The Life of Rossini. Edwards Henry Sutherland

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      “If Rossini, in 1814, had found a greater number of good singers, could he have thought of the revolution he has brought about, would he have introduced the system of writing everything down?”

      “His self-love,” he replies, “would perhaps have suggested it, but that of the singers would vigorously have opposed it. Look, in our own day, at Velluti, who refuses to sing his music.”

      And, therefore, Stendhal adds, that if called upon to choose between the two systems, he should decide in favour of the ancient system somewhat modernised.

      “I would not have all the ornaments written down, but I would have the liberty of the singer restrained. It is not right that Velluti should sing the cavatina of ‘Aureliano’ so that the author can scarcely recognise it himself. In that case it is Velluti who is really the author of the airs he sings, and it is better to keep two such different arts separate.”

      These remarks occur in Stendhal’s “Vie de Rossini,” page 263 of the 1864 edition (chapter XXXI. – Rossini se répète-t-il plus qu’un autre?); but they belong to the Abbé Carpani, on whose “Rossiniane” (as already mentioned) Stendhal’s “Vie de Rossini” is founded. Beyle, calling himself Stendhal, took all his biographical facts, most of his critical opinions, from Carpani, and added a number of those ingenious remarks on love, Walter Scott’s novels, temperaments in the North and in the South of Europe, the points of difference between French, English, and Italian society, &c., which, together with the inevitable, and, at first, rather striking appeals to the reader to throw the book on one side if he does not feel quite capable of appreciating it, are common to all the works of Stendhal – a most original writer, in spite of his curious plagiarisms in connection with music. Beyle had previously borrowed the same Carpani’s “Haydine,” which he attributed to “Bombet.” In thus plundering Carpani to enrich Bombet and Stendhal, Beyle has caused much needless confusion, especially in those passages where he speaks in the first person. Thus “Stendhal” represents himself as well acquainted with Rossini, – who though he constantly met Carpani in 1822, at Vienna, knew nothing of “Stendhal.”

      However, it is Carpani who raises the question whether Velluti ought to be sacrificed to Rossini, or Rossini to Velluti; and his views on the subject as an Italian connoisseur of the year 1823, and an enthusiastic admirer of Rossini’s music, are certainly valuable.

      The system – astonishing system! – of writing airs precisely as they are to be sung, is now recognised by all composers. Nothing is left to the singer. Formerly, even if restrained in regard to the body of the air, the vocalist was at least allowed to take some little liberties in the cadenza. Now cadenzas and everything are written for him, and it is conceived a piece of bad taste if a singer substitutes a cadenza of his own for the one already set down for him by the composer.

      As a matter of serious criticism the question so clearly posed when the singer Velluti, and the composer Rossini, came into collision at the first representation of “Aureliano in Palmira,” is scarcely worth discussing. It may have been good practice for the singers of the eighteenth century to exercise themselves on the composer’s melodies; but Rossini knew that it was not his part to supply these acrobats with bits of carpet on which to perform their gymnastic feats.

      Velluti is said to have been much applauded at the first representation of “Aureliano in Palmira” – merely a sign of bad taste on the part of the audience; but Rossini would have no more to do with him, and told him to take his talent for “embroidery” elsewhere. He took it to Meyerbeer. Fancy Meyerbeer – the Meyerbeer of “Le Prophète” – allowing his airs to be “embroidered!” But this was the Meyerbeer of the year 1824; and in “Il Crociato,” Velluti, the last of the sopranists, found his last new part.

      “The great singers,” says Stendhal (meaning the sopranists from the end of the seventeenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century), “did not change the motive of their airs, which they presented the first time with great simplicity.7 Then they began to embroider.”

      Exactly so. If they had begun to “embroider” before presenting the motive in all its simplicity, where would have been the proof of their inventive talent?

      “Millico, Aprile, Farinelli, Pacchierotti, Ansani, Babini, Marchesi,” continues Carpani, “owed their glory to the system of the old composers, who in certain parts of their operas gave them little more than a canvas.”

      In exhibiting their talent first in the simple, and afterwards in the highly decorative style, they appear in each case to have gone to extremes. If they had a fault, Stendhal admits that they were sometimes languishing and lackadaisical in their delivery of slow sustained melody; and he applauds Rossini for introducing a brisker style of sentiment into serious opera. But Rossini’s great objection to them was that they were too much addicted to ornament; and Stendhal has himself told us that Velluti, in “Aureliano,” decorated his music to such an extent as to render it unrecognisable by the composer.

      “Aureliano in Palmira,” when it was brought out in London, met with no more success than it had obtained at Milan. It is interesting to notice that this was the only opera of Rossini’s which pleased Lord Mount Edgcumbe. The old habitué liked it because it was not a true Rossinian opera at all, but an opera composed after the manner of Rossini’s predecessors.

      “Rossini,” says Stendhal, in his interesting account of the first representation of “Aureliano in Palmira,” which he claims to have witnessed, “followed altogether, in his first works, the style of his predecessors. He respected the voices, and only thought of bringing about the triumph of singing. Such is the system in which he composed ‘Demetrio e Polibio,’ ‘L’Inganno felice,’ ‘La Pietra del Paragone,’ ‘Tancredi,’ etc. Rossini had found la Marcolini, la Malanotte, la Manfredini, the Mombelli family, why should he not endeavour to give prominence to the singing, he who is such a good singer, and who when he sits down to the piano to sing one of his own airs, seems to transfer the genius we know him to possess as a composer, into that of a singer? The fact is, a little event took place which at once changed the composer’s views… Rossini arrived at Milan in 1814 to write ‘Aureliano in Palmira.’ There he met with Velluti, who was to sing in his opera: Velluti, then in the flower of his youth and talent, one of the best-looking men of his time, and much given to abuse his prodigious resources. Rossini had never heard this singer. He wrote a cavatina for him. At the first rehearsal with full orchestra, he heard Velluti sing it, and was struck with admiration. At the second rehearsal Velluti began to embroider (fiorire). Rossini found some of his effects admirable, and still approved: but at the third rehearsal, the richness of the embroidery was such that it quite concealed the body of the air. At last the grand day of the first representation arrived. The cavatina and all Velluti’s part were enthusiastically applauded, but Rossini could scarcely recognise what Velluti was singing; he did not know his own music. However, Velluti’s singing was very beautiful and wonderfully successful with the public, which after all does no wrong in applauding what gives it so much pleasure. The pride of the young composer was deeply wounded; the opera failed, and the sopranist alone succeeded. Rossini’s lively perception saw at once all that such an event could suggest. ‘It is by a fortunate accident,’ he said to himself, ‘that Velluti happens to be a singer of taste;8 but how am I to know that at the next theatre I write for I shall not find another singer who, with a flexible throat, and an equal mania for fioriture, will not spoil my music so as to render it not only unrecognisable to me, but also wearisome to the public, or at least remarkable only for some details of execution? The danger of my unfortunate music is the more imminent in so much as there are no more singing schools in Italy. The theatres are full of artists who have picked up music from singing-masters about the country. This style of singing violin concertos, endless variations, will not only destroy all talent for singing, but will also vitiate the public taste. All the singers СКАЧАТЬ