IT was the fate of Rossini to have to write a certain number of complimentary cantatas, two of which were composed and executed in the year 1819; one in honour of the King of Naples, the other to congratulate his visitor the Emperor of Austria.
Rossini did not admit the principle of nationality in music, which he divided generally into good music and bad. He also seems to have held that music had no politics, and he composed with the greatest impartiality works for the liberal, and for the monarchical and conservative side. He is known to have written a patriotic hymn at Bologna in 1815. Cimarosa had been thrown into prison (where, according to some writers, he was poisoned) for a similar performance; but Cimarosa doubtless went to work with greater earnestness than Rossini, and doubtless did not limit the expression of his political opinions to music alone.
In 1820 Rossini produced a patriotic cantata at Naples during the temporary success of the Liberals; and in 1823 composed “Il Vero Omaggio,” a cantata performed at Verona during the Congress at which liberal ideas played no great part.
In 1847 he addressed his “Stanzas” to Pius IX., and he had previously made his peace with the Church by composing a mass, which was performed at Naples in 1819—the year of the two cantatas. It is noticeable that the various pieces contained in this religious work (apparently the one which figures in several catalogues with the date of 1832 erroneously attached to it) were all founded on motives from Rossini’s operas.
This was the mass which, according to some enthusiastic Neapolitan priest, could not fail, in spite of all his sins, to open to Rossini the gates of Paradise. “Knock with that,” he said, “and St. Peter cannot refuse you.”
Handel, in a similar manner, transferred several of his operatic airs to oratorios. Music serves admirably to heighten the effect of a dramatic situation, or to give force and intensity to the expression of words; but the same music may often be allied with equal advantage to words of very different shades of meaning. Thus the same music may be made to depict sentiments, feelings, even passions (grief, remorse, ardent longing), which belong equally to a religious and to a secular order of ideas. Gluck knew as well as Piccini and all the Italian composers, that an overture written specially for one opera might, without disadvantage, be prefixed to another. Gluck’s overture to “Armide” was originally the overture to “Telemacco,” and he borrowed both from the said “Telemacco” and from his “Clemenza di Tito,” to enrich the score of “Iphigénie en Aulide.”
Paisiello, when he was Napoleon’s chapel master, used to compose a mass every two months or oftener—he produced fourteen in two years. He received a thousand francs apiece for them, and it is said that after making use of numerous pieces of church music which he had written for Italy, he went for his motives to his serious and even his comic operas. One can recall many love songs of an elevated character, those of Mozart and of Schubert for instance, songs of a mournful and regretful character, songs of a sentimental and slightly passionate cast, which only require to be united to religious words to acquire religious character.
It is of course essential for the success of music thus transferred from secular to religious compositions, that it shall be heard for the first time as part of the latter.
CHAPTER XIV.
“LA DONNA DEL LAGO.”
IN proportion as Rossini elevated and enlarged his style, in proportion as he aimed at rendering his works truly dramatic, so did his success diminish. The grand combinations in “La Donna del Lago” were not appreciated at Naples; “Semiramide” was coldly received at Venice; “Guillaume Tell” did not please the public when it was first produced at Paris.