He lived for nearly forty years after
the production of 'Guillaume Tell,' but preferred a life of ease and
leisure to entering the lists once more as a candidate for fame. What
the world lost by this decision, it is difficult to say; but if we
remember the extraordinary development which took place in the style and
methods of Wagner and Verdi, we cannot think without regret of the
composer of 'Guillaume Tell' making up his mind while still a young man
to abandon the stage for ever. Nevertheless, although much of his music
soon became old-fashioned, Rossini's work was not unimportant. The
invention of the cabaletta, or quick movement, following the cavatina or
slow movement, must be ascribed to him, an innovation which has affected
the form of opera, German and French, as well as Italian, throughout
this century. Even more important was the change which he introduced
into the manner of singing _fioriture_ or florid music. Before his day
singers had been accustomed to introduce cadenzas of their own, to a
great extent when they liked. Rossini insisted upon their singing
nothing but what was set down for them. Naturally he was compelled to
write cadenzas for them as elaborate and effective as those which they
had been in the habit of improvising, so that much of his Italian music
sounds empty and meaningless to our ears. But he introduced the thin
edge of the wedge, and although even to the days of Jenny Lind singers
were occasionally permitted to interpolate cadenzas of their own, the
old tradition that an opera was merely an opportunity for the display of
individual vanity was doomed.
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