The Life of Rossini

He finished his trio, got up, dressed, sent the two pieces to the theatrical copyist, and went out to breakfast.

This anecdote is often told in illustration of Rossini’s laziness, as if a really active man would have got out of bed to pick up the fallen duet rather than set to work, lazily, to compose a new one.

Many volumes might be written on this question. It will be sufficient, however, to point out that activity is mere liveliness of the body, as liveliness is activity of the mind. So laziness is dulness of the body, dulness laziness of the mind. Rossini had a lively mind in a lazy body. He could not have walked a thousand miles in a thousand hours; but he wrote the “Barber of Seville” in thirteen days.

CHAPTER VII

ROSSINI’S REFORMS IN WRITING FOR THE VOICE

ROSSINI encountered no serious obstacles in his career. He was never crossed in love like Beethoven – indeed, in his numerous affairs of the heart, he seems always to have been met half way; nor did his works ever remain unappreciated for more than about twenty-four hours at a time.

He was never lamentably poor, like Schubert; for though in the earlier part of his career he was badly paid, he could always earn twenty or thirty pounds, the price of an opera, by working for two or three weeks.

To tell the truth, he seems never to have been depressed or elevated by the aspirations of Mozart; and he had (to use a favourite word of his) the same “facility” in succeeding that he invariably manifested in producing.

He attacked no subject that he did not make something of. If, as occasionally happened, an opera of his fell to the ground, he literally picked up the pieces and turned the best of them to account in building up and adorning some new work. This great artist and practical philosopher had already, as we know, written a “Cyrus in Babylon” for Ferrara, when he was called upon to produce an “Aurelian in Palmyra” at Milan.

“Ciro in Babilonia,” though it contained some very beautiful pieces, had not, as a whole, been particularly successful; and Rossini probably thought that in its oratorio form it was not likely to be repeated. At all events, he extracted from it a magnificent chorus for his “Aureliano;” to be thence transplanted in another shape – when “Aureliano” in its turn had failed – to the “Barber of Seville.” He also wrote for “Aureliano” an admirable overture, which a year afterwards was taken to Naples to serve as introduction to “Elisabetta,” and the year after that (“Elisabetta” having perished) to Rome, where it got prefixed to the immortal “Barber” – from whom may it never be separated!

Beethoven, for one opera, composed three overtures. Rossini made one overture serve for three operas; and it is remarkable that of these, two were serious, the third eminently comic.

Rossini’s life, as has just been observed, presents no dramatic interest. Such interest as it does possess belongs entirely to the composer’s artistic career, and consists in the reforms that he introduced into operatic art.

After “Tancredi,” in which we notice Rossini’s first innovations in opera seria, and “L’Italiana in Algeri,” which holds a corresponding place in the history of his comic operas, came “Aureliano in Palmira,” which marks another step in advance, not, as in the two previous instances, by reason of its success, but through failure.

In “Aureliano,” Rossini had written a part for the celebrated sopranist, Velluti (“non vir sed veluti”). Rossini did not like Velluti’s singing, and Velluti did not like Rossini’s music; or, at least, did not like the composer’s objecting to his music being so disfigured under the pretext of embellishment as to be rendered absolutely unrecognisable.

The result of this disagreement was that “Aureliano” was not played after the first night, and that Rossini worked no more for sopranists. “Velluti,” the last of his order, went on singing for a dozen years afterwards, and Rossini from that time wrote his own ornaments for the singers, and so elaborately, that with the best will they were not likely to add much of their own.

We hear a great deal of the decay of singing as an art; but that art was thought so much of when Rossini began to write that more important things – dramatic propriety and music itself – were sacrificed to it. What would Italian singers of the year 1813 have thought of “William Tell?” and how would their highly-decorative style have suited that simple, energetic, thoroughly dramatic music? The development of Rossini’s dramatic faculty was, no doubt, delayed by his having often to write for singers so accomplished, that they could think of nothing but the exhibition of their own voice.

In spite of the praise lavished by contemporary writers on the vocalists of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, it can be shown by the very terms in which the praise is sounded that these artists possessed a most undesirable talent, or, at least, exhibited their talent in a most undesirable way.

In the present day, many singers who have come before the public with considerable success, are said never to have studied singing systematically at all. They have learned under a skilful professor so many parts – as amateur pianists learn particular pieces, without attempting to master the whole art of pianoforte playing.

The great singers of the eighteenth century acquired their facility of execution, which was what chiefly distinguished them, by a very different method. Far from studying parts, they sometimes did not even learn airs. To take an oft-quoted case, in which the extreme of the system seems to have been reached, Caffarelli was kept practising scales and a few exercises for five years; after which his master, the celebrated Porpora, is reported to have said to him, —

“Now go, Caffarelli; you have no more to learn! You are the first singer in the world.”

Yet, with all respect to Porpora, what, after such meagre, mechanical instruction as this, would Caffarelli have been able to make of a great dramatic part? What would a vocalist, taught as Caffarelli had been taught, make in the present day of the part of Arnold in “Guillaume Tell,” or of Raoul in “Les Huguenots”?

Meyerbeer would certainly not have allowed such a singer to take the part of Vasco di Gama in “L’Africaine,” which he reserved (in Germany) for Wachtel – by no means a Caffarelli!

Rossini would have quarrelled with Caffarelli, as he did with Velluti, and would have told him not to overload his music with absurd embellishments.

Stendhal, who frequently takes the parts of the singers, sopranists and all, against Rossini, for whose music he nevertheless professes unbounded admiration, puts to himself this suggestive question, —

“If Rossini, in 1814, had found a greater number of good singers, could he have thought of the revolution he has brought about, would he have introduced the system of writing everything down?”

“His self-love,” he replies, “would perhaps have suggested it, but that of the singers would vigorously have opposed it. Look, in our own day, at Velluti, who refuses to sing his music.”

And, therefore, Stendhal adds, that if called upon to choose between the two systems, he should decide in favour of the ancient system somewhat modernised.

“I would not have all the ornaments written down, but I would have the liberty of the singer restrained. It is not right that Velluti should sing the cavatina of ‘Aureliano’ so that the author can scarcely recognise it himself. In that case it is Velluti who is really the author of the airs he sings, and it is better to keep two such different arts separate.”

These remarks occur in Stendhal’s “Vie de Rossini,” page 263 of the 1864 edition (chapter XXXI. – Rossini se répète-t-il plus qu’un autre?); but they belong to the Abbé Carpani, on whose “Rossiniane” (as already mentioned) Stendhal’s “Vie de Rossini” is founded. Beyle, calling himself Stendhal, took all his biographical facts, most of his critical opinions, from Carpani, and added a number of those ingenious remarks on love, Walter Scott’s novels, temperaments in the North and in the South of Europe, the points of difference between French, English, and Italian society, &c., which, together with the inevitable, and, at first, rather striking appeals to the reader to throw the book on one side if he does not feel quite capable of appreciating it, are common to all the works of Stendhal – a most original writer, in spite of his curious plagiarisms in connection with music. Beyle had previously borrowed the same Carpani’s “Haydine,” which he attributed to “Bombet.” In thus plundering Carpani to enrich Bombet and Stendhal, Beyle has caused much needless confusion, especially in those passages where he speaks in the first person. Thus “Stendhal” represents himself as well acquainted with Rossini, – who though he constantly met Carpani in 1822, at Vienna, knew nothing of “Stendhal.”

However, it is Carpani who raises the question whether Velluti ought to be sacrificed to Rossini, or Rossini to Velluti; and his views on the subject as an Italian connoisseur of the year 1823, and an enthusiastic admirer of Rossini’s music, are certainly valuable.

The system – astonishing system! – of writing airs precisely as they are to be sung, is now recognised by all composers. Nothing is left to the singer. Formerly, even if restrained in regard to the body of the air, the vocalist was at least allowed to take some little liberties in the cadenza. Now cadenzas and everything are written for him, and it is conceived a piece of bad taste if a singer substitutes a cadenza of his own for the one already set down for him by the composer.

As a matter of serious criticism the question so clearly posed when the singer Velluti, and the composer Rossini, came into collision at the first representation of “Aureliano in Palmira,” is scarcely worth discussing. It may have been good practice for the singers of the eighteenth century to exercise themselves on the composer’s melodies; but Rossini knew that it was not his part to supply these acrobats with bits of carpet on which to perform their gymnastic feats.

Velluti is said to have been much applauded at the first representation of “Aureliano in Palmira” – merely a sign of bad taste on the part of the audience; but Rossini would have no more to do with him, and told him to take his talent for “embroidery” elsewhere. He took it to Meyerbeer. Fancy Meyerbeer – the Meyerbeer of “Le Prophète” – allowing his airs to be “embroidered!” But this was the Meyerbeer of the year 1824; and in “Il Crociato,” Velluti, the last of the sopranists, found his last new part.

“The great singers,” says Stendhal (meaning the sopranists from the end of the seventeenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century), “did not change the motive of their airs, which they presented the first time with great simplicity.[7 - “Le ombreggiature per le messe di voce, il cantar di partarrenti, l’arte di fermare la voce per farla fluire equale nel canto legato, l’arte di prender flato in modo insensibile e senza troncare il lungo periodo vocale delle arte antiche.” This passage is from Carpani. Stendhal, not finding it easy to translate, gives it, in Italian, as his own, and endeavours to explain his use of the Italian language by saying that he finds “an almost insurmountable difficulty in writing about singing in French.” This mania for “adaptation” makes one doubt the originality of everything Stendhal has done.] Then they began to embroider.”

Exactly so. If they had begun to “embroider” before presenting the motive in all its simplicity, where would have been the proof of their inventive talent?

“Millico, Aprile, Farinelli, Pacchierotti, Ansani, Babini, Marchesi,” continues Carpani, “owed their glory to the system of the old composers, who in certain parts of their operas gave them little more than a canvas.”

In exhibiting their talent first in the simple, and afterwards in the highly decorative style, they appear in each case to have gone to extremes. If they had a fault, Stendhal admits that they were sometimes languishing and lackadaisical in their delivery of slow sustained melody; and he applauds Rossini for introducing a brisker style of sentiment into serious opera. But Rossini’s great objection to them was that they were too much addicted to ornament; and Stendhal has himself told us that Velluti, in “Aureliano,” decorated his music to such an extent as to render it unrecognisable by the composer.

“Aureliano in Palmira,” when it was brought out in London, met with no more success than it had obtained at Milan. It is interesting to notice that this was the only opera of Rossini’s which pleased Lord Mount Edgcumbe. The old habitué liked it because it was not a true Rossinian opera at all, but an opera composed after the manner of Rossini’s predecessors.

“Rossini,” says Stendhal, in his interesting account of the first representation of “Aureliano in Palmira,” which he claims to have witnessed, “followed altogether, in his first works, the style of his predecessors. He respected the voices, and only thought of bringing about the triumph of singing. Such is the system in which he composed ‘Demetrio e Polibio,’ ‘L’Inganno felice,’ ‘La Pietra del Paragone,’ ‘Tancredi,’ etc. Rossini had found la Marcolini, la Malanotte, la Manfredini, the Mombelli family, why should he not endeavour to give prominence to the singing, he who is such a good singer, and who when he sits down to the piano to sing one of his own airs, seems to transfer the genius we know him to possess as a composer, into that of a singer? The fact is, a little event took place which at once changed the composer’s views… Rossini arrived at Milan in 1814 to write ‘Aureliano in Palmira.’ There he met with Velluti, who was to sing in his opera: Velluti, then in the flower of his youth and talent, one of the best-looking men of his time, and much given to abuse his prodigious resources. Rossini had never heard this singer. He wrote a cavatina for him. At the first rehearsal with full orchestra, he heard Velluti sing it, and was struck with admiration. At the second rehearsal Velluti began to embroider (fiorire). Rossini found some of his effects admirable, and still approved: but at the third rehearsal, the richness of the embroidery was such that it quite concealed the body of the air. At last the grand day of the first representation arrived. The cavatina and all Velluti’s part were enthusiastically applauded, but Rossini could scarcely recognise what Velluti was singing; he did not know his own music. However, Velluti’s singing was very beautiful and wonderfully successful with the public, which after all does no wrong in applauding what gives it so much pleasure. The pride of the young composer was deeply wounded; the opera failed, and the sopranist alone succeeded. Rossini’s lively perception saw at once all that such an event could suggest. ‘It is by a fortunate accident,’ he said to himself, ‘that Velluti happens to be a singer of taste;[8 - There is nothing to prove that Rossini entertained any such opinion of Velluti’s singing.] but how am I to know that at the next theatre I write for I shall not find another singer who, with a flexible throat, and an equal mania for fioriture, will not spoil my music so as to render it not only unrecognisable to me, but also wearisome to the public, or at least remarkable only for some details of execution? The danger of my unfortunate music is the more imminent in so much as there are no more singing schools in Italy. The theatres are full of artists who have picked up music from singing-masters about the country. This style of singing violin concertos, endless variations, will not only destroy all talent for singing, but will also vitiate the public taste. All the singers will be imitating Velluti, each according to his means. We shall have no more cantilenas; they would be thought poor and cold. Everything will undergo a change, even to the nature of the voices which, once accustomed to embroider and overlay a cantilena with elaborate ornaments, will soon lose the habit of singing sustained legato passages, and be unable to execute them. I must change my system, then. I know how to sing; everyone acknowledges that I possess that talent; my fioriture will be in good taste; moreover, I shall discover at once the strong and weak points of my singers, and shall only write for them what they will be able to execute. I will not leave them a place for adding the least appoggiatura. The fioriture, the ornaments, must form an integral part of the air, and be all written in the score.’”

Velluti, who is said to have been prepared with three elaborate cadenzas of his own composition for every air he sang, must have been highly disgusted to find that Rossini objected altogether to his departing from the written text. For the sopranists were very great personages. When Caffarelli heard that the accomplished Farinelli had been made prime minister to the King of Spain, he is reported to have said: “He is a magnificent singer, and fully deserves the honour.” The sopranist, Marchesi, stipulated, when he was at the height of his fame, that he should be allowed to make his entry and sing his cavatina on horseback or from the summit of a mountain, also that the plume in his helmet should be at least five feet high!

Rossini’s dislike to Velluti’s style of singing, being founded on principle, was permanent; and on his visiting Paris many years afterwards, Mr. Eben tells us (“Seven Years at the King’s Theatre”) that “Rossini being at this time engaged at Paris under his agreement to direct there, Velluti did not enter into his plans, and having made no engagement there, came over to England.”

Perhaps one of the best singing masters of the eighteenth century was Frederick the Great, who, as Dr. Burney tells us, was accustomed to take up his position in the pit of his opera-house, behind the conductor of the orchestra, so as to have a view of the score; when if a singer ventured to alter a single passage in his part, his Majesty severely reprimanded him, and ordered him to keep to the notes written by the composer. The Berlin opera would have been a good school for the sopranists, “who,” says M. Castil-Blaze,[9 - A: Théâtres Lyriques de Paris, “L’Opéra Italien,” p. 317.] “were at all times extremely insolent. They forced the greatest masters to conform to their caprices. They changed, transformed everything to suit their own vanity. They would insist on having an air or a duet placed in such a scene, written in such a style, with such and such an accompaniment. They were the kings, the tyrants, of theatres, managers, and composers; that is why in the most serious works of the greatest masters of the last century long, cold passages of vocalisation occur, which had been exacted by the sopranists for the sake of exhibiting in a striking manner the agility and power of their throats. ‘You will be kind enough to sing my music, and not yours,’ said the venerable and formidable Guglielmi to a certain virtuoso, threatening him at the same time with his sword. In fact the vocal music and the whole Italian lyrical system of the eighteenth century was much more the work of the singers than of the composers.”

Rossini then was not only a great composer, he was also a sort of Jack the Giant Killer. To be sure these giants of sopranists, with their vocal equestrianism, their shouting from the summits of mountains, and their plumes five feet high, were already approaching their last days. Still the great Velluti was in his vigour in 1814, and it was in that year that the young Rossini declared war against these Philistines, and succeeded in liberating vocal music from the tyranny of vocalists.

CHAPTER VIII

FROM MILAN TO NAPLES

ROSSINI would have been amused if any one had written a book about him and his music entitled “Rossini and his Three Styles.” He liked discussing the principles and also the practice of his art in good company – witness the “Conversations with Rossini,” recorded by Ferdinand Hiller. But he cared little for fine distinctions, and he is reported to have said that he knew nothing of French music, German music, or Italian music; that he only knew of two kinds of music – good and bad.

Nevertheless, all writers, painters, musicians, who have a style at all, have at least three styles – an imitative style, a tentative style, and finally, a style of their own. This division being admitted, Rossini entered upon his second style in writing “Tancredi,” and “L’Italiana in Algeri” (1813); and did not attain his third style until he wrote in the same year (1816) “Otello” for Naples, and “Il Barbiere” for Rome.

If it be thought absolutely necessary to place “Guillaume Tell” and Rossini’s French operas in a category by themselves, then we must say that Rossini had three styles (the consecrated number); and “Guillaume Tell” being manifestly in the third and last style, “Otello” must be put back to the second, and “Tancredi” to the first.

Theory apart, it is quite certain that Rossini, after his collision with Velluti, altered his system of writing for the voice – embellishing his airs, where he thought embellishments necessary, in such a manner that to embellish them further, at the will of the singer, was out of the question.

It is also certain that at Naples, from his arrival there in 1815, he passed under the artistic influence of Madame Colbran, his future wife, for whom he wrote no less than ten important parts, beginning with Elisabetta, and Desdemona, and ending with Zelmira and Semiramide.