in low-grade journalism of the most unspeakable scurrility and baseness*; it is quite normal to find a man referred to as a scoundrel, an ass, a thief, etc., almost as one has grown used to it in London,1 and soon will do in Paris, for all the good we are likely to derive from our own "freedom of the press" and other injunctions to despise coarseness and vulgarity, even in print. In Italy, the journalist himself is, by tradition, one of the leading agents in the service of the Police, who use him to hurl dirt at anyone who achieves distinction in any walk of life whatsoever, and hence to spread terror and sub servience. But it is as -true of Italy as it is of Prance, or of any other country for that matter, that public opinion in the field of drama requires the guidance of criticism in the press; the reaction of an audience is as evanescent as a thought unless there is someone on the spot to record it; and, if the first link in the chain of argument is missed, no one will ever manage to deduce the second.
I must beg the reader's pardon for having introduced so odious a topic; but I should be immeasurably distressed if this fair realm of Italy, this wondrous land whose earth has scarcely settled over the ashes of men as great as Canova and Vigano, should be judged by the raffish vituperations of its periodical press, or on the evidence of such barren and empty-headed balderdash as may be found in the few books which a fear-haunted populace still finds the courage to print. Until the day comes when the whole of Italy enjoys the bless ings of a moderate government, such as that which has flourished in Tuscany for the last eighteen months, I would implore, desperately, but, I think, only in fairness, that the spirit of Italy should be judged only insofar as that spirit transpires through the medium of art. Nowadays, no one but a fool or an accredited informer may have a book published.
A few years ago, in 1816, I chanced to be staying in one of the greatest cities in Lombardy. A group of local music-lovers—men of
Lombardy, a fondness for Dante (who was writing in the year 1300!) is accounted good evidence of carbonarism; and any man who evinces too inordinate a delight in this writer will find that, gradually, his liberal friends will seem less inclined to seek his company.
1 See, for instance, the foul-mouthed insults recently hurled by one PMlpott against the celebrated Mr Jeffrey, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, which is the finest periodical in existence,
GERMAN AND ITALIAN MUSIC 9
means and substance — had founded a private theatre in the town, equipped and decorated with every imaginable luxury; and they thought that it would be fitting to organize a festival to celebrate the advent among them of Princess Beatrice d'Este*, the mother-in-law of the Emperor Francis. In her honour, therefore, they commis sioned an entirely new opera, with original music and a specially- written libretto — a compliment which, in Italy, represents the highest honour which can be paid to anyone. The librettist had the notion of arranging one of Goldoni's plays, Torquato Tasso, in operatic form. The music was ready within a week, rehearsals were under way, and everything was going with a swing, when, on the very eve of the great occasion, the Princess' chamberlain appeared, and intimated firmly to the distinguished citizens who were desirous of the honour of performing in her presence, that to recall before a scion of the house of Este the abhorred name of Tasso, a man who had once upon a time actually insulted this illustrious race, would be a most criminal discourtesy.
But no one seemed in the least surprised at this arbitrary inter vention, and the title was simply changed to Lope de Vega.
It is my considered opinion that music can only appeal to the spirit of man by conjuring up a pattern of imaginative imagery, which in some way corresponds to the passions by which the listener is already swayed. It will therefore be evident that music, indirectly perhaps, but none the less inevitably, will reflect the political struc ture of its country of origin, since the individual listener is himself determined by the political atmosphere in which he exists. In Italy, the tradition of tyranny which reigns supreme in the body politic has effectively annihilated every generous impulse in the human breast save one: love. Consequently, we find no sign of martial vigour in Italian music until the appearance ofTancredi*, whose first perform ance does not take place until a good ten years have elapsed since the miraculous feats at Rivoli and at the bridge of Arcola*. Before the echo of those tremendous days came to shatter the age-old sleep of Italy,1 war and feats of arms had no part to play in music, save as a
1 Cf. Napoleon, Correspondence for the year 1796, description of the general state of morale in Milan and Brescia. The Milanese "army'* consisted solely of some eighty villainous scallywags dressed up in scarlet and entrusted with the policing of the town. Cf. also, in the Bulletins de VArmte d'Espagne, what Napol eon achieved with such a people!
LR »
10 LIFE OF ROSSINI
conventional background to give still greater value to the sacrifices made to love; for indeed, how should a people, to whom all dreams of glory were forbidden, and whose only experience of arms was as an instrument of violence and oppression, have found any sense of pleasure in letting their imagination dwell on martial images?
In contrast, think of the tunes Allons, enfants de la Patrie or le Chant du Depart, and observe the arduous heights scaled by French music, almost, as it were, from the first moment of its inception; yet during the last thirty years (or, in fact, ever since our composers started copying the Italians) nothing half so fine has been produced. The reason is plain; for, during all this time, composers have chosen blindly to imitate the Italian conception of love, whereas love, in France, is nothing but a feeble and second-rate emotion, entirely overwhelmed by vanity and stifled by the witty subtleties of intellect.
Now, whether or not there be any truth in this impertinent general ization, I think it will be universally acknowledged that music can achieve no effect at all save by appealing to the imagination. But if there is one faculty which can be guaranteed to reduce the imagina tion to a state of impotent paralysis, it is memory*. If, upon hearing some tantalising melody, my first reaction is to recall the tracery of images and all the little dream-adventures which I had woven about it on the last occasion when it had caught my fancy, then everything is lost, a black and deathly frost grips my imagination, and the all- powerful enchantment of the music is banished from my heart; or at best, allowing that I may be able to recapture some half-hesitating glimpse of the old magic, it can carry me no further than to some secondary consideration, perhaps inspiring a fleeting admiration for the technical virtuosity of the performer in the execution of some difficult passage, or distracting my attention with similar trivialities of subordinate importance.
A friend of mine once wrote, about a year ago, in a letter addressed to a lady who was then living in the country: Soon we shall be able to see Tancred at the Theatre Louvois, but I doubt whether we shall really be able to appreciate all the subtle enchantment of this fresh and extraordinarily martial music until we have heard it performed three or four times. However, once we have fully grasped all its beauty and meaning, the power of its fascination will grow steadily, reaching a climax of intensity over a period of some twenty to thirty performances,
GERMAN AND ITALIAN MUSIC 11
after which our capacity for enjoyment will rapidly become exhausted. The more violent our initial infatuation, the more frequently we shall have heard these wonderful melodies surging round and round inside our head long after the performance is over and the theatre shut and empty, then the more complete, ultimately, will be our saturation, if I may use the phrase. Musically speaking, no one can remain for ever faithful to his old loves. If Tancredi is still received with rapturous applause after fifty performances, it can only be because the audience has been completely renewed; because a new class of society, attracted by the press, will have found its way through the doors of the Louvois; or (more prosaic reason) because this particular theatre is so abominably uncomfortable that the delights of listening are only purchased at an exorbitant price of physical suffering in every other part of the listener's anatomy, this same bodily suffering causing a state of nervous exhaustion, induced so rapidly that the maximum quantity of opera which anyone is capable of assimilating on any one evening is reduced to one act; in which case, the "saturation-point" for Tancredi will be reached only after eighty performances, instead of the customary forty!
It is a sad, but probably true, reflection, that, in music at least, the ideal conception of beauty changes every thirty years. Consequently, anyone who would attempt to describe the revolution in musical taste brought about by Rossini has no need to explore the past much beyond the epoch of Cimarosa and Paesiello.1
Towards the year 1800, when these great men retired from their labours, they had been feeding the repertoire of every theatre in Italy, and indeed throughout the world, for over twenty years. Conse quently, their style, their whole technique and vision, had lost its most precious quality: the quality of unexpectedness. When I was in Padua, Pacchiarotti, then a wonderfully genial old man, used to take me round his fashionable jar din anglais, and show me the tower of cardinal Bembo with its magnificent furnishings all brought from
1 There is no need to remind the reader that Dr Burney has published a most excellent General History of Music. Personally, however, I regret to confess that the perfection of this magnificent work is marred by occasional traces of obscur ity. It may be that the origin of this veil of opaqueness, which sometimes falls between the eye of the reader and the conceptions of the author, lies in the latter's failure to make any clear statement about his own musical credo. I rather think that he might have done better to give us examples of what he understood by the terms beautiful, sublime, mediocre, etc.
12 LIFE OF ROSSINI
London in so curious a manner; and, during the course of these visits, he used to tell me how, in Milan in the old days, his rendering of a certain aria by Cimarosa would receive as many as four consecu tive encores, night after night; I freely confess that, before I could credit a whole people with such an infatuated degree of intoxicated extravagance, I needed further confirmation; but the evidence was there, from a crowd of people who had witnessed the phenomenon with their own eyes. When the human heart adores with such intens ity, how should its adoration last for ever?
If we should happen to find ourselves still taking pleasure in a song which we first heard years ago, it can only be because the quality of that pleasure has been completely transformed; our present delight lies in reminiscence, in recalling the charming fancies which had enraptured our imagination of old; but the original intoxication itself has vanished for ever, and cannot be recaptured*. Thus a single spray of periwinkle-flowers could remind Jean- Jacques Rousseau of all the glories of his younger days*.
The quality in music, which makes of it the most enthralling plea sure that the soul can know, and which gives it so marked an advan tage over even the finest poetry, over Jerusalem, for instance, or over Lalla-Rookh, lies in the powerful element of physical intoxication which it contains. The pleasure of pure mathematics is of an even quality, neither increasing nor decreasing violently with time or mood; but the pleasure of music is as opposite to this as anything within the range and compass of our appreciation. The joy which music affords is violent and intense, but curiously unstable and quickly evanescent. Ethics, history, novels, poetry— arts which, within the scale of our different pleasures, are set at varied intervals between the two extremes of pure mathematics and opera buff a— all furnish a degree of satisfaction whose durability is in exact inverse proportion to its intensity; and only delights which, in intensity, are comparatively weak, can offer us positive assurance that they will always remain undiminished no matter how often we return to them. In music, by contrast, every element partakes of the frenzied un certainty of an unbridled imagination; an opera may inspire the most disproportionate havoc of enjoyment one night, and three nights later, occasion nothing more than an infinite weariness of boredom or an infuriating irritation of the nerves. The causes of this
GERMAN AND ITALIAN MUSIC 13
revolution may be insignificant — a shrill-toned, yapping female voice in a near-by box; or over-heating in the auditorium; or a neighbour leaning back luxuriously in his own seat and communicating a series of steady, maddeningly regular jerks to your own; indeed, the enjoy ment of music is in so large a measure purely physical, that, as the reader will have observed, it may depend upon the presence or absence of phenomena which, in description, seem unbelievably trivial.
As often as not, an evening which promises the exquisite delights of Madame Pasta, and the added luxury of a comfortable box, may be completely ruined by the hateful intrusion of just some such ignoble triviality. One might ransack one's brain for hours on end, exploring the most delicate intricacies of metaphysics, or the subtlest niceties of literary criticism, to explain why Elisabetta seemed suddenly so un palatable, whereas the real reason is simply that the auditorium was too hot and that, as a result, one was feeling thoroughly uncomfort able. Incidentally, the Theatre Louvois is unrivalled in providing draw-backs1 of this character, and generally in obstructing the enjoyment of music; and whenever such an obstruction arises, one stops listening naturally and starts listening academically; one feels it one's duty not to miss a single note. O, what a phrase: to feel it one's duty I How unspeakably Englishl How anti-musical! It is as though one were to feel it one's duty to be thirsty!
Music exerts a certain pressure up(on the nervous system of the ear, creating a given degree of tension, and thus producing a physical, purely mechanical type of sensory pleasure (as, for example, during the first-act finale of Mozart's Cost fan Tutte)\ and apparently this physical pleasure communicates a certain degree of tension or irri tation to the brain, forcing it to produce a series of pleasurable mental images, or else to react, with drunken intensity twenty times more violent than usual, to mental images which, in normal circum stances, would have inspired nothing deeper than the most vulgar sensual satisfaction— just as a handful of nightshade berries, picked accidentally in the garden, can turn the brain to madness.
Cotugno, the most celebrated doctor in Naples, once remarked to me during the furore which first greeted Mos$ in Egitto: Among the many and glorious titles which may be showered upon your hero, you 1 In English in the original. (Trans.)
14 LIFE OF RpSSINI
should include that of murderer. I could quote you more than forty cases of brain-fever or of violent nervous convulsions among young ladies with an over-ardent passion for music, brought on exclusively by the Jews' Prayer in the third act, with its extraordinary change of key I
It was this same philosopher (for assuredly so great a physician as Cotugno deserves such a title) who observed that semi-darkness was an essential condition of true musical appreciation. A too-bright light, he maintained, irritated the optic nerve; and it was impossible that conscious awareness should be fully present in the optic and auditory nerves at the same time. You may choose one pleasure, or the other; but the human brain is not sufficiently powerful to cope with both. I might suggest another curious phenomenon, added Cotugno, who was probably influenced by the theory of galvanism*: to achieve the completest sensory satisfaction from music, it is essential to be isolated from the proximity of any other human body. It may be surmised that the human ear is surrounded by a kind of musical ether, of which I can offer no description, beyond suggesting that it may exist. Thus, to obtain perfect pleasure, it is essential to be situated in a kind of isolated field, as we observe in certain experiments involving electrical magnetism, which in practice means that it is necessary that the space of at least one foot should intervene between oneself and the nearest adjacent human body. The animal heat which emanates from a foreign body appears to me to have a most pernicious effect upon the enjoyment of music.
Far be it from me to insist upon the scientific validity of this theory tentatively put forward by the Neapolitan philosopher; I suspect that I may not be sufficiently competent a scientist even to have stated it correctly! ,
The most that I can assert with confidence is that I know, from the experience of a number of intimate friends, that a series of fine Neapolitan melodies, for instance, will oblige the listener's imagina tion to furnish a series of specific mental pictures; and at the same time will make him abnormally sensitive in appreciating the peculiar beauty of these same images.
In early days, when the pleasures of music are a new discovery, the listener's most immediate reaction will be one of astonishment at the curious things which seem to be taking place within Mm; and he will be entirely preoccupied with savouring the unsuspected sources of
GERMAN AND ITALIAN MUSIC 15
delight which he has just stumbled upon for the first time; but later, when he has had many years' experience in the service of this enchanting art, he will find that music which is perfect will provide the mind with a series of mental pictures wholly related to the par ticular emotions with which he happens to be already preoccupied*. It will now have been made abundantly plain that the entire pleasure of music consists in creating illusions; and that common-sense ration ality is the greatest enemy of musical appreciation.
The only reality in music is the state of mind which it induces in the listener* ; and I will not quarrel with the moralists, when they claim that this state offers a powerful inducement to day-dreaming and sentimental effusions.
Ill
History of the Interregnum between the Departure of Cimarosa and the Coming of Rossini (1800-1812)
AFTER the departure of Cimarosa, and during the period when Paesiello had retired from active composition, music in Italy lay dormant, waiting for the appearance of an original genius. Perhaps I should rather have said, that the pleasure of music lay dormant, for the theatres could always show their tally of enthusiastic applause and extravagant admiration; but, after all, a pretty young miss of eighteen will weep tears of emotion, even over the novels of M. Ducray-Duminil; and you may usually observe a few crowds cheering, a few handkerchiefs waving, at the entry of the very puniest of princes.
Certain of Rossini's compositions date from before 1812; but this was the year in which he first received the signal honour of composing for la Scala, the great theatre of Milan.
In order to appreciate the full extent of Rossini's glittering genius, it is absolutely essential to have some idea of the state of music as it was when he found it, and to cast a glance at some of the composers who enjoyed a certain range of popularity between 1800 and 1812.
Let me observe in passing, that if music is a living art in Italy, this is only because every one of the larger theatres is constitutionally obliged to put on a new opera at certain fixed dates in every year; without this legal clause, the local brand of pedant, under the pretext of cultivating appreciation of the classics, would without doubt or question have strangled or outlawed every up-and-coming genius at birth; and none but the dullest of plagiarists would have received his honorable permission to survive.
If Italy is the Land of the Beautiful in every branch of art, this is only because the public steadily refuses to be satisfied unless the ideal of beauty is constantly renewed; and further because, in a country where everyone relies on his own sensibility and judgment,
THE INTERREGNUM 17
the pedants are treated with every atom of the scorn that they deserve!
Between Cimarosa and Rossini, there are two names which claim some attention: Mayer1 and Paer.
Mayer, a German who came to Italy to complete his musical education, and who settled in Bergamo some forty years ago, pro duced about half a hundred operas between 1795 and 1820. He owed his popularity to one tiny streak of originality which fascinated the ear with its unexpected novelty. His peculiar gift lay in scoring his orchestral passages, together with the ritornelli and accompaniments of his arias, with all the new richness of harmonic effect which his contemporaries Haydn and Mozart were perfecting in Germany at that very time. He had scarcely a notion how to extract melody from the human voice, but he was very skilled in extracting music from his instruments.
His Lodo'iska, which was first performed in the year 1800, was wildly acclaimed on every side. I saw it myself at Schonbrunn in 1809, admirably sung by the charming Signora Balzamini, who died very shortly afterwards, when she stood already poised on the thres hold of a career which promised to make her one of the most dis tinguished singers in all Italy. Signora Balzamini owed her talent to her ugliness.
Mayer's opera le Due Giornate dates from the year 1801 ; in 1802 he wrote i MisteriEleusini, which acquired a reputation no less than that which is to-day enjoyed by Don Giovanni. At that time, Italy refused to countenance Don Giovanni, finding that the score was too difficult to read. / Misteri Eleusini soon earned a reputation as the most powerful, the most dynamic work of the age — a reputation which is most strikingly indicative of the direction in which music was mov ing: the star of * melody was paling, while that of harmony* was in the ascendant.
Italian composers as a whole were abandoning simple, unsophis ticated music in favour of complex and erudite* music. Mayer and Paer found the courage to execute boldly, and with real erudition, precisely what every other maestro in the country was attempting
1 Usually spelt Mayr. Here, as indeed everywhere in this book, I have kept to Stendhal's spelling of proper names, however erratic. The accepted spelling will be found in the Index. (Trans.)
18 LIFE OF ROSSINI
timidly, hesitantly, and with so little learning that every bar in the score creaked with the faults of its musical syntax; and thus these gentlemen acquired an illusory aura of genius. Moreover, to make the illusion complete, both possessed a very real and genuine musical talent.
Their greatest misfortune was that Rossini appeared upon the scene some ten years too early. Operatic music, to judge by past experience, may hope to enjoy a life of about thirty years; and so these composers may with some justice bear a grudge against fate for refusing to allow them to live out their days in peace. If Rossini had waited until 1820 before beginning his career, poor Mayer and Paer would probably have held a place in the history of music beside that of Leo, Durante, Scarlatti and the rest, as major composers of the first order, whose popularity survived until well after their death. The opera Ginevra di Scozia belongs to the year 1803 ; it is a version of the Ariodante episode, which forms one of the most delightful passages from Ariosto's wonderful Orlando Furioso. In fact, the very reason for Ariosto's phenomenal popularity in Italy is that his style contains precisely those qualities which must unfailingly seem satis fying to a musical race; whereas, far away at the opposite end of the poetic scale, I dimly perceive the dwarfish figure of the abbe Delille!
As we might have expected from a German, all the impassio'ned arias of love and jealousy sung by Ariodante and his beautiful Scot tish maiden, whom he believes to have betrayed him, owe almost every vestige of their power to orchestral effects in the accompani ment. Not that the Germans are an unemotional race — God forbid that I should perpetrate so gross an injustice towards the country which has given the world a Mozart!— but none the less, their emotionalism (to take an instance from this year 1823) is of that most curious variety which joyously leads them to believe that the French Revolution, together with all its consequences, is to be found com plete to the last detail in the Book of the Apocalypse1!
German emotionalism, too airy, too free of earthly trammels, too lightly fed on dreams, may only too easily degenerate into what we in France would call sentimental silliness.2 Impassioned hearts, in
1 An historical fact. Basle, 1823.
3 Vide the famous German tragedy Schuld, by Miilner. I should feel extremely loath to recruit the hero, one Hugo, Graf von Oerindur, as a corporal in any regiment of mine!
THE INTERREGNUM 19
Germany, seem strangely divorced from logical heads, and so the honest Teuton is never too slow to assume the existence of anything whose existence seems desirable.
The theme of Ariodante is so magnificently suited to opera, that even Mayer found himself inspired on three or four occasions; as, for instance, in the chorus sung by the group of pious hermits in whose midst Ariodante, in his despair, has come to seek asylum. This chorus, which depends for its effect upon harmonic contrasts, upon groups of voices set one against the other, rather than on soar ing melody, is magnificent. Or again, Naples to this very day has not forgotten the duet between Ariodante, his face concealed by the lowering of his vizor, and his mistress, who fails to recognize him. In this scene, Ariodante is due to engage his own brother in single combat in an attempt to save his mistress; and he is just on the point of making a full confession to her of all his suspicions, and of reveal ing his identity, when the sounding trumpets summon him to the battle. This situation, as moving, perhaps, as any that the most stir ring of all the passions in the human breast could have furnished, is so superb that it is hard to imagine music so harsh, so grating, so grotesquely unmusical, sthat, in such a context, it could fail to bring tears to the eyes. In point of fact, the music which Mayer does give us is masterly.
In Italy, so many tender hearts have taken this duet under their protection, that the least hint of criticism breathed against it is received as irrefutable proof of odious bad taste. Therefore I will offer only one reflection: what might it have been, fired by the dyna mic inspiration of a Cimarosa or suffused with the ineffable sadness of a Mozart? We might have had a second version of the Sarah scene from the oratorio Abraham. This scene between Sarah and the shepherds, to whom she has turned in her search for tidings of her son Isaac, who is already on Ms way to the Mountain of Sacrifice, is Cimarosa's masterpiece in the pathetic manner, and infinitely superior to the finest arias of Gretry or Dalayrac.
Year after year, Mayer would turn out two or three new operas, and was met with rapturous applause in the most famous theatres in the land. How could he fail to believe himself the equal of the great masters? In 1807, an opera entitled Adelasia edAkramo promised to be superior to anything which the worthy Bavarian had previously
20 LIFE OF ROSSINI
achieved. La Rosa bianca e la Rosa rossa, an opera based on a magni ficent theme borrowed from English history (the Wars of the Roses), enjoyed immense popularity in 1812. Walter Scott had still to reveal the inexhaustible sources of superb drama which a people may dis cover by digging into the forgotten history of its own civil wars in the late mediaeval period; moreover, la Rosa bianca provided the tenor Bonoldi with a sublime opportunity to display the full potentialities of his remarkable voice.
But the opening allegro passage from the overture is only too typical of the abysmal depths of triviality which yawn with horrid persistence beneath the feet of any German composer who dare go in search of gaiety I
The recognition-scene between Enrico and his friend Vanoldo is filled with a pure and nai've grace, of a character which Rossini never quite achieved, because its very perfection depends upon the absence of even rarer qualities. This particular duet, incidentally, is by Paer.
A perfection of the same order is to be observed in the celebrated duet,
E deserto ilbosco intorno ..-1
This is Mayer's finest achievement, and would indeed stand among the musical masterpieces of all ages were it not for a certain lack of expressive power in the concluding passages. In the scene of Van- oldo's treachery towards his friend Enrico, the librettist has furnished his composer with a device so deliciously ingenious as to be truly worthy of Metastasio. Enrico, learning that his friend has been attempting to win the favours of the lady with whom he (Enrico) is in love, cries out
Ah, chipud mirarla in who
E non ardere d'amor!2
Mayer was fortunate enough to light upon an Italian folk-tune to express this delightful inspiration; and so this duet, far sweeter than the more dynamic music of Cimarosa or Rossini, must surely be the fondest heart's-delight of every gentle, sentimental nature.
In opera buffa, on the other hand, Mayer reveals all the clumsy, elephantine gaiety of a good, dull-witted burgher.
1 The surrounding wood is deserted ...
2 Ah! Who can gaze into her face, and not burn with love?
THE INTERREGNUM 21
Gli Originali is an opera which can be quite amusing if one has almost forgotten the sound of real Italian music. The theme is that of melomania. When this opera first appeared, in 1799, it merely served to stress the bitter absence of Cimarosa, who was at that time already lying in prison in Naples, and, according to popular rumour, already hanged. If Cimarosa had had the setting of such a theme, people asked, what delightful arias in the style of
Sei morelli e quatro baj ..-,*1 or of
Mentr' io era un mascalzone ...,*2 or of
Amicone del mio core ...,3
might there not have come of it?
The genuine melomaniac, a farcical character who is rarely to be met with in France, where his obsession is usually no more than a snobbish affectation, is to be encountered at every step in Italy.
When I was garrisoned in Brescia, I was introduced to a certain gentleman of the neighbourhood, who was a really extreme case of excessive musical sensibility. He was exceedingly well-educated, and by nature very gentle; but whenever he sat at a concert, there would come a point when, in sheer delight at the music, he would proceed quite unconsciously to remove his shoes. Then he would sit quietly, shoe-less, until the coming of some really superb passage, at which, unfailingly, he would fling both shoes over his shoulders into the crowd of spectators grouped behind him*.
At Bologna, I have watched the most notorious miser in the city fling his gold about the floor and gesticulate like a dervish when the music happened to touch some supreme fibre in his being.
Mayer's "melomaniac" merely reproduces on the stage forms of behaviour which can be observed any day in the auditorium. But in any case, the very tone of the lamentations which arose on all sides over the absence of Cimarosa betrayed the fact that this fine man and great artist was soon to pass from fashion. Even if he were to have continued composing, the majority of the dilettanti, instead of yield-
1 Six jet-black horses and four bays ...
2 In the days when I used to be a scoundrel ... 8 Great friend of my heart ...
22 LIFE OF ROSSINI
ing with unconscious simplicity to the naive charm of his songs, would soon have allowed memory to usurp the throne of imagination, and the magic of surrender would have been violated by intrusive reminiscences of a twenty-years' series of enchanting masterpieces.
Mayer, besides being the most prolific composer of the interreg num, is also the most erudite ; every bar he ever wrote is of impeccable correctness. The curious reader might take up the scores of Medea, Cora, Adelasia, Elisa, etc., and search them microscopically from end to end without detecting a single slip in the process; Mayer's perfec tion has the exasperating faultlessness of a Boileau, and the only puzzle is to discover why one is not more deeply moved. Yet you have only to pick up any opera by Rossini to find yourself in a new and undiscovered country; the clear, refreshing winds of the high mountains are stirring about you; the air is purer to breathe; you seem to be born again in a new world, and the thirst for genius is upon you. Rossini flings down whole handfuls of new ideas with careless condescension, sometimes hitting his mark, sometimes miss- ing altogether; his music is a jumble, a conglomeration, an indescrib able profusion of negligent luxury, all thrown together pell-mell with the incautious profligacy of inexhaustible wealth. I repeat: Mayer is the very genius of correctness; but Rossini is the very spirit of genius.
I shall not dispute the fact that Mayer has incontestably written some eight or ten numbers which have a deceptive glitter of genius about them, at least during the first three or four performances; as, for instance, the sextet from Elena*. There was a time once, I remem ber, when I used to credit even Dalayrac with an occasional stroke of inspiration, in spite of the chronic disorganization which always marred his ideas; but, since then, I have taken the trouble to study Cimarosa rather more seriously, and have discovered the source of the majority of Dalayrac's more striking "inventions"; one may suspect, therefore, that a careful study of Sacchini, Piccini, or Buranello might likewise suggest an origin and sufficient explanation for the occasional flashes of genius which light up the scores of our worthy friend Mayer. But with one important difference: for the German is undoubtedly a man of very considerable talent, while his erudition is as genuine and as solid as Dalayrac's is superficial and elementary; and consequently one may assume that Mayer, if he did borrow, will have disguised the fact most admirably.
THE INTERREGNUM 23
However, there was certainly one occasion, in Venice, when Mayer did not bother to disguise his borrowings. The victim, in this par ticular instance, was Cherubini, and our worthy composer simply turned to the music-copyist attached to the theatre for which he was working, and told him blatantly: Here is Cherubim's Faniska; please copy out the score from page ... to page ... ! The "loan" ran to some twenty-seven pages, and was reproduced note for note down to the last b-
Mayer was to music what Dr Johnson was to English prose; he created a style which was heavy, turgid, and a thousand removes from the natural beauty of simple speech, but which, nevertheless, had a certain quality of its own, particularly when one had struggled and struggled and eventually got used to it. But it was above all the turgidity of Mayer's style which enabled Rossini to obliterate his reputation in the twinkling of an eye; and indeed, some such sudden annihilation is the ultimate fate of all aesthetic artificiality, for, one fine day, the eye will light upon natural beauty, and be astonished that the opposite has managed to deceive it for so long. It is not hard to understand why our own classicists are so determined that Shake speare shall never be performed, and so eager to set the whole pack of "young liberals" at his heels. What awful fate awaits our modern tragedies the day that Paris is allowed to see Macbeth*!
After Mayer, I suppose that no composer of the interregnum enjoyed so wide a European reputation as Pa'er, a musician who, in spite of his German-sounding name, was in fact born in Parma. The reason for this success may perhaps be due to the fact that Paer, besides possessing an undeniable, and indeed, quite remarkable, flair for composition*, is an extremely shrewd individual, of great intelligence, and fully cognizant of all the secret arts which make a man respected in society. It has been said that one of the most strik ing proofs of Paer's shrewdness is the way in which, for eight whole years, he successfully concealed all knowledge of Rossini's existence from the people of Paris. Incidentally, if ever* there was a man born who seemed predestined to delight the average Frenchman, that man is Rossini — Rossini, the Voltaire of music!
Every one of Rossini's works which has so far been performed in Paris has been completely ruined by the absurdity of the production. I still shudder with horror whenever I think of the first performance
24 LIFE OF ROSSINI
ofl'Itatiana in Algeri; and shortly afterwards, when it came to giving la Pietra del Paragons, the most scrupulous care was observed to cut out specifically those two numbers, the aria
Ecopietosa ...1, and the finale
Sigillara ...2,
which, in Italy, had earned this masterly opera its most thunderous applause. Even the delightful chorus from the second act ofTancredi, in the scene where the Knights of Syracuse stand and sing on the bridge in the forest, was reduced to a bare half of its proper length, apparently from motives of "prudence"3.
One of Paer's earliest works was VOrofa tutto (1793), but his first major success came with Griselda (1797). What is there to be said about this famous opera, which has been played on every stage in Europe? Everybody knows by heart the wonderful tenor aria, just as everybody admires Sargino (1803). I have no hesitation in placing these two operas in a category of their own, far above the remainder of Paer's work. Agnese, for instance, seems to me to belong to an altogether inferior order, and only owes its European reputation to the facile and ghastly trick of copying the actions, words and gestures of madmen — unfortunate wretches, whom nobody is going to sub mit to the troublesome test of a realistic study when such a study would involve setting foot in the grisly asylums to which they are confined by public charity. The listener's mind, horror-stricken by the gruesome sight of a father driven mad by his daughter's desertion, is an easy prey to the blandishments of musical suggestion. Many fine singers, including Galli, Pelegrini, Ambrogetti, and Zuchelli, have excelled in the role of this madman; but even the remarkable popu larity of the opera cannot shake my conviction that it is profoundly wrong for art to deal with purely horrifying subjects. The madness of Shakespeare's Lear is made tolerable by the most touching devo tion of his daughter Cordelia; but I personally feel that there is nothing to redeem the ghastly and pitiable condition of the heroine's father in Agnese. The immediate effect of music being to plunge the
1 Pitiful echo ... * See below, p. 90. (Trans.)
8 As this page is being copied ready for the press, I notice that the great buffo part in ritaliana in Algeri is to be sung by Signorina Naldi.
THE INTERREGNUM 25
mind into a state where impressions are felt with an intensity which is multiplied a hundred-fold, I find this scene horrifying beyond endurance; and Agnese always remains with me as a thoroughly dis agreeable memory, which is only the more unpalatable for having a theme which is based on reality. It is like the subject of death; it will always be easy enough to frighten men with the idea of death; but, for all that, to use the subject of death as a weapon in an argument is, and will always remain, a fool's trick, or a piece of selfish, priestly calculation. Since death is inevitable, let us rather forget it!
Camilla (1798), although similarly owing part of its popularity to the fashion for spine-chilling tales which, at that time, had spread far and wide under the influence of the "gothic novels" of Mrs Rad- cliffe, is nevertheless a better opera than Agnese; the theme is less gruesome, and more genuinely tragic. Bassi*, one of the finest buffi in all Italy, achieved a masterly performance as the servant in the scene where he lies fiat between his master's legs, and sings at the top of his voice to awaken him, crying:
Signor, la vita e corta, Partiamper carita* ..-1
This entire opera is filled with interminable passages of recitative secco, which is harsh, and the dreariest thing in the world, as it might be an opera by Gluck. Where there is nothing to soothe the ear, there is no music.
The part of Camilla herself used always to be played in Italy by Signora Paer, the composer's wife, who was a highly-accomplished singer. She enjoyed an extraordinary run of success in the r61e, which lasted for ten years; but to-day I can see no one who could play Camilla with any real distinction, unless it be Madame Pasta. I wonder whether the genius of this great artist could give the opera a new lease of life and popularity? Now that Rossini has taught us to expect such an amazing wealth of musical ideas, and Mozart has taught us to look for profundity, I am afraid that it may be rather late in the day to start listening to music in the manner of Gluck.
Mayer and Paer are the two outstanding figures who dominate the interregnum which stretches between Cimarosa and Rossini; 1 Sir, life is short; let's depart, for pity's sake ...
26 LIFE OF ROSSINI
having discussed them, my only remaining task is to name a few of the lesser composers of the period. I prefer simply to relegate them to a footnote.1
1 Anfossi, Coccia, Farinelli, Federici, Fioravanti, General!, Guglielmo (father and son), Manfroce, Martini, Mosca, NazoHni, Nicolini, Orgitano, Qrlandi Pavesi, Portogallo, Salieri, Sarti, Tarchi, Trento, Weigl, Winter, Zmgarelh, etc.
IV Mozart in Italy
1 WAS forgetting that it is essential to add a word or two about Mozart,1 before we turn our attention permanently and exclusively to Rossini.
For ten years, the musical scene in Italy had been dominated by Messrs Mayer, Paer, Pavesi, Zingarelli, Generali, Fioravanti, Weigl, and by thirty or more others whose names are now more or less forgotten, but whose reign was then placid and untroubled. These gentlemen believed in their hearts that they were the true heirs and successors of Cimarosa, Pergolese, etc., and the audiences shared their belief, and continued to do so until, suddenly, Mozart came striding like a colossus amid this lilliputian swarm of Italian com posers, whose stature had only seemed formidable in the absence of true greatness.
Mayer, Paer and their imitators had for many years been seeking to adapt the style of German music to the taste of Italian audiences, and, like all compromisers and mezzo-termine who manage to satisfy the most tepid elements of either party, they achieved a flattering measure of success — flattering, that is to say, to anyone who is not finicking about the quality of the applause which he receives. In con trast to this, Mozart, who, like all great artists, had never sought to please anyone but himself and a few kindred spirits; Mozart, who, like some Spanish conspirator, could boast of having set his aim at none but the highest aristocracy of the society in which he lived — Mozart had followed an extremely perilous course.
Moreover, he enjoyed none of the advantages of a dominating personality; he was not prepared to spend his life flattering the mighty in their high places, bribing the press, and puffing his own name on to the lips of the multitude; consequently, he remained almost un known in Europe as a whole until after his death. Furthermore, in Italy, his rivals were in possession of the field, writing their music 1 See also Appendix L (Trans.)
28 LIFE OF ROSSINI
specifically to match the voices of their best singers, composing pretty little duets for the current mistress of the local Princeling and manoeuvring for patronage in the most advantageous quarters ... and yet, to-day, what is the standing of a work by Mayer or *** beside an opera by Mozart? None the less, in Italy in the year 1800, the position was precisely the reverse. Mozart was thought of as a romantic, as a crude barbarian, a vandal poised for invasion across the sacred frontiers of classical art. It is not to be imagined that the ensuing revolution in taste, which to us seems so natural and so inevitable, was to take place in a single day.
Mozart was still a boy when he composed two operas for la Scala in Milan: Mitridate (1770) and Lucio Sitta (1773).1 These two operas were not by any means unsuccessful, but it was scarcely likely that a mere boy should dare strike out on his own against the current fashion. Whatever the inherent qualities of these two works, they were soon swallowed up in the great popular torrent of music whose course was being determined by Sacchini, Piccini, and Paesiello, and the two tiny successes left no trace in the minds of men.
But, in the year 1803, or thereabouts, rumours of Mozart's triumphs in Munich and Vienna began to trickle across the Alps and disturb the profound complacency of the Italian dilettanti, who at first refused to believe their ears. Who was this barbarian, that he should reap so goodly a harvest in the field of Art? His symphonies and quartets, of course, had been known for some time; but who was Mozart to meddle with the esoteric mysteries of vocal music! He was spoken of much as the more ferocious partisans of French classicism still speak of Shakespeare: The fellow is a savage, of course, but, like most savages, physically powerful; even the muck-heaps ofEnnius may • hold a grain or two of gold; if only he had had the chance to take lessons from Zingarelli or from Paesiello, we suppose he might have done something. And so Mozart was set aside and thankfully forgotten.
In 1807, a small elite of Italian intellectuals, who had been invited to form part of Napoleon's suite during his campaigns of 1805 and 1806, and who had spent a while in Munich, began once again to broach the subject of Mozart; and it was decided, as an experiment,
1 Mozart, who was born in Salzburg in 1756, and died in Vienna in 1 796*, was therefore fourteen when he wrote Mitridate.
MOZART IN ITALY 29
to try out one of his operas — die Entfilhrung aus dem Serail, if I remember rightly. But any performance of this opera demands a high degree of competence from the orchestra; above all, it requires instrumentalists with a strict sense of rhythm, who can be thoroughly trusted not to falsify the tempo of the music; for this music is very different from the kind whose tunes can be got by heart after a couple of hearings, like the little romance, Cest V amour ^ which is so popular in Paris at the moment, or like the aria
Di tantipalpiti ...* from Tancredi.
The Italian orchestra, therefore, settled down to work; but, faced with the ocean of notes which lay blackly across the pages of this wild, foreign score, the poor players could make nothing of it. You see, it meant that each one of them had to play strictly in time, and, above all, that each instrument had to enter and finish exactly where Mozart had said that it should. The lazier players, in disgust, referred to this unfamiliar principle as barbaric; the epithet was beginning to gain ground, and the whole project was on the point of being aban doned, when one or two of the wealthier dilettanti of the town, whom I might name if I thought it worth while, and who were inspired by a spirit of proper pride rather than by the superficial pin-pricks of vanity, loudly asserted that it was absurd that Italians should let themselves be defeated by the mere difficulty of any music; and so, by threatening to withdraw their support from the theatre where rehearsals were in progress, they eventually secured a first perform ance of Mozart's opera. Poor Mozart! Certain persons who chanced to be at that famous premiere, and who, later, have learned to love this great composer, have assured me on their honour that never in their lives did they hear such an unimaginable witches-sabbath! The choruses, the ensembles, and above all the finales, were transformed into a cacophony of positively appalling dimensions; while the over all effect was of some howling carnival of raging demons! In all, perhaps two or three arias and one duet managed to swim on the
1 This vulgar little tune (I confess it with a due sense of shame) seems to me to be considerably less 'horrid than the celebrated romances of Monsieur R... [Romagnesi]* and|so many others. At least it can boast a rhythm which corres ponds hi some degree to our national temperament.
2 Of so many heart-beats ...
30 LIFE OF ROSSINI
surface of this boiling sea of discords, and achieved a reasonably adequate performance.
By the very same evening, the town had split into two warring factions. Backstairs patriotism* (to use a phrase coined by Turgot in 1763, on the occasion of the performance of a certain nationalistic tragedy entitled k Siege de Calais) is the most devastating moral malady of Italy; and now the raging mania of backstairs patriotism awoke in all its blind fury, and proclaimed in every coffee-house in the town that no man born beyond the borders of Italy would ever write a decent tune! Upon which a certain nobleman, M***, with that spirit of moderation which is so characteristic of him, remarked: Gli accompagnamenti tedeschi non sono guardie d'onore pel canto, ma gendarmi.1
The opposite faction, under the leadership of two or three young officers who had stayed in Munich, insisted that, although Mozart could offer nothing in the way of ensembles, one might discover in his works two or three little arias 9 or even duets, which carried the true stamp of genius, and, more important still, of genuine originality. Whereupon the good folk whose only creed was My country, right or wrong I proceeded to fall back upon their favourite argument, and to assert that anyone who could admire music written by & foreigner was a suspect Italian. In the midst of these alarums and excursions, the run of performances arranged for the Mozart opera reached its due conclusion, the orchestra having played progressively worse and worse as night succeeded night. But at this point, certain superior folk (and nearly every Italian town holds two or three such; pro found, far-sighted men, but of a brooding Machiavellian disposition, sombre, suspicious and persecuted, who keep close watch upon their tongues in front of strangers, and a still closer watch upon anything they publish) — these superior beings, then, began to murmur among themselves: Since we observe that the name of Mozart excites such tempestuous loathing; since a whole country-side is in a fever to prove that he cannot write a note of music; and since we observe that the insults addressed to him are more burning and bitter by far than ever those which were hurled at Nicolini or Puccita (these being the deadliest and dreariest composers of the age); we therefore may
1 Teutonic accompaniments do not constitute a "guard of honour" for the melody, but rather a police escort!
MOZART IN ITALY 31
conclude that this poor foreigner is likely to harbour a spark of genius.
This, at any rate, was the type of argument current among those who frequented the Princess Bianca, and hinted at in other groups which met at the theatre, in the box of this or that distinguished local notability, whose names I may not mention for fear of damaging their reputations. On the other hand, I had rather draw a veil of silence over the coarse and brutal insults which were published in the press, and penned by the official agents of the police. The cause of Mozart's music seemed to be lost; and scandalously, irretrievably lost at that.
At this point, however, there entered upon the scene a certain dilettante, exceedingly noble by birth and furthermore exceedingly wealthy, who, none the less, was not blessed by nature with over much common sense, and in fact belonged to that class of persons who carve themselves out a little niche within the framework of society by standing forth regularly every six months and declaring themselves the apostles of some new paradox, which they then pro ceed to preach here, there and everywhere at the top of their voices. This gentleman, having learned from a letter which one of Ms mis tresses had sent him from Vienna, that Mozart was the greatest musician in all the world, began to talk of him in a most mysterious manner. He gathered together the six most competent instrumental ists in the town, dazzled them with the luxury of Hs establishment, deafened them with the clatter of his English horses and the rattle of his barouches, which he liked to have specially constructed in London to his own specifications; and finally, in the utmost secrecy, ordered them to practise the first-act finale of Don Giovanni. His palace was immense; and he placed at their disposal an entire wing which looked out over his private gardens. If any of these poor musicians was to break the oath of secrecy, he was threatened with the most dire con sequences; and in Italy, when a wealthy man utters such objurga tions, he is pretty certain to be obeyed. Incidentally, the hero of my story happened to have in his service five or six Brescia bullies, to whom no deed of violence came amiss.
It took not less than six whole months for the Prince's unfortunate musicians to master the first-act finale of Don Giovanni; but at last they managed it strictly in tempo. Whereupon, for the first time ever,
32 LIFE OF ROSSINI
they actually discovered Mozart I The Prince then engaged half a dozen singers, upon whom, likewise, he laid a strict injunction to secrecy. After two months of unremitting labour, the singers also managed to learn their parts. Still in the deepest and blackest secrecy, as though engaged upon some political conspiracy, the Prince ordered a performance of the finales a,nd of all the principal numbers of Don Giovanni to be given at his country residence. Like everyone else's in Italy, his ear for music was good; he listened, and approved of what he heard. Now confident of the outcome, he began to grow slightly less mysterious whenever the conversation turned to Mozart; he provoked his antagonists, and finally came to the point of engag ing in a wager, sufficiently heavy to interest both his and his oppon ent's vanity, and sufficiently exciting amid the silent stillness of an Italian town to become the nine-days' wonder of all this part of Lombardy. The bet was, that he would organize a performance of certain numbers selected from Don Giovanni, and that a panel of judges, whose names were agreed upon on the spot, and who were known to be impartial critics, would pronounce as their considered verdict that Mozart was a composer of more or less the same quality as Mayer or Paer, and that although, like them, he had a weakness for too much noise and general Teutonic brassiness, he was all in all not far beneath the composers of Sargino and Cora. Such brazen assertions, I am told, provoked ungovernable fits of laughter simply in the making. Upon divers pretexts, the Prince, who was by now thoroughly enjoying the anticipated triumphs of which his vanity was assured, repeatedly postponed the great day; but at last the memorable incident took place. The test was held at his country residence, and he won the bet upon a unanimous verdict; and for the whole of the two years that followed, he was more conceited by half than he had ever been before.
This incident caused a great deal of excitement, and Mozart began to be played in Italy. In Rome, in 1811 or thereabouts, Don Giovanni endured a noble mutilation. Mademoiselle Eiser (later to play a very special part of her own at the Congress of Vienna, and who moment arily caused certain Great Personages to forget all about the Apoca lypse) was among those who sang in this production, and she sang extremely well. Her voice was most accomplished; but unfortunately the orchestra never kept time except by luck or accident, and the
MOZART IN ITALY 33
instruments were perpetually chasing each others' tails across the score ; the result, therefore, was not unlike a Haydn symphony played by amateurs (and Heaven preserve us from that I). Finally, in 1814, Don Giovanni was given at la Scala, and stunned the audience into applauding. In 1815, le Nozze di Figaro was presented, and on the whole better understood. In 1816, die Zauberflote was an appalling flop, and ruined Petrachi, the lessee of the theatre; but finally the revival of Don Giovanni created afar ore, if one may dare to use the word furore of anything connected with Mozart.
To-day, Mozart is more or less understood in Italy; but his music is still very far from being felt. In the general opinion of the public, the principal result of his impact on music has been to throw into the shade Messrs Mayer, Weigl, Winter and company, together with all the rest of the "Teutonic faction'*.
In this respect, Mozart smoothed the way for Rossini; for Ros sini's wider reputation only begins to emerge in 1815, and this meant that, when he finally did appear fully on the horizon, he found no rivals in possession of the field worthier than Messrs Pavesi, Mosca, Guglielmi, Generali, Portogallo, Nicolini and one or two other last despairing imitators of Cimarosa and Paesiello. These gentlemen had something in common with those last-ditch defenders of the 'magni ficent' epic style and of the classically "noble" scenes of Racinian tragedy who may yet be found in France today, still clinging desper ately to their decayed traditions. They could invariably count on a good measure of applause, and be certain of receiving the warmest praise couched in the purest language ; but their admirers were some how always half-aware of a tiny grain of boredom germinating in the bottom of their souls, and this tended to make them extremely crotchety. Their triumphs in the field of opera resembled certain others in the field of drama — let us say, those of Saul, of le Maire du Palais, of Clytemnestre or of Louis IX— in that, no one in the theatre daring to admit that he was frankly bored, each man turned purpose fully to his neighbour, and, stifling a yawn as he proceeded, set out to demonstrate that what he had just watched was truly beautiful.
Mozarfs Style
1 O-DAY, in the year 1823, after putting up a courageous resistance which lasted for ten years, Italy has at length ceased to be hypo critical in talking about Mozart, and therefore her opinion deserves to be taken into account and her judgment treated with serious consideration.
Mozart in Italy will never enjoy the success which he has known in Germany or in England; the reason, which is simplicity itself, is that his music does not reflect the temperamental characteristics induced by the Italian climate; it is emotive music, destined above all to evoke images in a vein of tender melancholy, which fill the soul with memories of sadness and echo the dying languor of the sweetest of passions. But love is not the same in Bologna as it is in Konigs- berg; love in Italy is far more dynamic, more impatient, more violent, less dependent upon dreams and imagination. It is not a gentle and gradual tide which sweeps slowly, but for all eternity, into the farthest recesses of the soul; it takes the whole being by storm, and its inva sion is the work of an instant; it is a frenzy* — but frenzy knows nothing of melancholy; it is a wild explosion of massed energies — but melancholy springs from a dearth, & failing of energy. No novel, as far as I know, has ever described love in the Italian manner; and Italy, as a natural consequence, is a land where the novel is unknown. Instead, Italy has her Cimarosa, who has used the true language of his own land to describe its loves, in every shade and variation, from the dreaming girl,
Hal tu sai ch? io vivo inpene ...1
sung by Carolina in il Matrimonio Segreto, to the old man whom love has driven half out of his wits :
Io veniaper sposarti ...2
But I must call a halt to these philosophical speculations upon the 1 Ah! Well you know that I live in anguish ... 2 I came to wed you ...
MOZART'S STYLE 35
variations to which the phenomenon of love is subjected under the influence of different climatic conditions, for they might tempt us into infinite regions of metaphysical abstruseness. Any mind which was destined by nature to understand notions of this character, which are scarcely thoughts at all, but rather an obscure awareness of the senses, will have understood me already from the few half-defined hints that I have given; for the rest, the infinite majority, they will never per ceive anything in such speculations save an infinite weariness of metaphysics ; or at best, if the notion should chance to fall in with the fashion, they might condescend to get by heart a score or so of sonor ous quotations on the subject; but then / am in no mood to sit here polishing up quotations for the benefit of persons of that stamp.
So let us return to Mozart, and to the violence of his music, which is a phrase that all Italians tend to use. Mozart appeared upon the musical horizon of Italy almost at the same moment as Rossini, in 1812; but I am strangely afraid that he will still be known and loved when Rossini's star has faded into dust. For Mozart was an origin ator in every field, in everything he touched; he is like nobody, and nobody is like him; whereas Rossini yet bears faint resemblances to Cimarosa, to Guglielmi and to Haydn.
The science of harmony may eventually explore the obscurest and remotest frontiers of music; yet, at the end of each road which leads to new knowledge, the explorers will be amazed to discover that Mozart has been there before them. Thus, in the technical, purely mechanical aspect of his art, Mozart can never be surpassed; and any composer who attempted to out-do him on this count would be like a painter who tried to out-do Titian in the effectiveness and realism of his colouring, or like a dramatist who tried to better Racine in the purity of his verse or in the delicacy and restraint of his expression.
As to the spiritual qualities of Mozart's music, the tempest-wind of his impetuous genius will never lack the power to sweep away the dreaming, contemplative spirits of this world, nor to fill their souls with sad and haunting visions. Sometimes the impact of his music is so immediate, that the vision in the mind remains blurred and in complete, while the soul seems to be directly invaded, drenched, as it were, in wave upon wave of melancholy. Rossini is always amusing; Mozart never; Mozart is like a mistress who is always serious and often sad, but whose very sadness is a fascination, discovering ever
36 LIFE OF ROSSINI
deeper springs of love; such women either create no impression at all, in which case they are called prudes; or else, if they leave their mark but once only, the scar bites deep, and heart and soul are lost to them completely and for ever.
Just at the moment, however, Mozart is a fashionable craze in high society, which, although it is by definition passionless, is always happiest in making a pretence of passion, in persuading itself that it is passionately in love with the most passionate of passions ; and so long as this fashionable passion persists, we shall have no sure means of judging the ultiniate and lasting effect of Mozart's music upon the human heart.
In Italy, there are certain distinguished dilettanti, who, although few in number, will always manage in the end to determine public opinion in the arts. Their success is due, firstly, to their sincerity; secondly, to the fact that, very gradually, their voice finds an echo in all those minds which, while being sufficiently well-equipped to hold a clear opinion, need first to hear it formulated by someone else; and thirdly, to the fact that, while everything else about them revolves in a constant state of chaos and turmoil, following the multifarious whims of fashion, they alone remain stable, never shouting to make themselves heard above the din, but waiting until their opinion is invited, and then repeating, modestly but inexorably, the same con sidered verdict. .
Such people* found Rossini amusing, and hence they greeted la Pietra del Paragone and Vltaliana in Algeri with enthusiastic applause; furthermore, they were deeply moved, for instance, by the famous quartet from Bianca e Faliero, and maintained that Rossini had brought new life into the opera seria; but in the bottom of their hearts they think of him as a brilliant arch-heretic; he seems to them, perhaps, like some new Pietro da Cortona, that most impressive of painters, who, for a while, dazzled all Italy, and all but eclipsed Raphael, for Raphael seemed cold and almost uninspired by com parison. Raphael, incidentally, had much of the unostentatious perfection and many of the profound spiritual qualities which charac terize Mozart. Nothing is less showy in the whole world of painting than the modest appearance and the celestial purity of a Virgin painted by the great master of Urbino; her divine gaze is cast down ward upon her son; and if the canvas were not signed Raphael, the
MOZART'S STYLE 37
mass of humanity would pass it by in scorn, scarcely condescending to pause a single instant before a thing so simple^ before a thing so commonplace— or seeming so, at least, to him who glances at it with a commonplace soul. The same thing is true of the duet from Don Giovanni,
Ld ci darem la mono Ld mi dirai di si ...*x
If this were not signed Mozart, how many of our smart young dandies would find its slow tempo anything but unspeakably boring? By contrast, these same young bucks are startled, almost electri fied into awareness by Rossini's aria
Sono docile ... 2
from the Barber of Seville. What do they care if this aria implies a radical misinterpretation of Rosina's character and situation? Would they even notice it?
But if Mozart's reputation should prove to be enduring, there is one consolation for Rossini; namely, that Rossini's music and Mozart's music scarcely ever appeal to the same audience. Mozart might almost say to his brilliant rival what the aunt said to her niece in Dumoustier's comedy, les Femmes:
Va, Tu ne plairas jamais a quifaurai sup laired
These same distinguished arbiters of taste in Italy, to whom I was referring a few minutes ago, maintain further, that if Rossini is inferior to Cimarosa in the richness and fertility of his comic inspira tion, he is vastly superior to the Neapolitan in the speed, vivacity and verve of his style. Rossini's scores constantly show him telescoping* phrases which Cimarosa would unfailingly have developed down to their remotest implications. If it is true that Rossini has never written an aria as profoundly comic as
Amicone del mio core ...4
1 There we shall give one another our hands; and there you will say "Yes" ...
2 I am obedient ...
8 You, my dear, will never succeed in attracting anyone whom I attract. 4 Great friend of my heart ...
38 LIFE OF ROSSINI
it is equally true that Cimarosa never conceived a duet as sparkling and as rapid as the song which Almaviva sings with Figaro :
Oggi arriva un reggimento, £ mio amico il colonello ...x (Barber, Act I).
or a duet as feather-light as that between Rosina and Figaro (Act /). Such qualities are entirely foreign to Mozart; he has neither comic verve nor lightness; he stands almost as diametrically in contrast to Cimarosa as he does to Rossini. It would have been inconceivable for him to write the aria
Quelle pupille tenere . , . 2
in Gli Orazii e Curiazii without an all-pervading strain of melan choly. He never suspected that love could even exist without a hint of sadness or fear.
The more completely one surrenders to the music of Rossini and Cimarosa, the more one gorges on its richness, the more austere the discipline needed to appreciate Mozart; on the other hand, the more thoroughly one is saturated with Rossini's tinkling dance-tunes and cascades of grace-notes, the deeper the satisfaction to be experienced in returning to the momentous harmonies and the stately rhythms of the author of Coslfan tutte.
Mozart, as far as I am aware, only allowed himself two instants of gaiety in the whole of his life; the first, in Don Giovanni, when Leporello invites the Statue of the Commander to supper; the second, in Coslfan tutte. This exactly corresponds to the number of occasions on which Rossini let himself go so far as to be melancholy. La Gazza ladra tells how a young soldier is forced to stand by and watch, while his adored mistress is condemned to death before his very eyes and borne off to execution; but there is nothing sad in it. In the whole of Otello there is not a hint of melancholy, save in the duet between Emilia and Desdemona, in the Prayer-scene and in the Willow-song. I shall have occasion later on to mention the quartet from Bianca e Faliero, the duet from Armida, and even the superb orchestral passage from the same work which occurs when Rinaldo,
1 To-day a regiment is arriving, and a friend of mine is the colonel com manding ...
2 Those tender eyes ...
MOZART'S STYLE 39
prey to a thousand conflicting passions, leaves the stage only to return an instant later; but here is the point: this duet, with all its magnificence, is not a musical portrait of melancholy, but a superb illustration of love in the Italian manner. It is a description of passion, sombre, forbidding, frenzied even— but still passion.
Between Rossini's real masterpieces, la Pietra del Paragone, ritaliana in Algeri, Tancredi or Otello, and Mozart's operas, there is not one single characteristic idea in common. The resemblance, which at best is superficial, and goes no deeper than a few technical coincidences of style — this resemblance, if in fact it exists at all, came much later, when, in la Gazza ladra, for instance, or in the intro duction to Mose in Egitto, Rossini was making a conscious effort to imitate the compelling qualities of German music.
Rossini never achieved anything so deeply moving as the duet
Crudel, perche finora farmi languir cosi?1 nor did he ever achieve anything so profoundly comic as Mentr9 io ero un mascalzone ...2;
nor even anything quite like the duel-scene from Cimarosa's i Nemici generosi, which was so exquisitely performed in Paris, fifteen years or so ago, by the inimitable Barilli
But on the other hand, neither Mozart nor Cimarosa ever wrote anything quite so fantastically gay and light-hearted as the duet
D*un bel uso di Turchia ...3,
from 11 Turco in Italia. Nothing could be more sparklingly Gallic, in every glorious sense of the word!
These ideas, I feel, give some indication of the lines of thought which must be pursued if one is to acquire a true, exact and deep understanding of the distinctive styles of each of the three great masters, who, comet-like and trailing their respective tails of imi tators, have come in our own day to share the dominion of musical Europe. He who hears can imitate; and so imitators abound. There are imitations even among the tinny little dance-tunes of the Theatre Feydeau. But let us make an end of it at last, and turn to ROSSINI.
1 O cruel one, why hitherto have you made me languish so?
2 In the days when I used to be a scoundrel ... 8 Concerning a fine Turkish custom ...
G,
CHAPTER I Early Years
IIOACCHINO ROSSINI was born on the 29th of February, 1792, in Pesaro,1 a delectable little township in the Papal State, on the shores of the Gulf of Venice. Pesaro is a port, with a busy life of its own. It rises among wooded hills, and the woods stretch down to the very brink of the sea. The countryside shows no trace of that barren ness and sterility which so often betrays the scorching breath of the sea-wind. On the coasts of the great oceans, where towering waves and tremendous storms scar the land with the indelible marks of their dark and inhuman violence, every object seems to speak of desola tion, and calls to mind, as on the frontiers of some immense and despotic empire, the hand of the tyrant and of his fierce, inflexible authority; but the Mediterranean, this gentle inland sea with its sheltered, shaded banks, knows nothing of all that wild, unfettered energy; every vista is a paradise of sweet and sensual beauty — and nowhere is the landscape sweeter or more sensual than within the dreaming confines of the Gulf of Venice. There is evidence enough to remind the beholder that this was the cradle of civilization in our world. Under these skies, forty centuries ago, men discovered the earliest delights of ceasing to be savage ; they were lulled into civiliza tion by the sweetness and the sensual loveliness that they saw on every hand, and suddenly they came to recognize that there was more wisdom in loving than in killing ... an error from which poor Italy is not recovered yet, and which has caused her countless times to be invaded and humiliated. How much happier her destiny, if God had seen fit to make her an island !
The political state of Italy is not to be envied; nevertheless, for some centuries now, out of the many-sided completeness of her civilization have arisen all those great men who have brought delight into the world. From Raphael to Canova, from Pergolese to Rossini
1 His father was Giuseppe Rossini; his mother, Anna Guidarini, one of the loveliest women in all the Romagna.
LR c
42 LIFE OF ROSSINI
and Vigano, every genius who, it was ordained, should hold the Universe spell-bound through Art, was born in this land of lovers.
The very defects of those curious forms of government, which are the bane and blight of Italy, favour the art of love, and so further the cause of art.
The Papal government, which exacts no obedience from its subjects beyond the payment of taxes and a strict attendance at Mass, makes no effort to introduce any element of security into the society for which it is responsible. Every citizen is his own master, to do and speak the first thing that comes into his head, and to satisfy his own peculiar interests in whatever way he thinks best; and whether the means he chooses to satisfy his desires should lead him to poison a rival or merely to parade a mistress, is a matter of supreme indiffer ence to the authorities which preside over his destiny. The govern ment, from time immemorial abhorred and despised, sways no opinion and wields no influence whatsoever; it straddles the society beneath it; but it is not 0/that society.1
In my own mind, I like to picture it as a kind of Leviathan, a fabulous dragon, puffed and venomous, crawling out of the ooze of some boundless swamp and looming up without warning over the smiling and flowered countryside; it is a noisome, brutal creature, appalling in its irresistible ferocity, and universally malevolent; at all costs, it must not be encountered; every decent man and woman should run from it, avoid it, take shelter and hide from it as soon as it appears. And yet, when all is said and done, it is fundamentally futile; it belongs to that category of senseless, inescapable, but basic ally insignificant evils, like hailstorms and earthquakes, against which no one but a fool would dream of protesting.
But I suppose, in the end, someone mil take it into his head to protest; and that day will mark the end and death of art in Italy. Instead, we shall be greeted by the cold blast of earnest political dis cussion, as though Venice were no longer Venice, but rather London, or Washington I
This unexacting little government, of which I have just sketched so libellous a portrait,2 is infinitely more propitious towards the
1 All this was twenty years ago now; many things may have changed since then.
2 Sources: de Potter, De V Esprit de VEglise (description of the state of the Church in 1781); Giannone, History of Naples. An exception must be made in
EARLY YEARS 43
passions and their untrammelled development than are the more sober governments of France or England, with their wary vigilance, their eye on public opinion, and their tame journalists to prove that whatever they do is right!
And the passions are the very stuff of art; that, of course, is one of the main reasons why art cannot flourish in the sad, cold climate of the North, where Society is the universal judge and arbiter of every thing; for Society is above all things dispassionate, ironical, and vain; while its heart is so shrivelled and withered with the terror of ridicule that in the end it is capable of nothing but cowardice in the most absurd degree.
To excel in art, the first essential is to have experienced the con suming fires of passion. A man may be gifted with the most brilliant intelligence, the sharpest wit, the keenest critical faculties, and yet it will avail him nothing; for, unless he has first fulfilled the one essential condition, which is at some time or other to have made him self unspeakably ridiculous, he will never behold art otherwise than through the dim folds of a veil. He may be filled with analytical pene tration; he may, respecting all other studies worthy of human attention, be a positive mine of wisdom, sagacity, profundity, etc. — yet no sooner is he placed before a work of art than he becomes blind to everything save to the one part which is totally insignificant: the material To him, a painting is the canvas on which it was painted; while music, as he understands it, is nothing but an offshoot of mech anical physics, a science of sounds varied in combination. Such is Voltaire, when he writes of music or pictures. These hard, insensitive northerners, faced with a Raphael, can find nothing better to do than to analyse it, dissolving its sublimity into a smart, practical talent for spreading colour on canvas. And as for music ...! (Just glance at some of the articles which used to be perpetrated, day after day, in le Miroir\)
Obviously I am being uncharitable; yet the reason why I have allowed my satirical instincts to run riot in this unkind manner is because these very same intelligent people, who have just been so harshly victimized, are precisely the sort of critics by whom I hope
favour of the excellent regime which is at present (1823) furthering the happiness and prosperity of Florence. But how long may we hope that such a government will survive? In any case, it can render no services to art; enthusiasm, in Tuscany, perished many years ago!
44 LIFE OF ROSSINI
that this book of mine will be judged. Intellectually, that is to say, they are so infinitely superior to everyone else in the world, that, as judges of art described, they have no conceivable rivals — even when the description may happen to deal with a work which, in the original, they can neither understand nor appreciate. If I were writing a history of music or painting, I should go to Italy to collect my material; but I should publish the finished work in Paris.
For whenever it is a question of the accuracy of some abstract conception, or of the aptness of a descriptive epithet, then the men of the North, moulded by some two centuries of more or less untram melled discussion, recover that undisputed superiority which had slipped from their grasp at the sight of a piece of sculpture, or in the presence of the ritornello of some great theme, agitato.
In France, the painter or the musician finds the throne of the passions usurped by unlawful rulers: either by the terror of offending against the established conventions, against a thousand-and-one artificial susceptibilities; or else by the obsessive cogitation which of necessity precedes the venturing upon a nicely-contrived pun.
In England, art has two dire and implacable enemies : Religion (of the Old Testament variety) ; and Pride. In the higher ranks of society, the passions, without exception, are constricted by an ailing timidity, which is but pride under another disguise; and elsewhere, among the majority of young men, all true emotion is overwhelmed by the appalling necessity of devoting an average of fifteen hours out of every twenty-four to some ungrateful labour, failing which the victims are condemned to starve for want of bread, and die in the streets.
It is easy to see why Italy, the land of love and of dolcefar niente, should be at the same time the homeland of art; and why, on the other hand, thanks to the petty and suspicious tyrants who batten on that unhappy country, it is only in the North that men are suffici ently enlightened to be able to discuss and judge, when art is dis sected into words.
The Romagna, where Rossini was born, is to be numbered among the wildest and least idyllic of all the lands in the peninsula. For many years, the sly government of the priesthood has borne upon it; and for a corresponding number of years, generosity has been stig matized as the absurdest of suspect or vicious eccentricities.
EARLY YEARS 45
Rossini's father was an impoverished and third-rate horn-player, a member of that fraternity of nomadic musicians who, to earn a scanty living, wander from fairground to fairground, journeying from Sinigaglia to Fermo, from Fermo to Forli, and from Forli to all the other little towns in the Romagna or in the surrounding regions. It is their trade to band together into small, impromptu orchestras, which are then hired to play for the fairground operas. His mother, who was a beauty in her day, had been a competent seconda donna. The couple wandered from town to town, he playing in the orchestra, she singing on the stage, and there is nothing sur prising in their inveterate poverty; but poverty seems to have become a family tradition, to which their son Gioacchino Rossini has re mained quixotically faithful; for when, two years ago, he journeyed to Vienna, heralded by a name which went sounding like a bell throughout the length and breadth of Europe, he had not yet set aside a sum of money equal to the annual salary of any one of the popular actresses who sing in the opera-houses of Paris or Lisbon.
But life costs nothing in Pesaro, and so this family, for all its dependance upon so uncertain a trade, knew no sadness, still less worried about the future.
In 1799, Rossini's parents took him with them from Pesaro to Bologna; but he did not actually begin to study music until the year 1804, when he was twelve years old. His teacher then was Dom Angelo Tesei. After a few months, the young Gioacchino was already earning a few paoli by singing here and there in churches. His fine treble voice, coupled with the childish liveliness of Ms manner, made him more than welcome among priests who h&dfunzioni to organize. Under the direction of his teacher Angelo Tesei, Gioacchino became most proficient in singing, in the art of accompaniment, and in the theory of counterpoint. By 1806, he was perfectly well able to sing at sight any piece of music which might be placed before him, and his friends began to have high hopes of him; he was handsome, and it was thought he might make a tenor.
On the 27th of August 1806, he left Bologna and set forth on a musical tour of the Romagna. At Lugo, at Ferrata, at Forli, at Sinigaglia and in various other towns, he conducted a number of orchestras, while himself playing the piano parts. He continued meanwhile with his singing in church until 1807*; but in that year,
46 LIFE OF ROSSINI
on the 20th of March, he entered the liceo musicak* at Bologna, and began to study music under the direction of padre Stanislao Mattel.
A year later (llth of August 1808) Rossini was sufficiently advanced to be able to compose a symphony and a cantata entitled II Pianto d*Armonia*. This was his first original composition for voices. Immediately afterwards, he was elected to the office of "director" of the Accademia del Concordi*, a musical society which then existed within the walls of the Liceo Musicak at Bologna.
By the age of nineteen, Rossini had grown so knowledgeable that he was chosen to present and conduct Haydn's The Seasons, which was being performed at Bologna; The Creation, which was being given at the same time (May 1811), was performed under the direc tion of the celebrated male soprano Marchesi*. Rossini's parents, whenever they had no engagement, used to come home to the poverty of their little house in Pesaro. In this town, certain wealthy music- lovers, members, I believe, of the Perticari* family, took a benevolent interest in the young Rossini. One charming lady, who, when I knew her, still possessed great beauty, had the happy idea of sending him to Venice; and while he was there, he composed a little opera in one act for the teatro San-Mose, which he entitled la Cambiak di Matri- monio (1810). After a flattering taste of success, he returned to Bologna, where, in the autumn of the following year (1811), his next opera, VEquivoco stravagante, was performed. Then he went again to Venice, and composed ringanno felice for the Carnival season of 1812.
In this last-named work, genius breaks through with unmistakable brilliance. The experienced critic can detect most plainly, in this little one-act opera, the germs of ideas which later, in a dozen or a score of major passages, were to send the fame of Rossini's masterpieces ringing through the world—among them, a fine terzetto sung by the peasant Tarabotto, the Lord of the Manor, and the heroine — a virtu ous maiden with whom Tarabotto's master has fallen in love, and would have married, had he not previously had her driven into exile through failing to recognize her at the critical moment.
Ulnganno felice calls to mind those early works of Raphael, painted when he was still fresh from the school of Perugino; both betray all the defects and all the hesitancies of extreme youth. Rossini, twenty years old and still timid in the consciousness of the
EARLY YEARS 47
fact, dare not yet seek to please himself alone. Two elements go to the making of a great artist: a spirit which is at once exacting and sensitive, passionate and scornful; and a talent whose sole preoccupa tion is to satisfy that spirit, and to cater for its delight by the creation of original beauty. Meanwhile, however, Rossini's protectresses had secured him an engagement at Ferrara, where, during the sacred season of Lent, in the year 1812, he composed an "oratorio", en titled Giro in Babilonia — a work which contains many magnificent passages, but which still somehow seems to lack the fire of the earlier achievement, Vlngannofelice. Once more, Rossini was invited to Venice; but on this occasion, the impresario of the teatro San- Mose, not satisfied with having obtained, for the fee of a few paltry sequins, the services of a delightful composer, the idol of the fair sex, whose dawning genius was on the point of setting his theatre high in the blaze of fashion . . . this impresario, observing that he was poor, thought that he could afford to treat him slightingly. Without more ado, Rossini proceeded to give an exhibition of that eccentric side of his character, which has always earned him a certain notoriety, but with which, indeed, he need never have been saddled at all had he been born in a more sophisticated country.
It was Rossini's undisputed right, as a composer under contract, to have the members of his orchestra perform whatever he fancied to set down in his scores. He therefore gathered together into the newest of his operas, la Scala di Seta*, which he had composed for this same insolent impresario, every freak, extravagance and musical oddity which he could manage to hatch out of his fertile and unquestionably eccentric imagination! In the allegro of the overture, for instance, the violins were required to pause at each bar, and to deliver a gentle tap with the bow against the tin reflectors of the stands holding the candles which lit the orchestra-pit. The surprise and exasperation of the huge audience, which had collected from every quarter of Venice, and even from the neighbouring mainland of Italy, to hear the young maestro* $ new opera, may well be imagined! These spectators, who had been besieging the doors of the theatre two hours before they were opened, and had then had to sit patiently in anticipation for a further two hours inside the building, took the proceedings as a personal affront, and whistled* with all that derisive vehemence of which an Italian audience in a fury alone is capable. Rossini, far from
48 LIFE OF ROSSINI
being upset, simply laughed outright, and enquired of the impresario what he thought to have gained by treating him in so cavalier a fashion; and then promptly set out for Milan, where his friends had secured him an engagement. But a month later, Rossini was back again in Venice, where he composed two farze (one-act operas) in succession for the San-Mose: r Occasions fa il Ladro (1812) and UFiglioper azzardo (Carnival season, 1813). It was during this same Carnival, in the year 1813, that Rossini composed TancredL
Of all the lands of Italy, Venetia stands supreme in the sureness of its taste and the keenness of its appreciation of music written for the human voice; the reader, then, can imagine for himself the success of this superb opera. Had the King-Emperor Napoleon himself thought to honour Venice with his presence, the excitement of his arrival could have done nothing to tear the people away from Rossini. Tancredi enjoyed a popularity verging on the delirious; it was a true furore, as the expression runs in Italian (that loveliest of languages created especially for the arts!). Everyone, from the humblest gon dolier to the proudest lord in the land, was singing, singing . . .
Ti rivedro, mi rivedrai ... ;x
and in the very courts of law, the judges were forced to call for order among the spectators, who were disturbing the proceedings by sing- ins
Ti rivedrd ...
— in the salon of Signora Benzoni I have met hundreds of persons who will bear out the truth of this fact !
There was a phrase current then, which the dilettanti used to use as a kind of greeting or password: Cimarosa has come back among us!* But the truth was better than the legend, for the music was original and the delights were new. Before Rossini, the opera seria had too often enclosed arid deserts of dreariness and monotony; admirable passages there were, but they were sparse and scattered, separated too often one from the other by fifteen or twenty minutes of recitative and boredom. But here was Rossini, infusing into this type of composition all the fire and the vivacity and the perfection of the opera buffa.
1 I shall see you again; you will see me again ...
2 Cimarosa, who was adored in Venice, and who had been a personal friend of many of the music-lovers in that city, had died there a few years earlier, in 1 801 .
EARLY YEARS 49
The true opera buffa, with libretti in Neapolitan dialect by Tita di Lorenzi, grew to perfection through the works of Paesiello, Cimarosa and Fioravanti. In all the world there is no form of art more instinct with fire, life and genius; it is so alive that the temptation is well- nigh irresistible to join in the dialogue oneself. Man has, as yet, come nowhere nearer to perfection in art, than here. The spectator who beholds a good opera buffa, unless he have the misfortune to be loom phlegmatic,'1 has no choice but to die, either of laughter, or else of sheer delight. Rossini's triumph was to have dislodged some portion of this divine fire from the opera buffa, where it had become affixed, and to have transposed it, not only into the opera di mezzo carattere, as in the Barber of Seville, but likewise into the opera seria, as in Tancredi; for it is not to be claimed that the Barber of Seville, for all its unmistakable hilarity, is a real opera buffa; it is still one degree removed from the ultimate regions of gaiety.
Outside Naples, the opera buffa is a style almost unknown; more over, it would be difficult, for all the recent progress made in instru mental music, to add so much as a few touches of scoring for oboe or bassoon to the masterpieces of Fioravanti, Paesiello, and their fellow-composers. With such a genre, Rossini took the greatest care not to meddle, any more than a playwright would care to attempt a tragedy of murder after Macbeth. He attempted the possible, which was to instil new life into the opera seria.
1 Vide, concerning the "six temperaments of man", the immortal treatise of Cabanis: Des Rapports du Physique et du Moral de VHomme.
CHAPTER II Tancredi
. this delightful opera has already been completely round Europe within the space of four years, what is there to be gained by submitting it to a process of analysis and criticism? Every reader of this book, I fancy, is, and has long been, perfectly well acquainted with everything that he is supposed to think about Tancredi; the probability is, therefore, that he will flatly refuse to accept criticism of Tancredi in any terms which I might propose, preferring rather to criticize me in terms of Tancredi Furthermore, thanks to the art of Madame Pasta, Tancredi is now to be seen in Paris in a performance which no other capital in the world can equal.
Indeed, it seems scarcely credible that a young woman, herself scarcely of the age when the passions are beginning to stir, should readily possess, not only the sweetest of voices, but in addition, talents as a tragic actress almost as outstanding as those of Talma — and yet, how different, how much simpler!
Nevertheless, to be faithful to my obligations as an historian, and to escape any accusation of incompleteness, I must attempt a sketch of Tancredi.
The opening bars of the overture are both charming and dignified; but I hold that the first real breath of genius is felt in the allegro. It is fashioned with an originality and a boldness, which, at the premiere in Venice, captured every heart in the audience. Rossini had not dared to take his seat at the piano, as it was customary, and as indeed his contract obliged him to do. He was scared of being greeted with an outburst of derisive whistling, for the national honour of the Venetian audience was still tingling with the reverberations of that obbligato accompaniment upon the tin reflectors which had graced his previous opera. In childish apprehension, the composer had hidden away beneath the theatre in the passage leading to the orchestra-pit. The leader of the violins searched high and low for him; but at last, seeing that it was already late, and that the audience
TANCREDI 51
was beginning to show those signs of impatience, which, except at premieres, always seem so absurd to the actors themselves, resolved to begin the performance. The first allegro of the overture, however, was so well received that, while every corner of the house echoed with clapping and cheering, Rossini crept out from his hiding-place, and screwed up sufficient courage to edge into his seat at the piano.
Two elements contribute to the brilliance of this allegro: the massive grandeur of pride chiselled down into the fine contours of elegance. Here, assuredly, is music fitting for the chivalrous hero whose name is Tancred; music worthy of the Knight whose lover was a lady of high renown and higher integrity; music, finally, which embodies the genius of Rossini in all its purity. Let him be but him self; then there is no mistaking the qualities which lie in him— all the elegance of some young French hero, some new Gaston de Foix; not strength or forcefulness, as you would find it in Haydn. To realize the "high ideal" of antiquity, strength is imperative; and Cimarosa had discovered the secret of it in the themes of his opera Gli Oraziie Curiazii. But Rossini, unconsciously following in the footsteps of Canova, ceded the place of this strength, which was so indispensable and so admired in the art of Ancient Greece, to elegance; he was instinctively aware of the trend of his own century, and he abandoned the "high ideal" of Cimarosa, just as Canova found the courage to abandon the "high ideal" of antique sculpture.1
In a later period, when Rossini has tried to imitate Cimarosa in his search for strength, the result has at times been merely heaviness', the reason being that, having failed in his attempts to achieve forceful- ness through his melodic line alone, he has been obliged to turn for help to those harmonic platitudes so dearly beloved of Mayer, Winter, Weigl, and kindred composers of the Teutonic faction.
Perhaps my explanation is somewhat too metaphysical; true or not, however, the fact remains: when Rossini is being himself, his music combines elegance and wit; but it possesses neither the strength which is so characteristic of Haydn, nor any of that wild impulsiveness in the manner of Michelangelo, which is a feature of the music of Beethoven.
1 This provides a notable instance of a point of contact between sculpture and music. For the development of this somewhat abstruse notion, cf. VHistoire d<$ la Peinture en Italic, vol II, p. 133.
52 LIFE OF ROSSINI
These considerations have been suggested to me primarily by the allegro from the overture to TancredL The main theme reveals various original devices, all alive with a grace and a subtlety which are peculiarly French; but the pathetic element is wholly missing.
As the overture comes to an end, the curtain rises, and we witness the entry of the Knights of Syracuse, who sing in chorus :
Pace, onore ...fede, amore ...1
As a chorus, it is charming; but is that really the epithet which it should have inspired? Is it not precisely that strength, with which I have just been concerned, that is lacking — that same strength which is sensed at every turn in Haydn's music? This particular chorus has a sweetish, insipid flavour about it, which is scarcely in its place in any context, but least of all amid a company of Knights from the Middle Ages !
Cinq chevaliers frangais conquirent la Sidle?
sings the poet; yet it is these wild-willed Knights (I had almost written mid beasts), of whom Walter Scott has recently given us so life-like a portrait in the character of the Knight-Templar Bois- guilbert in Ivanhoe, and who are shortly to take the daughter of one of their own order and send her to a cruel death ... these same "parfit gentle" Knights who have proceeded to coo to us, in dove- like tones, a little lullaby of
Pace, onore .../
Had it been a scene set among the poetic shepherds ofTAstree, Ou,jusqu'dje vous hais, tout se dit tendrement,3
a scene depicting the hand-clasp which pledges eternal peace, the event might most fittingly have been celebrated by just such a chorus ; but is music of this character really appropriate to the uncontrollable energy of the Middle Ages? The steel-armoured Knights of those barbaric days, even in the act of swearing a peace, would probably have suggested nothing less rugged than the grimness of a lion rest-
1 Peace, honour. . . . Faith, love . . .
2 Five French knights achieved the conquest of Sicily.
3 Where every word is spoken tenderly, even the words "I hate you".
TANCREDl 53
ing, or the stony severity of the Old Guard marching back into Paris after the battle of Austerlitz.
Rossini's exculpation must be, that in Raphael's early paintings one likewise seeks a sign of strength, and seeks it in vain, even when the design cries out for it most urgently.
This introduction1 to Tancredi invariably fails to produce any marked impression, in spite of its lilting melody. Were it not that the very notion of correcting any work, let alone one which has achieved success, is a thousand miles removed from Rossini's temperament, he could profitably spend a few minutes' labour over this chorus of the Knights of Syracuse.
By contrast, Rossini takes a most splendid and overwhelming revenge in the ritornello and the passage of vocal music which heralds the entry of Amenai'da:
Piu dolce e placida ...2
Hitherto, no music had ever expressed so perfectly that simple and noble elegance which befits a young princess born into the Age of Chivalry.
Amenaida's cavatina,
Come dolce air alma mia ...3
lacks that strain of melancholy which Mozart would have infused into it, and the embellishments are garnished with too much pretti- ness for the music to be truly in character. A maiden whose soul has some strain of nobility, dreaming of her lover who is outlawed and banished, should be portrayed in a vein of sadness; Voltaire appreci ated the nuance, and strove after it. But Rossini was still too young to feel the lack of it; or rather (not to launch out too early into the language of panegyric), an emotion was involved which perhaps never, to the very end, penetrated into his soul. Later on in life he might, for instance, have imitated Mozart; but at eighteen, he was writing in a style whose simplicity was dictated by his genius alone; and that genius, while it surely understands tenderness, has, I feel convinced, no inkling of the kind of tenderness which is inseparable from melancholy.
1 The term introduction covers everything that is sung between the end of the overture and the first recitative.
2 More gentle and placid ... 3 How sweet to my soul ...
54 LIFE OF ROSSINI
And so, at last, we come to the celebrated entry of Tancred him self. This landing of Tancred and his followers upon a deserted, lonely beach requires all the technique of Italian stage-craft if it is to retain any shadow of dignity. The scene, as it was performed at the Theatre Louvois, with the characters scrambling out of a sort of skiff, whose agitated convulsions (it being but forty paces away from the audience) were clearly visible in every detail, needed every iota of the magnificent portamento of Madame Pasta to redeem it from utter absurdity; the more so, as the "shore" was constructed out of ridicu lous little bits of painted cardboard, in such a way that the "trees" threw shadows against the sky I In the same scene, in the version which is given in Milan, the landing of Tancred and his Knights is half-glimpsed in the dim distance, which is indeed the way in which such scenes should be presented to the imagination. The decor, too, is a masterpiece in the Milanese production; it is by Sanquirico or Perego, and the very wonder of it compels the eye to forget to enquire too critically into the physical details of the action. Fortun ately, however, Parisian audiences are not finicking about the settings of the plays which are served up to them, and absurdity, unnoticed, ceases to be absurd.
For the performance in Venice, Rossini had composed a magnifi cent aria to be sung at the entry of Tancred. Signora Malanotte, however, took a dislike to it1; moreover, being then in the flower of her beauty, and at the height of her powers and eccentricities, this admirable prima-donna chose to communicate her distaste for the aria to the composer only upon the very eve of the premiere.
The maestro' s despair may be imagined! The calamity belonged to that order of disasters which drive young men of that age and in that position to very madness. (Happy the age, at which one can be driven to madness !) If, after the pantomime of my last opera, mut tered Rossini, they now whistle at the entry of Tancred, the whole of this opera va a terra (will be a flop) \
The wretched young man walked back to his cheap lodgings, sunk in thought. Then an idea struck him, and he scribbled a few lines of music; and these few, hurried jottings heralded the birth of the famous
1 Madame Pasta recently inserted this aria into the first act of la Rosa bianca e la Rosa rossa, where there is a similar situation.
TANCREDI 55
Tu che accendi ...j1
which has enjoyed a wider and more universal popularity than per haps any other aria in the world. There is a legend current in Venice, which relates that the first seed of this delightful cantilena, which so admirably conveys the happiness of lovers meeting after long separa tion, sprang from a Greek Litany, and that Rossini had heard it chanted a few days earlier at Vespers in a church on one of the little islands in the Lagoon. The Greeks have managed to preserve the old happiness of their great Mythology despite all the menace and the gloomy terrors of the Christian religion!
In Venice, this aria is known as the aria del risL The title, I admit, is somewhat undignified, and I confess to a certain feeling of embar rassment in recording the (gastronomic rather than poetic) little anecdote to which it owes its origin. The name aria dei risi, since it must be revealed, means rice-aria. In Lombardy, every dinner, from that of the highest in the land down to that of the obscurest little maestro, begins invariably with a dish of rice; and since rice is eaten for preference very much under-cooked, four minutes precisely before the course is due, the chef invariably sends a minion with this momentous query: bisogna mettere i risil On that famous evening when Rossini, plunged into despair, walked slowly back to his lodg ings, the cameriere asked the usual question; the rice was set to cook; and before it was ready, Rossini had completed his aria:
Di tantipalpiti ...2
Thus the title aria dei risi commemorates the speed with which it was composed.
What is there to be said about this superb cantilena*! Talking about it to those who already know it would seem to me to be as absurd as talking about it to those who have never heard it — if indeed, in the whole of Europe, there may still be people who have never heard it!
But only those who have seen Madame Pasta in the r61e of Tancred may realize that the recitative:
0 patria, ingrata patria!* can be yet more sublime and more moving than the aria itself.
1 You who set on fire ... 2 Of so many heart-beats ...
8 O my country, my ungrateful country!
56 LIFE OF ROSSINI
Madame Fodor once took the aria, dressed it up in quadrille-rhythm, and used it for the singing-lesson scene in the Barber of Seville. A good voice can render the most dismally mediocre of arias in fine style, the singer being nothing more than a sublime barrel-organ; but a recitative taxes the resources of the human soul. And even in the aria, the passage setting the words alma gloria will never really be sung properly by anyone born north of the Alps!
Without the experience, or the memory of the experience, of the madness of love, as love is known in the happy countries of the South, it is quite impossible to interpret the phrase mi rivedrai, ti rivedro*. The nations of the North might devour twenty Treatises on the Art of Poetry as learned as that of La Harpe, and still have no understanding why the words mi rivedrai precede the words ti rivedro. If any of our fashionable critics could understand Italian, they would surely detect a lack of breeding, if not indeed a total contempt for the delicacies of social intercourse, in Tancred's be haviour towards Amenaida!
Upon Tancred's entry, the orchestration reaches a superb climax of dramatic harmonization. This is not (as it is foolishly believed in Germany) the art of employing clarinets, 'cellos and oboes to re echo the emotions of the characters on the stage; it is the much rarer art of using the instruments to voice nuances and overtones of emo tion which the characters themselves would never dare put into words. When Tancred lands on his deserted beach, he needs no more than a phrase or two of speech to portray his emotions; voice and gestures express something; but completeness requires an instant or two of silence, while he contemplates, with mingled sensations of pleasure and sadness, the ungrateful country to which he has re turned. If he should speak in this instant, Tancred would dissipate our interest in him, and shatter, in our entranced imagination, the perception which we have of the thoughts deeply stirring in him, as he looks again upon the land which is the home of Amenaida. Tancred must not speak; but while he is contained in a silence so perfectly expressive of the feelings raging within him, the sighing horns of the orchestra conjure up a new portrait of Ms spirit, and echo emotions which, perhaps, he hardly dare acknowledge to him self, and which certainly will never find form in words.
An achievement of this character is something new in music; it was
TANCREDI 57
unknown in the times of Pergolese and Sacchini, and it is still un known to our worthy Teutonic friends. They use their instruments to furnish us, as crudely as possible, with certain necessary information which the singer on the stage should, properly speaking, convey to us in words. Their vocal passages, on the other hand, being either wholly expressionless, or else hopelessly overburdened with expres sion, just as reproductions of paintings by Raphael are normally overburdened with exaggerated colour, serve largely to give the imagination a rest from the ideas suggested by the orchestra. Thus their operatic heroes act very much like those Sovereigns who, filled brim-full with the finest intentions in the world, yet find themselves unable, with their own tongue, to utter anything but commonplaces of the worst order, and so are constantly referring the petitioner to their Ministers-of-State whenever some question arises which re quires an important answer.
Every instrument in the orchestra, like every individual human voice, has its own distinctive characteristics; for example, in Tan- cred's aria and recitative, Rossini scores for the flute*; the particular virtue of the flute lies in its ability to portray joy mingled with sad ness;1 and this complex mixture of emotions is precisely that which Tancred experiences when his eye lights once more on that ungrateful land to which he can no longer return save in disguise.
If this conception of the relationship between orchestral and vocal music can be made any clearer by an analogy, I would suggest that Rossini successfully employs a device invented by Walter Scott — that same technical device which, perhaps, was responsible for all the most astounding triumphs of the immortal author of Old Mortality. Just as Rossini uses his orchestral harmony to prepare the way for, and to reinforce, his passages of vocal music, so Walter Scott pre pares the way for, and reinforces, his passages of dialogue and narra tive by means of description. Consider, for instance, the very first
1 It might be suggested that there is a certain analogy to be drawn between the flute on the one hand, and on the other, those great ultramarine-coloured drap eries which a number of famous painters (amongst others, Carlo Dolce) have tended to employ so lavishly in paintings of scenes where tenderness mingles with gravity; however, a suggestion of this nature, which might well pass for an illuminating flash of genius in Bayreuth or in Konigsberg, would certainly be treated in Paris as mere rubbish! O happy nations, within whose boundaries there is known no stronger guarantee of a reputation for sublime profundity, than a talent for being obscure and incomprehensible !
58 LIFE OF ROSSINI
page of Ivanhoe, with its magnificent description of the setting sun; how its rays, already losing strength and falling almost horizontal, struggle through the lowest and thickest branches of the trees which conceal the dwelling of Cedric the Saxon. And then how, in the centre of a woodland glade, this dying-diminishing light picks out the curious garments worn by Wamba the Jester and Gurth the Swineherd. Before the great Scottish writer has even completed his description of this forest lit with the departing beams of a sun already lying on the tree-tops, and of the curious garments worn by these two characters — characters surely lacking in "nobility", and whose appearance in the story at all is a violent offence against all the rules of* 'Classical Dignity" — already we find ourselves disposed, prophet ically as it were, to be affected by the words which they have yet to utter. And when at last they do speak, their least syllables are rich with infinite significance. Imagine the opening of this chapter, which itself opens the novel, rewritten, with the dialogue wwprepared by the description: the whole effect would be ruined.
Composers of genius, then, relate orchestral harmony to vocal melody in precisely the same manner as Walter Scott relates descrip tion to dialogue in Ivanhoe; the rest (for example, the learned M. Cherubini) tumble their harmony in pell-mell, just as M. 1'abbe Delille, in his poem de la Pitie, piles up description upon description. Cast your mind back for an instant, and remember his episodic characters — how pale and colourless they seem; and yet how brilli ant Paris found it all, in the year 1804. Since then, our sense of critical appreciation has advanced by leaps and bounds; so let us hope that soon we may make similar progress in musical apprecia tion, and that "harmony" in the German sense will go the same way as verses in the style Louis XV. Our authors in bygone ages, La Bruyere, Pascal, Duclos, Voltaire, never dreamed of describing nature, any more than it occurred to Pergolese or Buranello to use orchestral harmony. The poets of our own generation have recovered from this particular blindness, only to fall into an excess of the opposite character; and in the same way, music is all set to drown itself in harmony. Let us hope that we shall grow out of the senti mental prose of Madame de Stael, just as we have grown out of the passion for unbridled description so dear to the bard of les Jardins, and that we shall reach a stage when we shall be able to refrain from
TANCREDI 59
effusion over the touching beauties of nature, save when our hearts are themselves sufficiently cool and objective to observe them properly and to appreciate them.
Walter Scott is for ever interrupting and reinforcing his dialogue with description, at times even in a manner which is decidedly irri tating, as, for instance, when the entrancing little dumb girl, Fenella, in Peveril of the Peak, is trying to stop Julian leaving the castle of Holm-Peel in the Isle of Man. Here we have a clear case where the mind of the reader is exasperated by the descriptions, just as the ear of the average Italian listener is exhausted and irritated by German- style orchestration; nevertheless, when description is properly employed, it works on the mind, creating an emotional state in which it is admirably susceptible to the impact of the simplest dialogue; and it is indeed thanks to the art of such wonderful descriptive passages that Walter Scott found the courage to be simple, to abandon the rhetoric which Jean- Jacques and so many others had made fashion able in the novel, and, finally, to risk a kind of dialogue which was in very truth borrowed from nature.
Perhaps, as a result of this long digression, I may have succeeded in giving some notions of the respective positions which Pergolese, Mayer, Mozart and Rossini occupy upon the Mount Parnassus of music. In Pergolese's day, description of nature, whether grave or gay, was undreamed-of in any novel; Mozart was the Walter Scott of music, bringing to the use of description an exquisite sense of artistry, but occasionally — albeit very rarely indeed — laying slightly too much emphasis upon it. Mayer, Winter, Weigl, the musical counterparts of M. Pabbe Delille, fling in description by the cart load, compensating for its intrinsic lack of interest by its academic correctness (it being grammatically unimpeachable, and most subtle in its linguistic mechanics!). Rossini, finally, uses description in the manner which has the greatest popular appeal, with brilliant colour ing and a peculiar quality of picturesqueness in his lighting; unfail ingly he arrests the eye, but sometimes he tires it.
In la Gazza Ladra, for instance, one is for ever longing to silence the orchestra, the better to appreciate the singing. The effect is powerful and harsh, appealing only to the sensibility of the trained ear; where as the dilettanti would prefer more charm, more sweetness, more simple and lilting melody entrusted to the human voice.
60 LIFE OF ROSSINI
Rossini was very far from this failing when he composed the wonderful score of Tancredi; he seized unerringly upon that exact balance between richness and luxuriousness, by which beauty is made more beautiful still, and yet not concealed, not damaged, not over laid with useless ornament. Whenever the mind is over-dinned with noise, or else bored with an excess of simplicity, it should return to the entrancing music of Tancredi, and be refreshed.
The feature of this opera which sent Venice into such transports of delight was the originality of its style, and the entrancing quality of the songs, which were, if I may so express myself, "decked out" with the oddest, newest, most unexpected accompaniments, which per petually stung the ear into wakefulness, and added spice even to the most ordinary-looking of daily dishes; and yet, with all this, these accompaniments achieved their fascinating effect without ever threatening to encroach upon the voice. Fanno col canto conversa zione rispettosa,1 remarked one of the wittiest music-lovers in Venice, the celebrated Buratti (author of those most delicious satires, /' Uomo and VElefanteide).
"The first-act finale of Tancredi has its defects," I was told one evening in Brescia by Signor Pellico (a charming man, and the finest tragic poet in Italy, but now sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment in the fortress of Spielberg): "In particular, those uncouth and startling leaps, when the melody lurches from one note to the next!" "But," I replied, "are we never to be allowed to hear anything startling? If you want to make discoveries, you must occasionally allow your ships to venture into uncharted waters. If the 'uncouth' had been forbidden by law, how could Beethoven, with his wild impetuosity and his outlandish music, have been there to catch up the torch as it fell from the hands of the measured and noble Haydn?"
If, in Act I of Tancredi, Rossini still fails to draw fully upon all the resources of orchestral harmony in the luxuriant German style, he is completely the master of those charming phrases of shapely and entrancing melody in the style of Cimarosa, which, later, will be
1 They make respectful conversation with the melody ... i.e., the accompani ment never trespasses beyond the bounds of respect in relation to the voice, and always sinks into a polite hush whenever the singer appears to have something important to say; in German music, by contrast, the accompaniments are grossly insolent.
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encountered ever less frequently in each successive work. Mark especially, in the superb quintet from Act I, the phrase:
Dehl tu almen ..-,1
which Amenaida addresses in succession to her father, to Tancred and to Orbassano. In the same act, a respite from the strain of listen ing to orchestral harmony is provided by the unaccompanied quartet; both these numbers are masterly in their effect In the quartet, the part sung sotto voce by Orbassano is delicious; this fine melody in the bass seems to lead one ever onward towards unknown emotional adventures, so that, without ever understanding whither one is being guided, the journey itself becomes a pleasurable experience. At the very outset of the second act, there is a delightful phrase:
No; che il morir non e ... ;2
but this is soon forgotten, swept away by the entrancing duet: Ah! se de* mall miei ...,3
whose proud and chivalrous inspiration contrasts so magnificently with the music which has gone before.
In this fine section of the score, the predominant characteristic is the fiery spirit of war-like knight-errantry, shot through with the stirring, irresistible frenzy of the Middle Ages, which, in nobler minds at least, transformed the brutal fact of war and its accompany ing dangers, which we have degraded to a methodical and mathe matical nastiness*, into a thing of the spirit. This triumph of Rossini's art is not to be analysed in terms of any mere physical or technical devices which he selects and uses, successfully or otherwise; such secondary considerations scarcely concern us here. Mark rather the originality of what he chooses to depict. Tancred's part in the duet
Ah! se de' malt miei ..., which begins in a strain of profound, heroic melancholy:
1 Alas! You, at least ... 2 No; since dying is not ...
8 Ah! If from my misfortunes ...
4 Vide: la Tactique, by M. de Guibert Bayard invariably refused the supreme command.
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Nemico il del pro vai, Fin da prim' ami ognor.
Ah! son si misero ..-,1
ends upon a brilliant note of triumph, of courage which has learned to face a sea of troubles with stoical determination. Thus, after a brief moment of despondency, a hesitation due to human weakness and to human love, which is both natural and moving, Rossini bursts forth into a heroic vision of modem national idealism, in the best sense of the term — a conception which no Italian composer could have so much as dreamed of before the events of the Bridge of Arcola and the March to Lodi. These immortal names must have been among the earliest that Rossini heard in childhood; they date from 1796, when Rossini was five; and in that year, in Pesaro, he could have watched the immortal battalions marching through, fired with the quintessence of military ardour, sinewy, stripped bare of silks and silver, medals, orders and crosses, striding onward to Tolentino, to the conquest of that wealth of paintings, statues, and still greater works of art which, in later days, when our strength had been sapped by the lapping luxury of royalty, were wrested back from us at the stirring of a finger! Fired by that same lofty inspiration which Tancred experiences at the touch of the spur of national honour, should we not swear that one day we shall have vengeance, and seize our trophies again into our own hands?
In the course of this war-like duet, Rossini uses his trumpets with infinite skill, worthy of the most consummate master; he, by instinct and at the age of seventeen, had discovered secrets which others may scarcely learn, by theory or by practice, even after years of pains taking study.
The melodic period:
II vivo lampo ...2
which accompanies the instant when Tancred draws his sword, is, I believe, the finest thing that Rossini has ever written. It possesses every quality: nobility, truth and originality. I should like to advise all singers, even Madame Pasta, to be
1 I have found the heavens to be hostile, ever since my earliest youth ... alas! I am so wretched!
2 The vivid flash ...
TANCREDI 63
sparing in the use of roulades in these immeasurably brief instants of extreme passion, as, for instance, when Tancred exclaims:
Odiarla! o del non so ..-1
Any character who, in such moments of passionate intoxication, still finds time to be elegant — that is to say, still finds time to remem ber that other people exist, to calculate how he may stand in their opinion, and to court their approval — in my belief can boast of nothing but a most insensitive disposition. The truly passionate character, on such occasions, forgets all elegance save that which has become second nature to him. By contrast, when roulades are used to accompany the words :
Di quella spada ...,2
the effect is incomparable.
Allow me, by the way, to remark that our learned literary friends, who so fondly imagine that by studying Boileau they can grow into connoisseurs of Italian opera, have swom an oath of undying hatred towards all roulades, flourishes and ornaments in music. Their ideal is above all severity — stylistic asceticism ...
Non raggioniam di loro, ma guarda e passa**
The first dozen bars which Tancred sings when he is brought back in his triumphal chariot are delightful; they bring both freshness and respite. The chorus of the Knights who have gone to seek Tancred in the forest,
Regna il terror ...,4
is, in a different vein, almost as fine as the aria : il vivo lampo. . . . Here in my opinion, the combination of Italian melody with German-style orchestration touches perfection; it marks the point at which our present revolution, which is hurtling us headlong towards harmonic complexity, should be arrested.
The dynamic force which is urging this revolution forward lies in one very simple phenomenon, which is this: among the nations of the
1 Hate her? O heaven, I do not know ... 2 Of that sword ...
a Do not let us talk about them; cast a glance and pass on. (The line is spoken by Virgil to Dante, as they journey through the Inferno of the half-hearted.) 4 Terror reigns ...
64 LIFE OF ROSSINI
North, out of every score of charming young ladies who indulge in the luxury of music-lessons, nineteen learn to play the piano; one alone learns to sing, and consequently the nineteen others come in the end to believe that nothing can be beautiful unless it is difficult. In Italy, the Ideal of Beauty (in so far as music is concerned) is univers ally sought by way of the human voice.
I should grow infinitely tedious if I yielded to the temptation of setting down my impressions concerning every separate passage in Tancredi', or rather, not my impressions, but the impressions which were abroad in Naples, or in Florence, or in Brescia, or wherever I happened to see this particular opera; for no one has a deeper mis trust than I of personal impressions, which, even when they are sincere, are all the world to him who holds them, and supremely in different, if not downright absurd, to the next man, who happens not to share them. I implore the reader to believe me, when I state that throughout this book the personal pronoun / is simply a conven tional device, which might at any time be replaced by a different phrase, such as: It used to be said in Naples, among those who frequented the Marchese Berio . . . ; or else, One day, in the company of Signora Benzoni, Signor Peruchini, that most cultivated of Venetian music-lovers, whose very opinions are law, remarked that ... ; or else, This evening, amid the group which gathers in the theatre around Signor Antonini, the lawyer, I 'heard Signor Agguchi maintain that harmony in the German style ...; and M. le Comte Giraud agreed with hi?n; which opinion, however, Signor Gherardi, who is a personal friend of Rossini, proceeded to refute point by point. . . . The rare impressions scattered throughout this work which are wholly of a personal nature, are hemmed in with all manner of doubts and qualifications, which in deed reflect the attitude of the Author himself; and besides, the Author here confesses that, in composing this Life of Rossini, he has unashamedly borrowed his judgments concerning this great man and his works from all manner of sources, and amongst others, from countless German and Italian periodicals.
In this way, at Bologna, in the box of Signora Z***, I recorded the following opinion from my friend Gherardi: In Tancredi, the most striking feature is the youthfulness of the music. Elsewhere, audacity is one of the most remarkable characteristics of Rossini's compositions, as indeed it is of his personal character. But in Tancredi, this audacity,
TANCREDI 65
which thrills and astounds me in la Gazza ladra, or in il Barbiere, is missing. There is nothing but purity and simplicity in every note; not an atom of embellishment, just genius in all its primitive innocence; genius which, if I may be permitted the expression, is still virginal I adore everything in Tancredi, even a curiously archaic suggestion which I detect here and there in the melodic line of some of the songs; they seem to retain something of the form which was familiar to Paesiello and to Cimarosa — those long, shapely phrases which some how manage to elude us only too easily, enchanting the imagination ... and escaping, ensnaring the soul ... and vanishing! In short, I love Tancredi as I love Tasso's Rinaldo, for both betray the still-virginal sensibility of a man of genius.
Rossini, whose audacious insult to the Venetian public with that famous obbligato upon the tin reflectors was still very recent, was obviously in no mood now to retreat timidly among the melodic and harmonic platitudes which disfigured the scores of the majority of his rivals. I cannot detect in Tancredi, at least in performance, one single specimen of those harmonic cliches which form, as it were, the stock- in-trade of the average composer of the German school, and which, in later years, Rossini employed only too frequently in his German- style operas, Mose, Otello, la Gazza ladra, Ermione, etc. For in Naples, when such men as Zingarelli and Paesiello (great men once, but now in their dotage, and a prey to pedantry and jealousy) accused him of ignorance, Rossini reacted by seeking the approval of the protagonists of the ascetic style. Now, the phrase ascetic style, when it is employed by artistic charlatans, and echoed and repeated parrot-fashion, mechanically, by woolly-minded enthusiasts, turns out almost invariably to mean a style stuffed with harmonic plati tudes; which style only too often deceives the uninitiated, amongst whom, in Milan in 1817, I must count myself, having been utterly hoodwinked and taken in by Soliva's opera la Testa diBronzo*.
I could easily compose twenty lines of commentary upon every one of the arias or ensembles of Tancredi. Reflexions of this nature, when they are delivered seated at the piano, have their value; for, by analysing impressions while they are still fresh in the mind, the analysis may serve to intensify the sensation experienced, and, more especially, may help to give it some permanence, and to establish it more definitely in the world of memory. But these same reflections,
66 LIFE OF ROSSINI
transplanted into a book, and delivered far away from any piano, can soon grow intolerably boring. And yet I need to be threatened with that terrible word boredom, with all its tragic implications, before I can constrain myself to curtail my enthusiasm for TancredL
It may well be imagined that, in a land such as Venice, Rossini's glory as a composer was easily equalled by his triumphs as a man. It was not long before la Marcolini, a delightful cantatrice buffa, and, at the same time, a woman in the fullest flower of her youth and talent, swept him away from the great ladies who had been his first protectresses. The gossips whispered of base ingratitude; and there were many tears shed. Moreover, there is an anecdote — somewhat intricate, but exceedingly amusing — relating to this adventure, which provides a beautiful illustration of Rossini's character, his audacity, his gaiety, and above all his ability to make quick decisions; but, to tell the truth, it is an anecdote which I dare not set down in print. To baffle the curious, I might change names until they were utterly un recognizable; yet the circumstances of the tale are so extraordinary that there is not a man or woman in all Italy who could fail to pick out the real actors; so we must wait a year or two. Incidentally, it is said that la Marcolini, not to be outdone by Rossini, made him the sacrifice of prince Lucien Bonaparte.
And indeed, it was for la Marcolini, for her ravishing contralto voice and for her magnificent gifts as a comic actress, that Rossini composed the superb comic role of the Italian Girl in Algiers, which we poor northerners have beheld so nobly distorted. There is a certain actress (yet, in deference to her beauty, she shall be nameless) who transforms this young creature with her southern temperament, this joyous, irresponsible, gay, passionate young woman, who, let it be admitted, has but the most fleeting regard for her reputation, into a solid, stolid Yorkshire miss, whose most deep-seated care, in every situation, is to merit the approbation of all the old wives in the parish, failing whose good opinion, she must be for ever left high and dry without a husband. Is there no refuge, where a man may seek asylum from the furious pursuit of virtue? Do I patronize the opera buffa in order to enjoy the noble prospect,1 the monumental delinea tion of female perfection? I suppose I should be held guilty of 1 In English in the original (Trans.)
TANCREDI 67
"shocking the tone of our serious-minded generation", or of "offer ing flagrant insults to the laws of decency" etc., etc., if I dared suggest that, the more our manners and morals grow dingy, strait-laced and hypocritical, the better claim we have to some compensating debauch of frivolity in our entertainments!
H,
CHAPTER III Ultaliana in Algeri
_OWEVER, let us rather consider Vltaliana, not as it was seen in Paris (thanks to the machinations of certain very clever persons*, who were stubbornly set on poisoning whatever delight we might have been prepared to take in Rossini), but as it was given in Italy, where its appearance immediately lifted its young composer straight into the front rank among maestri.
There is more permanence, more persistence and solidity in the sheen of the rainbow than in the emotions which music is able to awaken in the human soul; music itself has no stable element of reality; and since its enchantment stems wholly from the imagina tion, it needs no more than some slight, even involuntary, associa tion of contaminating ideas to stifle the success of a masterpiece. This was the fate ofFItaliana in Paris ; and it has been spoiled to such an extent, that it can never hope now to inspire unreserved delight in that city. Before the audience so much as sets foot in the theatre, it is intolerably prejudiced, unshakably persuaded beforehand that it is doomed to endure an evening of grim mediocrity. A prejudice of this nature would necessarily be fatal to the finest of music in any country in the world; judge then of its effect in the heart of a nation where a man thinks it neither odd nor ignorant to enquire of his neighbour: Pray, Sir ...am I amused?
The overture ofTItaliana is charming, but it is too frivolous; and that, indeed, is a great fault!
The introduction is admirable; it is a true and profound portrait of the sorrows of a woman abandoned. The aria which underlines this mood,
II mio sposo nonpiii m'ama ...*/
is delightful, and the sorrow is sorrow without a hint of tragedy. However, before we go any further, let us stop an instant and con-
1 My husband no longer loves me ...
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI 69
sider; for these few words imply, without any qualification, perfection in the style of the opera buff a. No other living composer has earned this praise; and even Rossini was soon to cease to covet it. When he composed Vltaliana in Algeri, he was in the full flower of his youth and genius; he was not afraid to repeat himself; he felt no urge to create powerful music; his home was the delightful province of Venetia, the gayest land in all Italy, if not in all the world, and assuredly the least tainted with pedantry. The glittering reflection of the Venetian character falls across the texture of Venetian music;1 and musical Venice, rating lightness of heart above depth of passion, looks first and foremost for songs which entrance the ear. In Vltaliana, the prayers of the people of Venice were abundantly granted; no race did ever witness an entertainment better suited to its own character; and, of all the operas which were ever composed, none was more truly destined to be the joy and delight of Venice.
Thus it came about that, travelling through the province of Venetia in the year 1817, 1 found ritaliana being performed simul taneously in Brescia, in Verona, in Venice itself, in Vicenza and in Treviso.
It must be confessed that, in not a few of these towns, (in Vicenza, for example), the music was performed by singers who would have been honourably flattered by comparison with the least distinguished among our own; but for all that, there was a thrill, a verve, a brio in their performance, a sweeping excitement over all, the like of which is not encountered in any opera-house beneath our cold and reason able skies. I used to observe how, from the very opening of the first act, at the earliest, slightest burst of applause, a kind of musical frenzy would take hold of orchestra and audience alike, sweeping one and all away in waves of uncontrollable delight. I too partici pated in this strange delirium, which could fire a blaze of joy in a third-rate theatre where the highest attainment was unqualified mediocrity. How it came about, I cannot explain. Yet this enchanting
1 Schiller, IB a novel entitled der Geisterseher: aus den Papier en des Graf en von p ..., gives us a sketch of the Venetian character of unrivalled charm and brilliance. Here is a problem worthy of the most serious philosophic enquiry: the gayest nation in Europe, the happiest, the least constrained, is that whose written constitution is the most abominable! (Vide: rHistoire de Venise, by M. para: Constitutions of the State Inquisition.) The gloomiest city in the world is un doubtedly Boston — precisely that where the political state is all but perfect. Could it be that Religion is the key to the enigma?
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opera held no hint to evoke the reality or the sadness of life; and most assuredly there was not in all the audience a single head which held a notion of submitting sensual delight to the test of critical judgment. The singing, the decor, the liveliness of the orchestra, the perpetual improvising of the actors — there was nothing in all this to chain or fetter the spectator's imagination, which, at the slightest touch of encouragement from within, could start away into a world far removed from our own, and gay as our world is not. But all this has to be witnessed in the flesh, and acquires nothing in the telling save an ill-seeming flatness.
On these occasions, the music would seem to transport us bodily into its most frenzied realms of fantasy. The performers, encouraged and inspired by the uncontrolled outbursts of applause and by the cheering of the audience, would dare feats of virtuosity which, I am certain, they would never have dreamed of attempting at the next performance. I have heard that exquisite buffo, Paccini, who used to play messer Taddeo at the teatro San-Benedetto in Venice, confess privately at the end of an evening of wild success and wilder frenzy, that, compared with such a performance, the most exquisite banquet, the sweetest delights of an excursion by gondola, all the most bril liant, the gayest experiences in the world, were as nothing, as dust in the mouth!
Following the plaintive song of poor Elvira, abandoned by the Bey, I know nothing compounded of more brilliance and less cruelty, nothing more expressive and (in Italy) more natural than Mustafa's song:
Car a, rrfhai rotto il timpano ....1
To the life, this is a portrait of a lover tired of his mistress; and yet it is all without malice, and self-respect is spared the indignity of humiliation.
Observe that here, as indeed everywhere, I am concerned with the music, never with the words, which, to tell the truth, I do not know. It is my invariable habit to rewrite the words of any opera for my own satisfaction. I take the plot which the librettist has invented, and I require further from him one word, and one only, to give me the key to the mood of the scene. For example, I take Mustafa to be a man
1 My dear, you've broken my ear-drums ...
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI 71
who is bored with his mistress and his own greatness, and yet, being a sovereign, not devoid of vanity. Now, it is not improbable that, if I were to follow the dialogue as a whole, this general impression would be ruined. So what is the remedy? Ideally, of course, the answer would be to have had Voltaire or Beaumarchais compose the libretto', in which case it would be as delightful as the music, and never a breath of disenchantment in the reading of it! But happily (since Voltaires are rare in our imperfect world), the delightful art which is our present study can well continue without the services of a great poet ... provided always that one avoids the sinful indiscretion of reading the libretto. At Vicenza, I observed that, on the first night, it was customary to skim through it just sufficiently to gain some notion of the plot, glancing, as each new episode opened, at the first line, just so as to appreciate the emotion, or the shade of emotion, which the music was supposed to suggest. But not once, during all the forty performances which came after, did it occur to one single member of the audience to open that slim little volume with its gilt- paper binding.
Still more apprehensive of the disagreeable impression which might be gleaned from the libretto, Signora B***, in Venice, used to refuse to allow anybody at all to bring it into her box, even at the premiere. She used to get someone to prepare her a summary of the plot, some forty lines in all; and then, during the performance, she would be informed, in four or five words, of the theme of each aria, duet or ensemble, which had previously been numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 ... etc., as each item was introduced in the performance; for instance, simply: Ser Taddeo is jealous; Lindoro is passionately in love; Isabella is flirting with the Bey, etc. — this condensed summary being followed by the first line of the aria or duet which happened to be in question. I observed that everyone approved of this procedure, and thought it most suitable. In such a fashion should all libretti be printed for those — to tell the truth, I hardly know how to find an epithet which does not merely appear conceited! — for those who appreciate music as music is appreciated in Venice.
The cavatina sung by Lindoro, the favoured lover in ritaliana in Algeri,
Languir per una bella ...j1 • * To languish for a beautiful woman ...
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is perfect in its simple originality; the effect is powerful while the music remains uncomplicated. This cavatina is one of the finest things that Rossini has ever composed for a pure tenor voice. I shall never forget the impression which Davide, the greatest, or rather the only true tenor of our generation, produced in his rendering of the part. It was one of the noblest triumphs of the art of music. The audience, carried away by the provocative gracefulness of this elegant, pure and full-toned voice, grew mindless of all else in the world. The great advantage of this cavatina is that it is not too richly imbued with passion; it is not over-dramatic. We are still in the opening scenes; undistracted by the more or less intricate complexities of the plot, we can surrender whole-heartedly to the tide of delight which sweeps over us. It is the most physical music that I know.
This delicious instant is renewed a moment later; but, of necessity, even though the pleasure set before us for our delectation be not a wit inferior in quality, its effect will be less intense. The duet between Lindoro and Mustafa,
Se inclinassi aprender moglie ...,1
is as charming as the cavatina, but already there is a hint of some thing new, a suggestion of something more serious, more dramatic. Lindoro protests against having to accept the wife whom the Bey is attempting to thrust upon him. Our grave and weighty critics in the Journal des Debats have given it as their considered opinion that the whole plot from beginning to end is an insult to the rational faculties of man — not realizing, poor fools that they are, that if it were other wise, it would be totally unsuited to this type of music, which is indeed but un-reason organized and perfected.2 If these, our worthy men of letters, insist upon right reason and deep passion, let them turn to Mozart. In genuine opera buffa, passion is permitted to intrude only now and again; its function, as it were, is to give us respite from too much hilarity; and at such moments, let me add in passing, a skilful portrait of one of the tenderer emotions becomes well-nigh irresistible, combining as it must the charm of the un expected and the fascination of contrast. For it is a characteristic of good opera, that no passion can leave us with a mere half-impression;
1 If you should feel inclined to take a wife ...
2 Cf. Metastasio, who aims to create a similar impression in the serious drama. Vide: Vies de Haydn, de Mozart et de Metastase, p. 374.
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI 73
and so, if the outpouring of emotion were uninterrupted, it would preoccupy us to the point of exhaustion — and then, farewell for ever to the extravagant delights of the opera buffa. Mustafa's reply to Lindoro,
Son due stelle .../
in which he insists that the woman he is to love should have exquisite eyes, is a riot of laughter. Lindoro's reflection:
D'ogniparte io qui m'inciampo ...,2
is the finest music every written; no other composer could have breathed such freshness into his melody. However, Mustafa's rejoinder,
Caro amico, non c'e scamp o ...,3
shews the first, faintest trace of Rossini's most serious musical defect. The part which Mustafa has to sing is scored for clarinet ; it achieves nothing more than a broken succession of chords, contrived solely to bring out the glittering splendour of the wonderful cantilena held by the tenor. Cimarosa understood the art of making this type of second-voice delightful to listen to, if by any remote chance the listener's attention should so far wander as to give a moment's thought to it. But in this instance, when at last, after the fourth or fifth performance, the poor listener remembers to be curious about the second-voice (Mustafa), he is confronted by the most banal scoring imaginable — orchestral scoring — and his delight, in conse quence, withers. As I record this defect in Rossini's music, my regret is as poignant as that which I might feel if I were to observe, upon the fair features of a girl of eighteen, that tiniest fold in the skin beside the eye, which, ten years from now, will grow into an anxious furrow.
In this duet, Rossini betrays the first symptoms of that fatal com plaint (whether of idleness or self-mistrust) which eventually was to drive him to write music for the concert-platform instead of music for the drama.
Isabella's aria
1 (Her eyes are) two stars ...
2 I here meet with, people from all parts of the world ... 8 My dear friend, there's no way out ...
LR D
74 LIFE OF ROSSINI
Cruda sorte! amor tiranno ...^
is flat and uninspired; by contrast, however, no praise is too super lative for the famous duet
Ai capricd della sorte ...?
The music of this passage seems to be framed in a pattern of grace and elegance which is without parallel in Cimarosa; and it is this simple, noble gracefulness which makes Rossini the composer par excellence for a French audience. This particular and original quality, which is something quite new in the history of music, springs perhaps from the fact that there is less passion in this duet than there would have been if Cimarosa had been the composer. The transition passage
MesserTaddeo ...
Rideilbabbeo ...,3
is a thing of unqualified delight!
Following hard upon such a storm of extravagance and absurdity, it was essential to allow the audience some respite; and in this, the libretto is well-devised, affording as it does two whole scenes of reci tative for us to wipe away the tears which wild tempests of laughter had brought to our eyes.
There is likewise a wonderful moment of respite in the great scene where the Bey Mustafa welcomes Isabella; it is provided by the chorus singing
Oh! che rara belta!*
It was a stroke of genius to include a fleeting instant of church-music in an opera buffa; but Rossini, terrified of boring his audience, made it exceedingly short. The cantilena
Maltrattata dalla sorte ...,5
is a masterpiece of coquetry; to the best of my belief, this was the first time that coquetry had ever been depicted on the Italian stage in its true colours. Cimarosa has a tendency to make his coquettes speak with a trace of the accent of true love, and that, perhaps, is the
1 O cruel fate! Tyrannous love ... 2 To the caprices of fate ...
8 "Messer Taddeo ...", laughs the simpleton ...
4 Oh! What rare beauty! 6 Hi-treated by fate ...
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI 75
only weakness of which that great composer may be held guilty in all his skilled portrait of the feminine heart. Isabella's aria had to contain, at one and the same time, enough of love to deceive her unhappy victim, and enough of mockery to amuse the audience.
The quartet with Taddeo, in the finale of the first act, is excellent. Mark particularly the comic thrust:
Ah! chi sa mat, TaddeoT-
Here we have indeed an exquisite demonstration of the achievement of the opera buffa, the perfection of comedy realized through the medium of music — and Rossini sweeps his paint on to his canvas with strokes as broad as can be imagined!
And when, at that very instant, Lindoro appears, together with the poor, deserted woman and her companion, never was there a song of greater delicacy and contrasting freshness than:
Pria di divider ci da vof, signore ... !2
The contrast is admirable, and the total effect, with its movement and its sweeping enchantment, one which Mozart and Cimarosa might well have envied!
It is my belief that the greatest fools in Christendom may legiti mately grudge our worthy literary critics the crass ineptitudes which they have perpetrated with regard to the latter part of this finale \ Admittedly (and why deny it?) the Bey does say:
Come scoppio di cannone La mia testa fa bumbum .
and, further, Taddeo does express himself in the words:
Sono come una cornacchia Che spennatafa era, crd ....4
But did these miserable, benighted creatures never consider that, even if Marmontel or M. Etienne had written, expressly for this finale, ten or a dozen lines each, of unsurpassed exquisiteness, deM-
1 Ah! Taddeo, who ever knows? 2 Before we part from you, my lord ... 8 Like the explosion of a cannon, my head goes boom! boom! 4 / am like a rook which has lost its feathers and goes caw ! caw ! To have criticized the opera on the evidence of these lines reveals a level of intelligence in the critic equal to that betrayed by the librettist!
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cacy and charm, this contribution in itself would have done nothing to help the music, which, in all probability, would have been no worthier than some tinny tune by Dalayrac or Mondonville? It is as though a critic of Raphael's Transfiguration were to be at pains to applaud, above all else, the care which the artist took to paint his pictures on the very finest, first-quality Dutch canvas !
In Venice, where ibis finale was sung by Paccini, Galli and Madame Marcolini, the audience, by the end, were struggling and gasping for breath, and wiping the tears from their eyes.
And the impression created, moreover, is precisely that which persons of discerning taste expect from an opera buffa; the whole effect is extremely powerful; therefore the work is a masterpiece. This is a plain, straightforward argument, and neither in Venice nor in Vicenza was one obliged to stoop to hair-splitting quibbles over its details; through the gales of laughter, the audience rose unani mously to its feet and cheered: Sublime! Divine!
The outstanding characteristic of this wonderful work is its speed, its extreme economy and its lack of turgidity. It is just not possible to say more with such limited vocabulary — but how on earth are you to start explaining this to fools who understand nothing but the libretto*! Rousseau undertook to supply the answer. At one point in his works, we find the following phrase, written in Italian: Zanetto, lascia le dome, e studia la matematica!1
ACT TWO
I know nothing more exciting than the entry of Taddeo in the second act:
Ah! signor Mustafa!*
The librettist shows some skill at this point; a powerful situation is created, sketched in a few words, and set out with great clarity and superb comic effect. It would be hard to discover a scene of greater liveliness and gaiety than the aria and pantomime of
Viva il gran Kaimakan!*
1 Poor Jack! Forget about women and study mathematics! (Les Confessions).
2 Ah! My lord Mustafa! 3 Long live the great Kaimakan!
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI 77
However, if this effect is to succeed, it requires the essential courage to exploit the pantomime — and this is precisely what was not done in Paris! The scene could hardly be less offensive, but ... dignity, dignity at all costs ! The end of the aria
Qua bisognafar il conto ...1
is worthy of Cimarosa in his most perfect mood of farcical inventive ness, and yet the style is utterly different— more wit and less passion. I enjoin upon you a most careful study, both of the cantilena itself, and of the accompaniment, in the passage where the wretched Taddeo, reduced to the dire extremity of making a choice between impalement and the sacrifice of his love for Isabella, proceeds to reason out the pros and cons. The setting of the words
Se ricuso ... ilpalo e pronto, E se accetto ... e mio do v ere Diportargli il candeliere*; Kaimakan, signore, io restof*
is admirable. An achievement of this character is the prerogative of genius alone; study, labour and conscientious application to duty, far from providing inspiration, merely stunt and baulk the com poser's imagination; this is one of those triumphs undreamed-of in the German school!
There was only one method by which an aria of such stupendous gaiety could fittingly be brought to a close; the rule, in fact, could have been found in any arspoetica, for the dullest and most banal of composers to read and obey: what is required is a sudden lapse into a vein of sadness. But here is the problem: how is the composer to create an atmosphere of profound sadness, and at the same time maintain his tone of complete simplicity, and all this — prime neces sity of all — without losing speedl Rossini found the answer with the sublime (and apparently elementary) phrase:
Ah Taddeo! quanf era meglio Che tu andassi infondo al mar!z
1 Now is the time to tot up the account ...
2 If I refuse, the impaling-stake is ready; and if I accept, it is my duty to bear him the candlestick; my lord Kaimakan, I accept!
3 Ah Taddeo ! How much better it would have been if you had gone to the bottom of the sea!
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No one who has ever been at Court can miss the point of these artificial congratulations showered with studied politeness upon one to whom official advancement has brought nothing but despair; the situation is a most eloquent portrait of the absurdest dilemmas which arise in that strange society. The impression which the scene creates is so moving that there are days when one pities Taddeo, for all the absurdity of his role as the rejected lover.
Following upon an aria and a chorus so rich in pure comedy, a longish period of respite was essential, and this is provided with great ingenuity by the librettist.
Isabella's ana:
Per lui che adoro ..-,1
was intended once again to depict a nuance of coquetry; but on this occasion, Rossini was less successful than in the duet from Act I. Isabella's roulades, elegant and repetitive, produce no response in the listener's imagination save one of stony indifference. The primary musical material is so poor that no one can fail to be aware that all this embroidery is strewn upon it merely in order to disguise its inherent worthlessness, rather than to enrich its splendour and enhance the magnificence of its effect. However, Rossini fully recaptures his inspiration in the quintet
Tipresento di mia mono Ser Taddeo Kaimakan . . ..2
This passage is perhaps the crowning achievement of the whole opera. Every note of the music is pre-eminently dramatic. Nothing could be more provocatively gay, nor, at the same time, truer to nature, than Isabella's thrust:
// tuo muso efatto apposta ...;3 nothing could be more coquettish, more deceitful, than the line :
Aggradisco, o mio signore ....4 Poor Mustafa with Ms importunate sneezing succeeded in moving
1 For the sake of Mm whom I adore ...
2 I present to you from my hand, Ser Taddeo, Kalmakan ... 8 Your snout was made on purpose ...
4 I accept, O my lord ...
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI 79
even the Parisian audiences to laughter. The stubborn obstinacy of a fool set on his high horse is admirably characterized in the lines:
CKei starnutifin che scoppta, Non mi movo via di qua!'1
and then, just as one is about to feel the first warnings that too much laughter and unmitigated farce might in the end become boring, Rossini gives us the delightful phrase :
Di due sciocchi uniti insieme ...,2
to bring rest and refreshment to the listener's exhausted mind. But, at the very end, poor Mustafa's song,
Tupur miprende a gioco ...,3
is weak and platitudinous, the music consisting of nothing but dull, broken sequences scored for clarinet; this is school-boy stuff, and written by an idle pupil at that!
However, to restore the balance, the trio round the mysterious word papataci is both brilliant and powerful; the contrast between the tenor part of Lindoro and the basso-profundo of Mustafa:
Che vuol poi significar?
...A color che mainon sanno ...,4
is a pure delight to listen to — and moreover, provides a perfect instance of a fine operatic effect which is completely independent of the libretto, and which, in consequence, must be completely invisible to those who insist upon approaching vocal music exclusively through the' medium of the words. The end of the trio:
FrdL gramori e le bellezze ...,5
is a triumph of merriment and verve; yet, in the middle of this un paralleled deluge of farce and comedy, there intrudes one instant of
1 He can sneeze till he bursts, I'm not moving from here!
2 Of two fools united together ... 8 You too are playing the fool with me ...
4 What do you want it to mean then ...? ... to those who never know ...
5 Amidst loves and beauties ...
80 LIFE OF ROSSINI
nobility, of delicacy, almost of tenderness, which affords the most brilliant of contrasts :
Se mat torno a mieipaesi ...,1
The scene of the oath-taking is, if anything, finer still; in the Parisian production, it was cut out altogether, and one would really like to know why! Was it envy? Or is the reason to be sought in a principle enunciated on one occasion by one of the directors of the Theatre Louvois, in course of a conversation with certain dilettanti:
I would have it clearly understood, gentlemen, that our theatre is not a fair-ground show-booth, to be used for the antics of clowns and jugglers!
I decline to proceed with the discussion of this insignificant mystery; if there exist people who cannot understand how to get their true money's-worth of entertainment, so much the worse for them. All the same, these identical people are never short of a fine phrase to eulogize the superior excellence of the theatre which, every evening, enjoys the privilege of opening its doors to them. In the whole of Italy, they assure each other fervently, you would never find anything comparable to this! Who am /, to spoil their beatitude? It is so naive, so innocent! It happened on one occasion that I found myself at table, confronted by a straggly bunch or two of mean, green and sourish grapes, served up ceremoniously at dessert in the dining-hall of a noble castle near Edinburgh. What was the point in seeming ungrateful? It would surely have betrayed nothing but the grossest ill-breeding on my part, to have disillusioned the wealthy epicure who was my host, and who, at huge expense, had introduced these grapes into his enormous hot-houses. The worthy individual had never known the great grapes of Fontainebleau, the famous chas- selas; and his powers of intellect had needed to be far more developed than is usually befitting to millionaire hot-house-owners before he could have grasped the purely abstract notion that, in lands where the vine grows freely in the open air, there may be grapes which are better and tastier than those which are cultivated with such trouble and expense in artificial forcing-houses. Had I spoken my mind, I should have seemed just as absurd as some eccentric gardener returned from a far country with his head all stuffed with new 1 If ever I should come home again to my own land ...
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI 81
methods of gardening; he propounds the schemes — but there is no one but himself to answer for their excellence!
The extreme docility of the audiences who patronize the Theatre Louvois, and who have not the necessary minimum of moral courage to demand their Rossini ww-mutilated, is the more exemplary, in that there exists surely somewhere an official statute expressly forbidding all cuts in any work performed in the Royal Theatres. And in any case, statutes or no statutes, it is to be conceived that an artist of the stature and reputation of Rossini, who, by general admission, is a man of some considerable talent, may claim the right to see his works performed at least once as they were written, instead of chopped up into unrecognizable little bits and pieces! But in that case, what would happen to our worthy friend the "arranger", his office and his valuable privileges? Let us leave this amenable public to its self- congratulatory smirks and its good manners, still preening itself over its much-vaunted right (which, imperceptibly, has been taken away from it) to whistle long and loud whenever it disapproves, for in all conscience, it shows little enough discretion in the exercise of its right to applaudl Yesterday (June 1823), I watched four French actresses performing together in an Italian opera, le Nozze di Figaro. What a triumph, what a flattering instant of glory of our National Honour \ National Honour did indeed applaud wildly, voicing the enthusiasm of its manifold delights — amongst which, surely, the pleasure of variety must rank extremely high, since every one of the four good ladies had sung sharp, each in her own style and indi vidual manner! But these are mere peccadilloes, of which our liberal press dare not take cognizance, for fear of jeopardizing its popularity!
Genius, in the Italiana in Algeri, has its final fling with a magni ficent trio — which was deemed to be "too frivolous" for the taste of the Parisian audiences. The final aria is two things at once; firstly, it is a tour deforce, to the eternal glory of Signora Marcolini— where else would you hope to find a prfma-donna with enough strength in