CHAPTER V.
ROSSINI AT THE ITALIAN OPERA OF PARIS.
THE ingenious Berton, in his anti-Rossinian pamphlet entitled “De la Musique mécanique et de la Musique philosophique,” relates how he once asked Maelzel, the metronomist, whether he could construct a machine to compose music; to which Maelzel replied that he could, but that the music so composed would be like that of Rossini, and not up to the mark of Sacchini, Cimarosa and Mozart.
Somehow Maelzel abstained from proving his terrible power; but Berton boasted that his friend possessed it, and argued therefrom that Rossini’s music could not be anything very sublime, but on the contrary, must be essentially mechanical.
But Berton ceased this folly when Rossini arrived in Paris, and even showed a disposition to treat him with civility and respect. He is said to have secretly endeavoured to keep up the national cry against the composer; but the verses about “Signor Vacarmini” and “Signor Crescendo” were written while Rossini was still in Italy.
Paer, too, saw that the time had gone by for describing Rossini’s operas as “works of secondary importance.” He was accused long afterwards of doing his best to undermine Rossini’s reputation as a great musician, but, as it seems to me, without sufficient proof. In these musical feuds, in which perhaps the opposing parties are irreconcileable in proportion as the ground of difference between them is incapable of being defined, every sort of meanness is attributed by one side to the other as a matter of course.
Rossini made Berton’s acquaintance in Paris, and must have had frequent relations with Paer at the Italian Opera, of which he at last assumed the direction.
In this matter Rossini behaved with great consideration towards his jealous rival. He positively declined to displace Paer, and on being pressed to accept the post of director, consented to do so only on condition of Paer’s remaining at the theatre without a diminution of salary, but, on the contrary, with a slight increase.
The salary payable to Rossini from the Civil List, in virtue of his office as Director of the Italian Theatre, was twenty thousand francs a year. The engagement was for eighteen months.
Rossini not only knew his work well and practically as director of an orchestra, but was also thoroughly versed in all the duties of manager. He began his artistic life as conductor. When he was a boy at the Lyceum of Bologna, he got up a quartet of stringed instruments, and superintended the production of some important orchestral pieces.
“You should have been present,” he once said, “when I directed the performance of the ‘Creation’ at the Liceo; I did not let the executants miss a single point, for I knew every note by heart.”