CHAPTER IV.
ROSSINI AND HIS CRITICS.
“Now I think of it,” said Rossini, a great many years afterwards, to Ferdinand Hiller, “what was not written against me when I went to Paris! Old Berton even made verses on me, and called me ‘Signor Crescendo’ in them. But it all blew over without injury to life or limb.”
Rossini was too philosophical, and, without being in the least vain, was sufficiently conscious, no doubt, of his own talent to care much what was thought of his music either by ordinary critics or by the general public. At the first performance of the “Barber,” when everyone was hissing, he turned round and applauded.
He himself said that he was tolerably calm at a success as well as at a failure; “and for this,” he added, “I have to thank an impression I received in my earliest youth, and which I shall never forget. Before my first operetta was brought out I was present at the performance of a one-act opera by Simon Mayer. Mayer was then the hero of the day, and had produced in Venice perhaps twenty operas with the greatest success. In spite of this, however, the public treated him on the evening to which I refer as if he had been some ignorant young vagabond; you cannot form an idea of such a piece of grossness. I was really astounded. Is it thus that you recompense a man who for so many years has produced you enjoyment? Dare you take such a liberty because you have paid two or three paoli for admittance? If such is the case, it is not worth while to take your judgment to heart, I thought; and I have always acted as much as possible in conformity with that opinion.”
In regard to printed criticism, he showed himself more considerate to critics than critics sometimes showed themselves to him. When Weber was passing through Paris, in 1826, on his way to London, he called on Rossini, but hesitated before doing so on the ground that a dozen years before he had published a hostile criticism on “Tancredi.”
Instead of feeling any resentment, Rossini said that if he had only known when he was twenty-one that a foreign composer had taken any notice of “Tancredi” he should certainly have felt very much flattered by the attention.
But the malicious Berton did not confine himself to criticising Rossini’s music, he attempted to cast ridicule on Rossini personally, whom he called, among other facetious nicknames, “Signor Vacarmini,” and “Signor Crescendo.” This could not please Rossini, but he did not mind the impertinence very much.
Rossini had, of course, been preceded in Paris by his reputation, and his reputation by his music. But it was not until the public had learned its true superiority from the very manœuvre which Paer had adopted in order to demonstrate its worthlessness that Rossini’s music was accepted by the Parisians at anything like its value.
“L’Italiana in Algeri” had already been played in Paris, in the year 1817, when Garcia, the original Almaviva, proposed that the “Barber” should be produced for his benefit.
Publishers were not so expeditious then as they are now in getting out the scores of new operas, and the music of the “Barber” had not at that time been engraved, or at least not in a complete form. Garcia, however, had provided himself with a manuscript copy, and in spite of repeated objections from Paer and others, continued to request that the work might be put into rehearsal.