As for Berton, who was treated by the Rossinists of the period as nothing less than a malefactor, and who was certainly of a mean and envious disposition, he began by criticising the music of the new and rising composer, severely, no doubt, and, in an artistic sense, unjustly; but it was not until he had been provoked by rejoinders—it was in the heat of discussion—that he uttered his grand absurdity, “que M. Rossini ne serait jamais qu’un petit discoureur en musique.” Stendhal quotes a letter of Berton’s from “L’Abeille,” in which the worst that the French composer of the past has to say against the Italian composer of the present and the future is what follows:—
“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.”
To understand the position and attitude of Berton in the war which for a time raged in Paris on the subject of Rossini’s merit, it is necessary to remember that the praise lavished upon the Italian composer was not only extravagant in regard to Rossini himself (which might be excused as the natural product of enthusiasm), but also unjust to other composers.
Berton, with all his love for art in the abstract, thought no doubt much more of his own reputation than of the reputation of Mozart; but Boieldieu seems also to have thought that the “Rossinists” were carrying their idolatry rather too far.
“The French Rossinists,” says Boieldieu, in a letter dated 1823,[31] “want to put us completely under the feet of their idol. But the Italian Rossinists, and Rossini himself, are more just. He has no need of that to raise himself; his great talent will always put him in his proper place. If people would be reasonable, they would do in musical matters what is done in literature and in painting; it is possible to have Dante, and Tasso, and others, in the same library, and to admire Rubens and Raphael in the same gallery. Honour to Rossini, but honour also to Mozart, Glück, Cimarosa, &c. Rossini, with whom I have conversed a great deal, is quite of the same way of thinking. He has made a style of his own by taking, from other styles, examples which have guided him.”
Indeed, Boieldieu, Hérold, Auber, were all fervent admirers of Rossini, and all to a certain extent adopted him as a model. Hérold was “maestro al piano” at the Italian theatre of Paris when Rossini was director, and may almost be said to have studied under him. The influence of Rossini upon Auber was equally remarkable. With regard to Auber’s personal opinion of Rossini, and of his sentiments towards him when Rossini first visited Paris, the following passage[32] from a highly interesting memoir of Auber, by M. Jouvin (well known to readers of the Paris Figaro), may be quoted:—
“M. Auber has told me,” says M. Jouvin, “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 cita.’
“I shall never forget,” said M. Auber to me, “the effect produced by his lightning-like execution. Rossini had a very 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 accompanyist, it was marvellous; it was not on a keyboard, 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?’”
With Auber, Hérold, and Boieldieu on his side, it does not matter much what the views of any other of the French composers may have been.
As for Paer, the director of the Italian theatre, his position did not allow him to express any opinion publicly on the works of the rival by whose fame his own had already been eclipsed. But that position gave him, as we shall afterwards see, the opportunity of carrying on war against him in a much more practical manner. Paer possessed the right of keeping back Rossini’s operas, of presenting them as he thought fit, and finally, of producing, as if in contrast, works by other composers, whom Rossini’s adverse critics declared to be altogether his superiors.