DONIZETTI AND ROSSINI.
Donizetti stood watching the shelves which held the operas of Rossini like a cat before a bird cage; but the ladder was locked up, and the key in safe keeping in Sigismondi's pocket. Under a northern climate, the proper mode of action for Donizetti would have been to invite the jailor to a banquet, ply him with wine, and rob him of his keys as soon as he had reached a sufficiently advanced state of intoxication. Being in Italy, Donizetti should have made love to Sigismondi's daughter, and persuaded her to steal the keys from the old man during his mid-day siesta. Perhaps, however, Sigismondi was childless, or his family may have consisted only of sons; in any case, the young musician adopted neither of the schemes, by combining which the troubadour Blondel was enabled to release from captivity his adored Richard.[99] He resorted to a means which, if not wonderfully ingenious, was at least to the point, and which promised to be successful. He climbed, monkey-like, or cat-like, not to abandon our former simile, to the top shelf, and had his claws on the Barber of Seville, when who should enter the library but Sigismondi.
The old man was fairly shocked at this perversity on the part of Gaetan Donizetti, reputed the best behaved student of the Academy. His morals would be corrupted, his young blood poisoned!—but fortunately the librarian had arrived in time, and he might yet be saved.
Donizetti sprang to the ground with his prey—the full score of the Barber of Seville—in his clutches. He was about to devour it, when a hand touched him on the shoulder: he turned round, and before him stood the austere Sigismondi.
The old librarian spoke to Gaetan as to a son; appealed to his sense of propriety, his honour, his conscience; and asked him, almost with tears in his eyes, how he could so far forget himself as to come secretly into the library to read forbidden books—and Rossini's above all? He pointed out the terrible effects of the course upon which the youthful Donizetti had so nearly entered; reminded him that one brass instrument led to another; and that when once he had given himself up to violent orchestration, there was no saying where he would stop.
DONIZETTI AND ROSSINI.
Donizetti could not or would not argue with the venerable and determined Sigismondi. At least, he did not oppose him; but he inquired whether, as a lesson in cacophony, it was not worth while just to look at Rossini's notorious productions. He reminded his stern adviser, that he had already studied good models under Mayer, Pilotti, and Mattei, and that it was natural he should now wish to complete his musical education, by learning what to avoid. He quoted the well known case of the Spartans and their Helots; inquired, with some emotion, whether the frightful example of Rossini was not sufficient to deter any well meaning composer, with a little strength of character, from following in his unholy path; and finally declared, with undisguised indignation, that Rossini ought to be made the object of a serious study, so that once for all his musical iniquities might be exposed and his name rendered a bye-word among the lovers and cultivators of pure, unsophisticated art!
"Come to my arms, Gaetano," cried Sigismondi, much moved. "I can refuse nothing to a young man like you, now that I know your excellent intentions. A musician, who is imbued with the true principles of his art, may look upon the picture of Rossini's depravity not only without danger, but with positive advantage. Some it might weaken and destroy;—you it can only fortify and uphold. Let us open these monstrous scores; their buffooneries may amuse us for an hour.
"Il Barbiere di Siviglia! I have not much to say about that," commenced Sigismondi. "It is a trifle; besides, full justice was done to it at Rome. The notion of re-setting one of the master-pieces of the great Paisiello,—what audacity! No wonder it was hissed!"
"Under Paisiello's direction," suggested Donizetti.