Reminiscences of a Literary Life
CHAP. XIX
ROSSINI
ROSSINI
About the year 1817-18, this popular and eminent composer, who was a man of
great natural wit, and one who would have succeeded in nearly any other science or pursuit
if he could have seriously taken it up, when writing to his old mother, always addressed
the letters thus: Alla Signora G. Rossini,
Madre del celeberrimo Maestro Gioacchino Rossini,
Pesaro. I think he did this in joke, I cannot think it was done in pride
or vanity. He had no such bias. Rossini’s
passion was a love of money—he cared nothing for fame, except in so far as it might bring
him in dollars, scudi, Napoleons, or English sovereigns. He is one of the very few men of
genius I have ever known to be so mean, and in some respects sordid, and to have such a
passion for mere gold. If a fiacre had to be discharged, or if there
were anything else to pay, the Maestro never had any money about
him, he had always forgotten his purse on his dressing-table. His friends, no matter how
much younger or poorer than himself, must disburse for him, and he would pay them next
time, which he never did, for there never was a time when he had his purse about him. Even
in Italy, and long before he came to Paris and London, he made large sums by his
compositions, hoarded what he made, and lived at large upon the Impresarios and others among his innumerable friends; and yet, to make his lucre
more, he contracted a disgraceful marriage, and in a very disgraceful manner, with
the Colbran, the mistress of Domenico
Barbaja, the Impresario of San Carlo, in whose house and
at whose table he had been chiefly living for four or five years. Yet would I ![]()
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not be too censorious of Gioacchino
Rossini, for I loved his drollery, and more than once helped to powder his
head, and fit on his Court dress (obligato
operations), when he was going to produce a new opera in the presence of old King Ferdinand and his Court, on a Gala night.
Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)
Italian composer of the
Barber of Seville and other popular
operatic works.
