In “Semiramide,” under the auspices of the composer, the key-bugle made its début at the Fenice of Venice in 1823. In 1829, in “Guillaume Tell,” the same composer brought out the cornet-à-piston at the French Opera.
Since “Guillaume Tell,” there has been no progress in dramatic music, but there has been further progress in instrumentation. At one moment the continued invasion of “the brass” seems to have startled Rossini himself. In 1834, when his young friend Bellini had just produced “I Puritani,” Rossini, writing an account of the first performance to a friend at Milan, said of the celebrated duet for Tamburini and Lablache, with its highly military accompaniments, “I need not describe the duet for the two basses. You must have heard it at Milan.” But neither Bellini nor Donizetti brought forward any new instruments.
In “Robert le Diable,” Meyerbeer introduced a melody for four kettledrums. Kettledrums were never so treated before! In “Le Juif Errant,” Halévy employed saxhorns to announce the Day of Judgment.
Nevertheless, the saxhorn turned out not to be the last trump. The ingenious inventor had saxophones, saxotubes, and other instruments of sounding brass, with names beginning in Sax, to offer to Meyerbeer, the Belgian Guides, and the musical and military world in general. Perhaps there is no more splendid example of modern instrumentation than the march in the “Prophète,” wherein every possible brass instrument is employed. If the benign Pergolese could hear it as executed by Mr. Costa’s band or bands (for one is not enough), he would fancy himself in Jericho, with the walls coming down.
CHAPTER VIII.
ROSSINI’S REPRODUCTIONS FROM HIMSELF.
“La Cenerentola” belongs to the composite order of operatic architecture. But no canon has been set against self-robbery; and Rossini, who never professed any theory on the subject of dramatic expression in music, had the right to take a piece from one of his works which had failed, or which seemed already to have had its day, to place it in another which was just about to appear. This was his constant practice, and its justification is to be found in its success.
Of course Rossini had a system, and of course music does possess dramatic expression, up to a certain point. Figaro’s air could not have been introduced into the trio of “Guillaume Tell;” the “Non piu mesta” of “Cenerentola” would not have seemed appropriate as the theme of the prayer in “Mosè.”
And it is to be noticed, moreover, that when Rossini made his own adaptations from himself, he was always successful, whereas other composers, who have manufactured pasticcios with motives borrowed from Rossini, have always failed. “Robert Bruce,” arranged by M. Carafa, with Rossini’s sanction, but not under Rossini’s superintendence, made no impression, and we have seen that Rossini quite mistrusted a M. Berettoni, who had constructed an opera called “Un Curioso Accidente,” from pieces contained in the composer’s early works.[22] This is not the place in which to speak of the shameful adaptations of Rossini’s works produced in England, into which airs by nameless composers were introduced, and which were prefaced by absurd pots pourris called overtures, the work of the “conductor and composer” of the music attached to the theatre where Rossini was thus presented. The rule in regard to pasticcio-making is clear. It may be undertaken by the composer of the airs employed, but by no one else.
Rossini is by no means the only composer who has transferred themes (seldom pieces in their complete form) from one to another of his works. According to M. Blaze de Bury,[23] Meyerbeer laid some of his early operas under contribution for “Dinorah,” which, perhaps for that reason, is so remarkably full of fresh spontaneous melody.
Auber enriched his “Fra Diavolo” in a similar manner, when he prepared it for the Italian stage. In the “Muette de Portici,” again, the prayer is borrowed from a mass, the barcarolle from “Emma,” the overture from “Le Maçon.”