During his studies at the Lyceum Rossini did not neglect the piano. He entertained a high respect for this admirable instrument, this orchestra on a reduced scale, minus, of course, the variety of timbres; and one of his latest works was a fantasia for pianoforte on airs from L'Africaine, dedicated to his friend Meyerbeer. Rossini used at this time to style himself "pianist of the fourth class;" and that he obtained no higher rank in the pianistic hierarchy is perhaps due to the peculiarity of the instruction he received from his professor at the Lyceum of Bologna, Signor Prinetti. Prinetti taught his pupils to play the scales with the first finger and thumb. A pianist taught to depend on his first finger and thumb to the neglect of the three other fingers could scarcely be expected to graduate very highly in the pianoforte schools.
Rossini was just seventeen years of age when he produced his first symphony, which was followed by a quartet; and a year later he brought out his first opera. During his musical travels in the Romagna, where, among other places, he was in the habit of visiting Lugo, Ferrara, Forli, and Sinigaglia, he had, at the last-named place, inspired with confidence the Marquis Cavalli, director of the local theatre. The marquis was also impresario of the San Mosè Theatre at Venice (the San Mosè, like most other Italian theatres, took its name from the parish to which it belonged), and he wished Rossini to compose an opera for his Venetian establishment. Rossini's previous work had been performed before the professor's pupils and a few invited friends at the Lyceum of Bologna. The opera ordered by the Marquis Cavalli was the first of his works performed before the general public. It was a one-act piece, entitled La Cambiale di Matrimonio. It was given for the first time in 1810 when Rossini was just eighteen years old. The sum paid for it was 200 francs, or, in English money, 8l.
La Cambiale di Matrimonio was succeeded by a cantata on the oft-treated subject of the abandonment of Dido. Didone Abbandonata was composed for a relative, the brilliant Esther Mombelli, and it was performed in 1811. The same year Rossini brought out at Bologna L'Equivoco Stravagante, an opera buffa in two acts. In this work, of which nothing seems to have been preserved, the concerted pieces were much admired. The final rondo, too, is still cited as a type of those final airs for which Rossini seemed to have a particular taste until, after producing the most brilliant specimen of the style in the "Non più mesta" of Cinderella, he left them to the care of other less original composers; for of Rossini's final airs "Non più mesta" was the final one of all.
None of Rossini's earlier operas were engraved; a circumstance which allowed him to borrow from them the best pieces for other works, but which also prevents us in the present day from arriving at any precise idea as to their value and importance.
The first opera of Rossini's which, years afterwards, was deemed worthy the honour of a revival was L'Inganno Felice, composed in 1812 for Venice. It was brought out at Paris in 1819; and the impresario, Barbaja, for whom Rossini composed so many admirable works, gave it at Vienna, where he was carrying on an operatic enterprise simultaneously with two other operatic enterprises at Milan and at Naples.
L'Inganno Felice was the first opera by which Rossini made a decided mark, and such was its success that he was now requested to furnish works for Ferrara, Milan, and Rome. For Ferrara he was to compose an oratorio.
But although Ciro in Babilonia is generally described in the catalogues of Rossini's works as an oratorio, yet, like Mosè in Egitto composed six years later, it was an opera so far as regards form, and was only called an oratorio from the circumstance of its being given in Lent without the usual stage accessories. Ciro in Babilonia was by no means successful as a whole. The composer, however, saved from the wreck of his oratorio two valuable fragments: a chorus which afterwards figured in Aureliano in Palmira, and from which he borrowed the theme of Almaviva's beautiful solo in The Barber of Seville, "Ecco ridente il cielo;" and the concerted finale which, in the year 1827, found its way into the French version of Mosè in Egitto.
Some forty years after the production of Ciro in Babilonia Rossini spoke to Ferdinand Hiller (who has recorded the words in his highly interesting Conversations with Rossini) of a poor woman who had only one good note in her voice, which he accordingly made her repeat while the melody of the solo given to her in Ciro was played by the orchestra. So in the French burlesque of Les Saltimbanques, an untaught player of the trombone is introduced, who, being able to play but one note, is told that that will suffice, and that if he keeps strictly to it "the lovers of that note will be delighted."
CHAPTER II.
LA PIETRA DEL PARAGONE.
ROSSINI had already written two operas in 1812, and he was destined in this fertile year to produce three more: two at Venice, La Scala di Seta and L'Occasione fa il Ladro; and one at Milan, La Pietra del Paragone.