CHAPTER IX.
ROSSINI AND THE COMIC IN MUSIC
NO composer has written more lively, more graceful comedy music than Rossini. But, except Il Figlio per Azzardo, with its high notes for low voices, its low voices for high notes, its ludicrous accompaniments, and its grotesque instruments of percussion in the shape of metal lamp-shades tapped with violin bows, Rossini never wrote music which, comic or serious, was not charming; and Il Figlio per Azzardo was nothing but a practical joke played for the benefit of an unreasonable and impolite manager. It may be interesting to consider in what the musical comic really consists.
The æsthetics of music have been much neglected; and no one, so far as I know, has yet attempted to explain or even to define the comic in music. Everything, it may be roughly said, is comic that makes one laugh; and if this be the case, then, between comic music and music so utterly bad as to be ludicrous and absurd, there should be no great difference. The intention, however, of the composer must count for something, and one cannot accept as comic music which is simply played or sung very much out of tune. Many persons disbelieve altogether in comic music. Lively, brilliant music is admirable, and commends itself to every taste. But comic music is for the most part as objectionable as comic women, than which nothing much more objectionable can well be imagined. It is the province of music to charm, to fascinate, to call up visions of delight, but not to cause fits of laughter. It may be questioned, moreover, whether laughter, or even the least tendency to laugh, can be provoked by music, so long as it is composed and executed according to the rules of art. A comic poem, a comic picture, may be a masterpiece of artistic expression, but it is difficult to imagine a perfect musical composition which would afford matter for merriment. Gounod's Funeral March for a Marionette is a graceful, melodious piece of music, in which there is nothing comic but the title. No one would find it in the slightest degree amusing but for the description of the incidents it is supposed to illustrate, which is usually printed in the programmes of concerts where the said funeral march is to be performed. In the old-fashioned Italian operas of the buffo type there are plenty of chattering songs in which the humour, such as it is, consists in the words being uttered so rapidly that any greater rapidity of utterance would seem to be impossible. Here some little amusement may be caused by witnessing the efforts of the buffo singer or singers – for there are often two or three of them chattering at once – to overcome such difficulties as have been deliberately put forward for that purpose by the composer. If this, however, be humour, it is humour of a very mean order, on a par with that of "Peter Piper pecked a peck of pepper," and other verbal devices for testing the power of a speaker to speak rapidly and at the same time distinctly. In Paisiello's Barber of Seville there was a comic piece for two fantastic and quite episodical characters, borrowed from Beaumarchais' comedy (where, as already mentioned, Rossini took good care to leave them), of whom one, La Jeunesse, sneezed, while the other, L'Eveillé, yawned, in the presence of old Bartolo. It may be very funny to sneeze and to yawn, but such fun as therein lies can scarcely be said to be of a musical character.
Much, indeed, that is considered comic in music possesses the same sort of drollery that belongs in comic writing to grammatical errors, or to mistakes in spelling. Romberg's Toy Symphony, in which, with the usual orchestral basis, solo instruments of a burlesque character, such as the rattle, the penny trumpet, the child's drum, and so on, are from time to time introduced, is surprisingly funny. But with the first feeling of surprise the fun also vanishes; for the humour in this, as in all other toy symphonies, consists only in giving good music to bad instruments. If Romberg's symphony were played throughout with instruments of the best make in the parts written for the "toys," no one not previously acquainted with the work would imagine for a moment that it was intended to be amusing. In Mozart's Musical Joke, again, the joke consists in the instruments coming in at wrong places, executing inappropriate phrases, and playing out of tune. There are elements of beauty in the work, as in everything that Mozart composed; but the humour of the piece is akin to that of those American humourists of whom one of the most remarkable was not ashamed to complain of "Mr. Chaucer" that he could not spell. A composer may easily produce a laugh if he will only condescend to an absurdity so easy to realise, by causing a pretentious introduction to be followed by a trivial tune; or he may produce a genuine burlesque effect by imitating with characteristic exaggeration the style of some other composer; or he may show a certain wit by means of musical allusions, as Mozart has done in the supper scene of Don Giovanni, where Don Juan's private band is made to play "Non più andrai," in order that Leporello may refer to the fact of its not having been quite appreciated when it was first heard. But without Leporello's spoken (or declaimed) words it would occur to no one that there was anything amusing in introducing into one opera an air from another.
Of the music suitable to comedy Rossini was undoubtedly a master; and in such music the Barber of Seville abounds. But though the most characteristic air in the whole opera, Figaro's "Largo al fattotum," is bright, gay, joyful, impulsive, one cannot say that it is comic. Heard for the first time apart from the words, it would cause no one to laugh, nor even, except as the expression of musical satisfaction, to smile.
Rossini could write very comic music indeed when he pleased. He knew well enough, however, that he was writing bad music at the time. He launched into all sorts of extravagances, and introduced some effects in which, as we have already seen, musical instruments, properly so called, had no part.
Meyerbeer, in his highly but sometimes almost grotesque orchestral effects, has approached the very verge of burlesque music such as Rossini, in the little opera referred to, deliberately wrote. The simple motive, for instance, of the march in Robert le Diable is given, when introduced for the first time, to four kettledrums. A four-note melody executed on four kettledrums would in a burlesque have excited roars of laughter. Jessica was "never merry when she heard sweet music." But sweet music is one thing, and grotesque music another. It is easier, indeed, to speak of comic music than to define it accurately, or to cite specimens that will bear analysis.
CHAPTER X.
FROM "OTELLO" TO "SEMIRAMIDE."
IN 1816, Rossini brought out at the San Carlo, of Naples, the second of his serious operas, or at least the second of those which were destined to make a mark: Otello. This work exhibited reforms of various kinds much more important than any that are to be noticed in Tancredi. Recitative is more sparingly used than in the earlier work, and for the first time it is accompanied by the full band. Now, too, Rossini banished the piano from the orchestra, where it had been allowed to remain long after its expulsion as an orchestral instrument from the bands of Germany and (thanks to Gluck) of France. Two years after its production at Naples Byron witnessed a representation of Otello at Venice, and gives some account of it in one of his letters dated 1818. The libretto struck him as bad and ridiculous, but he praises the music, and the style in which it was executed. Lord Mount-Edgcumbe, when the work was given in London, must have been disgusted to find two of the leading parts assigned to bass voices. Iago is of necessity almost as important a character as Othello himself. Rossini's librettist kept him, nevertheless, a little too much in the back ground, while Roderigo, on the other hand, is too much brought forward. In expelling the piano from the orchestra Rossini at the same time, did away with those interminable recitatives accompanied by piano or piano and double bass which separated the musical pieces in the works composed by Rossini's predecessors. It was the impersonation, however, of Otello by Davide, which, in the way of acting and singing, helped more than anything else to ensure the success of the performance.
"Davide," wrote a French critic, M. Bertin, from Venice, in 1823, "excites among the dilettanti of this town an enthusiasm and delight which could scarcely be conceived without having been witnessed. He is a singer of the new school, full of mannerism, affectation and display, abusing, like Martin, his magnificent voice with its prodigious compass (three octaves comprised between four B flats). He crushes the principal motive of an air beneath the luxuriance of his ornamentation, which has no other merit than that of difficulty conquered. But he is also a singer of warmth, verve, expression, energy and musical sentiment; alone he can fill up and give life to a scene; it is impossible for another singer to carry away an audience as he does, and when he will only be simple he is admirable; he is the Rossini of song, he is a great singer, the greatest I have ever heard. Doubtless the manner in which Garcia plays and sings the part of Otello is preferable, taking it altogether, to that of Davide. It is purer, more severe, more constantly dramatic; but with all his faults Davide produces more effect – a great deal more effect. There is something in him, I cannot say what, which, even when he is ridiculous, commands, enhances attention. He never leaves you cold, and when he does not move you he astonishes you; in a word, before hearing him, I did not know what the power of singing really was. The enthusiasm he excites is without limits. In fact his faults are not faults, for Italians who in their opera seria do not employ what the French call the tragic style, scarcely understand us when we tell them that a waltz or a quadrille movement is out of place in the mouth of a Cæsar, an Assur, or an Otello. With them the essential thing is to please; they are only difficult on this point, and their indifference as to all the rest is really inconceivable. Here is an example of it. Davide, considering, apparently, that the final duet of Otello did not sufficiently show off his voice, determined to substitute for it a duet from Armida ('Amor possente nome') which is very pretty, but anything rather than severe. As it was impossible to kill Desdemona to such a tune, the Moor, after giving way to the most violent jealousy, sheaths his dagger, and begins in the most tender and graceful manner his duet with Desdemona, at the conclusion of which he takes her politely by the hand, and retires amidst the applause and bravos of the public, who seems to think it quite natural that the piece should finish in this manner, or rather that it should not finish at all; for after this beautiful dénouement the action is about as far advanced as it was in the first scene. We do not in France carry our love of music so far as to tolerate such absurdities as these, and perhaps we are right."
Otello in the present day seems somewhat antiquated, and in some of the dramatic scenes the accent of passion is smothered beneath roulades and vocalistic ornaments of all kinds. But it contains some fine pieces, and the last act is full of beauty. Speaking once to a friend on the subject of his own operas, Rossini said that much of what he had written must in time pass out of fashion, but that he believed the second act of William Tell, the last act of Otello, and the whole of the Barber of Seville would survive the rest.8 Il Barbiere is, indeed, as fresh now as when it was first written. Yet Paisiello's treatment of the same subject was found to be old-fashioned in a very few years – was in fact rendered so by the newness, the brightness, the youthful gaiety of Rossini's setting.
Nothing more need be said in this volume of Rossini considered as a composer of comic opera. He cultivated every style, including the ancient style of La Cenerentola which contains much comic with some serious music, and of La Gazza Ladra, which might well have been treated seriously throughout, though in some of the gravest situations of this work he is gay, in some of the severest, lively.
La Cenerentola, like Il Barbiere, La Gazza Ladra, and so many successful operas by Rossini and other Italian composers (L'Elisir, Linda, Lucrezia, La Favorita, Maria di Rohan, for instance, of Donizetti, and the Sonnambula and Norma of Bellini), is based on a French play – the ingenious comedy of Cendrillon, by Etienne. Rossini composed it for the Teatro Valle of Rome, where it was produced for the carnival of 1817, on the 26th of December, 1816, precisely one year after Torvaldo e Dorliska, nearly one year after the Barber, a few months after Otello, and a few months before La Gazza Ladra. Between the winter of 1815 and the spring of 1816, Rossini composed and produced six operas, including the four admirable ones just named. The two others given with comparatively little success were Torvaldo e Dorliska and La Gazzetta.
La Cenerentola, on its first production, excited no such enthusiasm as Il Barbiere, but drew after its second or third representation. It is known to have been Rossini's custom when an opera of his fell, to pick up the pieces; and the score of La Cenerentola was adorned throughout with fragments saved from the ruins of his earlier works; such as the wholly forgotten Pietra del Paragone and the never-much-remembered Turco in Italia. To the former had originally belonged the drinking chorus, the burlesque proclamation of the Baron, and the duet "Un soave non so chè;" to the latter the duet "Zitti zitti," the sestet and the stretta of the finale.
To La Cenerentola belongs the most beautiful and the most striking of Rossini's final airs for the prima donna: the once highly popular "Non più mesta." This was his fourth air of the kind; and he now abandoned this method of bringing an opera to a brilliant termination in favour of other composers – who duly adopted it.
The part of Cenerentola, like that of Rosina, was written for Madame Giorgi-Righetti, who obtained therein the most brilliant success, especially in the famous rondo finale. All Rossini's great prima-donna parts were composed for the contralto or for the mezzo-soprano voice; for Madame Marcolini, Tancredi; for Madame Giorgi-Righetti, Rosina and Cenerentola; and for Mademoiselle Colbran, Desdemona and Semiramide. When Rossini began his career, so absurd was the prevalent custom of distributing the parts that the first woman's part was habitually given to the contralto, the first man's part to the sopranist, or artificial male soprano. Rossini continued to compose principal female parts, first for the contralto, then for the mezzo-soprano voice; and it was only when he produced Matilda di Shubrun towards the end of his Italian career (1821) that he assigned a leading character to a soprano. Matilda in Matilda di Shubrun, and Matilde in Guillaume Tell, are the only two parts that Rossini ever wrote for the soprano voice.
Whether soprano voices have been forced into activity in order to suit new tastes, or whether composers have taken to writing for the soprano voice because in the present day sopranos, and especially "light sopranos," abound, whereas good mezzo-soprano and contralto voices are but rarely to be met with, it would be difficult to say. But with the exception of Meyerbeer's Africaine and Donizetti's Favorita, no leading operatic part has for the last fifty years or more been written for the contralto voice.
A new kind of part, however, has been found for the most masculine of feminine voices; such parts as those of Pippo in La Gazza Ladra, of Malcolm Græme in La Donna del Lago, and of Arsace in Semiramide; and here again we see an innovation of Rossini's, which by his successors has been generally adopted.
In connection with La Gazza Ladra a few words may here be said of Rossini's orchestration; much more varied, more brilliant and more sonorous than that of his predecessors. Rossini introduced new instruments, and with them new instrumental combinations. These innovations, like those consisting in a new distribution of the voice parts, and in the substitution of orchestral melodies with declamatory phrases here and there for the singers in lieu of endless recitative accompanied by chords for the violoncello and piano, excited the hostility of many orthodox professors, together with old-fashioned connoisseurs and amateurs of all kinds. They accused Rossini of bringing clarinets from cowherds, horns from the hunting field, trumpets from the camp, and trombones from the infernal regions. He was destined, on establishing himself at Paris, to introduce cornets, ophicleides, and, in the overture to William Tell, the nearest possible approach to the instrument with which the cowherds of Switzerland do really appeal to the animals placed under their care. But before he had reached these extremes, before he had in Semiramide brought an entire military band on to the stage, and had in the same opera written for four horns a beautiful and beautifully harmonised melody which does not in any way suggest the chase, he raised the mortal anger of one of his adversaries and actually placed his life in danger by beginning the overture to La Gazza Ladra with a duet for drums. A young enthusiast on the side of stagnation went about armed with the proclaimed intention of slaying the ruthless innovator. Rossini sent for the juvenile fanatic, talked to him, explained that in a piece of a military character drums were not altogether out of place and at last succeeded in appeasing his fury.
To appreciate at a glance Rossini's importance as a writer for the orchestra it is only necessary to recall the fact that he alone of Italian composers has composed overtures which live with a life of their own apart from the works to which they belong, and that of such overtures he has left five; those of the Barber, of La Gazza Ladra, of Semiramide, of the Siege of Corinth, and of William Tell.
CHAPTER XI.
ROSSINI ON HIS TRAVELS
WHEN in 1823, the year of Semiramide's being produced at Venice, Rossini started with his wife, the former Mdlle. Colbran, for Paris – whence he made his way to London, returning to Paris soon afterwards – he enjoyed a world-wide reputation, but was far from being rich. Thanks, however, to a season in London, and to five years' residence in Paris, where lucrative posts were given to him, he soon made his fortune.
Speaking some thirty years afterwards of his visit to London, Rossini said to Hiller:9 "'From the beginning I had an opportunity of observing how disproportionately singers were paid in comparison with composers. If the composer got fifty ducats, the singer received a thousand. Italian operatic composers might formerly write heaven knows how many operas, and yet only be able to exist miserably. Things hardly went otherwise with myself until my appointment under Barbaja.'
"'Tancredi was your first opera which really made a great hit, maestro; how much did you get for it?'
"'Five hundred francs,' replied Rossini, 'and when I wrote my last Italian opera, Semiramide, and stipulated for 5,000 francs, I was looked upon, not by the impresario alone, but by the entire public, as a kind of pickpocket.'
"'You have the consolation of knowing,' said Hiller, 'that singers, managers, and publishers, have been enriched by your means.'
"'A fine consolation' replied Rossini. 'Except during my stay in England, I never gained sufficient by my art to enable me to put by anything; and even in London I did not get money as a composer, but as an accompanist.'
"'But still,' observed Hiller,'that was because you were a celebrated composer.'
"'That is what my friends said,' replied Rossini, 'to decide me to do it. It may have been prejudice, but I had a kind of repugnance to being paid for accompanying on the piano, and I have only done so in London. However, people wanted to see the tip of my nose, and to hear my wife. I had fixed for our co-operation at musical soirées the tolerably high price of 50l. We attended somewhere about sixty such soirées, and that was after all worth having. In London, too, musicians will do anything to get money, and some delicious facts came under my observation there. For instance, the first time that I undertook the task of accompanist at a soirée of this description, I was informed that Puzzi, the celebrated horn-player, and Dragonetti, the more celebrated contrabassist, would also be present. I thought they would perform solos; not a bit of it! They were to assist me in accompanying. "Have you then your parts to accompany these pieces?" I asked them. "Not we," was their answer, "but we get well paid, and we accompany as we think fit!"
'"These extemporaneous attempts at instrumentation struck me as rather dangerous, and I therefore begged Dragonetti to content himself with giving a few pizzicatos when I winked at him, and Puzzi to strengthen the final cadenzas with a few notes, which, being a good musician, he easily invented for the occasion. In this manner things went off without any very disastrous results, and every one was pleased.'"
"'Delicious!' exclaimed Hiller, 'still it strikes me that the English have made great progress in a musical point of view. At the present time a great deal of good music is performed in London – it is well performed and listened to attentively, that is to say, at public concerts. In private drawing-rooms music still plays a sorry part, and a great number of individuals, totally devoid of talent, give themselves airs of incredible assurance, and impart instruction on subjects of which their knowledge amounts almost to nothing.'
"'I knew in London a certain professor who had amassed a large fortune as a teacher of singing and the pianoforte,' said Rossini, 'while all he understood was to play a little, most wretchedly, on the flute. There was another man, with an immense connection, who did not even know the notes. He employed an accompanist to beat into his head the pieces he afterwards taught, and to accompany him in his lessons; but he had a good voice.'"
Many of the French composers, with about an equal proportion of critics, received Rossini with anything but cordiality. He was chiefly condemned as a seeker after new effects. But Berlioz some years later vituperated him from quite another point of view. He found his music heartless, unemotional, and written entirely for the singer, and for the sake of vocal, to the disregard of dramatic effect. "If," he afterwards said, "it had been in my power to place a barrel of powder under the Salle Louvois and blow it up during the representation of La Gazza Ladra or Il Barbiere, with all that it contained, I certainly should not have failed to do so."
The composer Bertin, less a contemporary than a predecessor of Rossini, wrote of him in the following terms: —
"M. Rossini has a brilliant imagination, verve, originality, great fecundity; but he knows that he is not always pure and correct; and, whatever certain persons may say, purity of style is not to be disdained, and faults of syntax are never excusable. Besides, since the writers of our daily journals constitute themselves judges in music, having qualified myself by Montano, Le Délire, Aline, &c., I think I have the right to give my opinion ex professo. I give it frankly, and sign it, which is not done by certain persons who strive incognito to make and unmake reputations. All this has been suggested only by the love of art, and in the interest of M. Rossini himself. This composer is beyond contradiction the most brilliant talent that Italy has produced since Cimarosa; but one may deserve to be called celebrated without being on an equality with Mozart."
It seems afterwards to have occurred to Bertin that music as good as Rossini's might be composed by machinery. He declares, indeed, in a pamphlet directed against Rossini, entitled "La musique mechanique et de la musique philosophique," that he once asked Maelzel, the inventor of the metronome, whether he could construct a machine to compose music; upon which Maelzel daringly replied that he could, but that his mechanically-made tunes would not be up to the level of Sacchini, Cimarosa, and Mozart, and would be worthy only of Rossini.
"M. Auber has told me," says M. Jouvin, in his Life of that composer, "how he met Rossini for the first time at a dinner given by Carafa in honour of his illustrious compatriot. On rising from table the maestro, at the request of his host, went to the piano and sang Figaro's cavatina, 'Largo al fattotum della cità.'
"'I shall never forget,' said M. Auber to me, 'the effect produced by his lightning-like execution.' Rossini had a beautiful baritone voice, and he sang his music with a spirit and verve which neither Pellegrini nor Galli nor Lablache approached in the same part. As for his art as an accompanist, it was marvellous; it was not on a key-board but on an orchestra that the vertiginous hands of the pianist seemed to gallop. When he had finished I looked mechanically at the ivory keys; I fancied I could see them smoking. On arriving home I felt much inclined to throw my scores into the fire. 'It will warm them, perhaps,' I said to myself; 'besides, what is the use of composing music, if one cannot compose like Rossini?'"
Apart from a little professional jealousy, Rossini met in Paris with the warmest possible reception; and the men in authority gave him substantial marks of their esteem. He was appointed director of the Théâtre des Italiens, with a salary of 20,000 francs a year; and when after eighteen months' service he resigned this post, the salary was continued to him in connection with another, of which the duties were purely nominal: that of "Inspector of singing." In granting Rossini this salary, the object of the government was to induce him to remain in France, and to compose a series of works for the Académie where, after producing Il Viaggio a Reims, at the Italian Theatre in honour of Charles X.'s coronation, he brought out in succession Le Siège de Corinthe,10 re-arranged from Maometto Secundo, an opera of the year 1820; Moïse, re-arranged from Mosè in Egitto, a Lenten opera oratorio of the year 1818; Le Comte Ory, re-arranged with many additions from Il Viaggio a Reims; and his greatest work Guillaume Tell.
Every one knows that after William Tell, Rossini wrote no more for the stage. But every one does not know that he for some little time afterwards entertained an idea of composing an opera on the subject of Faust. "Yes," answered Rossini, when Ferdinand Hiller questioned him on the subject, "it was for a long period a favourite notion of mine, and I had already planned the whole scenarium with Jouy; it was naturally based upon Goethe's poem. At this time, however there arose in Paris a regular 'Faust' mania; every theatre had a particular 'Faust' of its own, and this somewhat damped my ardour. Meanwhile the revolution of July had taken place; the Grand Opera, previously a royal institution, passed into the hands of a private person; my mother was dead, and my father found life in Paris unbearable because he did not understand French: so I cancelled the agreement which bound me by rights to send in four other grand operas, preferring to remain quietly in my native land, enlivening the last years of my old father's existence. I had been far away from my poor mother when she expired; this was an endless source of regret to me, and I was most apprehensive that the same thing might occur in my father's case."
Many explanations have been given of Rossini's reasons for abstaining from writing any more for the stage, when he had once produced William Tell– nor did he afterwards compose anything whatever of importance except his thoroughly beautiful Stabat Mater. Some of these explanations have been already referred to. The truth in this matter seems to have been that Rossini acted under the influence of a great variety of reasons. Without being hurt by the comparative coldness with which William Tell for a time was received, without being jealous of Meyerbeer's and of Halévy's success, which, according to some anecdote-mongers, caused him to exclaim: "Je reviendrai quand les Juifs auront fini leur Sabbat," without even having "written himself out," he may well have reflected whether such a strain as he had subjected himself to in composing William Tell was worth undergoing a second time. With the exception of Il Viaggio a Reims nothing that he wrote for Paris, until he undertook William Tell, was absolutely new. He had already lost the habit, if not the faculty, of composing rapidly; and this same Viaggio a Reims was the only original work he produced between Semiramide, 1823, and Guillaume Tell, 1829. Writing at Paris for as fine an orchestra as that of the San Carlo Theatre, and for a finer chorus, he paid particular attention to the choral and orchestral portions of his last great work. He also profited by the fact that at the Académie he was free to have as many rehearsals as he pleased; and to turn this advantage to the greatest possible account he gave himself infinite, and with him quite unusual pains, to secure a perfect execution of his opera. In writing for the voices moreover, he had completely changed his style. What indeed can be more different from the florid and frequently insignificant, – or, so to say, anti-significant – passages in the rich, soft, voluptuous melodies of Semiramide, than the simple, emotional, eminently dramatic strains given to the singers in Guillaume Tell? Heine speaks in his "Parisian Letters" of Meyerbeer's mother having once told him that her son was "not obliged to compose;" on which Heine remarks that a windmill might as well say it was not "obliged" to go round: though a windmill will turn if the wind blows, just as a composer will produce music if moved by the spirit. Talking on this most interesting subject of speculation to Ferdinand Hiller, Rossini himself confessed that "when a man has composed thirty-seven operas he begins to feel a little tired." Guillaume Tell, in any case, marks the end of Rossini's career as an operatic composer.