Both Paisiello and Rossini wrote operas based on Beaumarchais' comedy The Barber of Seville. [From left to right: Paisiello, by Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, 1791 / Gioachino Rossini, by Vincenzo Camuccini, c. 1815].

Two hundred years ago today, Giaochino Rossini’s opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia was premiered in Rome on February 20, 1816. The performance was reportedly a “stormy one” full of mishaps such as instrument strings breaking, a cast member falling on his nose, and an errant cat walking across the stage (see below). On top of this, hisses erupted from audience members who were friends of Giovanni Paisiello, voicing their displeasure that the upstart Rossini dared write an opera based on the same source as Maestro Paisiello. Luckily for Rossini, the next evening’s performance was a success.

[The Musical Examiner, no. 72 (March 16, 1844): 478]

Almost a hundred years later, the so-called "failure" was explained as follows:

[Musical America, XVIII no. 25 (October 25, 1913): 4]

The opera's success was such that by 19 September 1821 it was performed in a French version by Castil-Blaze. He was payed for his efforts; Rossini was not. This led to a public outcry and the sculptor Dantan Jeune to depict, in a caricature-statuette, Castil-Blaze riding on Rossini's back.

[Dantan Jeune, 1833. "XXX" is the manner in which Castil-Blaze, also a music critic, signed some of his articles.]

The U.S. premiere of Il Barbiere di Siviglia took place at The Park Theatre in New York City on November 29, 1825, nine years after the opera's premiere. It was the first Italian opera performed in a foreign language in New York City, thereby making theatrical history. The celebrated tenor Manuel García who created the role of Almaviva in Rome, repeated it in New York, while his young daughter Maria, sang Rosina, and his wife Joaquina, the role of Berta. The following article announced the event:

[The Harmonicon IV, no. 37 (January 1826): 16] [Manuel García, attributed to Francisco Goya, c. 1810-1815]

Rossini’s opera was so popular, that it regularly spawned the creation of numerous transcriptions wherever it was performed, permitting music lovers to surround themselves at home with Rossini's well-known melodies. Here are two examples from the contemporary press in London that pass in review two British transcriptions.

[The Quarterly Musical Magazine & Review III, No. 9 (1821):112-113]

[The Harmonicon I, no. 10 (October 1823): 147]

The popularity of The Barber of Seville has of course, continued to grow. Some may even recall the famous Warner Brothers Looney Tunes' parody of the opera seen in the cartoon short, Rabbit of Seville (1950). For those who don't, you're in for a treat...

Finally, here is a 1925 recording of the celebrated baritone Riccardo Stracciari singing an excerpt from "Largo al Factorum," from The Barber of Seville. We think it's a "knockout".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1H9WyWLX-w#t=1m06s

RIPM Search Tip: For more on this opera, including articles in languages other than English, search the Retrospective Index and the RIPM e-Library for Il Barbiere di Siviglia with language expanders turned on.

[Musical Canada vol. 6, no. 10 (October, 1925)]

The first jazz recording was made in 1917 by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band playing “Livery Stable Blues” as you can hear here:

It was an immediate hit, bringing jazz to mainstream attention. Within seven short years of this milestone recording, Gershwin composed his jazz-influenced Rhapsody in Blue. Paul Whiteman and his band organized the premiere concert of the Rhapsody, which took place at New York’s Aeolian Hall on February 12, 1924 (92 years ago next month) with Gershwin as piano soloist. Over the next 10 years, Rhapsody in Blue would continue to be popular, earning Gershwin more than a quarter of a million dollars from performances, recordings, and rental fees.

The performances generated a debate about whether these uniquely American jazz elements were at home in a new mixture of popular music and that of the European concert tradition. After the Rhapsody’s London premiere, Gershwin was interviewed by Herbert S. Greenhalgh for the BBC’s Radio Times with the interview later reprinted in Musical Canada (October 1925, 13-14). In this interview Gershwin offers not only his views on jazz and the intermingling of musical genres, but also his opinion on syncopation in Bach, Stravinsky and the future of modern music, as well as personal insights about his night-owl working tendencies, his musical sketchbook, and his enthusiasm over the future of a new exciting technology: the “wireless” (i.e. radio). See excerpts from this interview below:

[Musical Canada, vol. 5, no. 10 (October, 1925): 13-14]

One can see the popularity of Gershwin through illustrations in music journals; this caricature accompanied Virgil Thomson’s 1935 article in Modern Music (December 1935) dealing with Gershwin’s symphonic compositions:

[Modern Music XIII, no. 1, (November-December 1935): 15]

This video is the original 1924 recording of Rhapsody in Blue performed by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra.

And in this interview, Paul Whiteman talks about George Gershwin.

RIPM Search Tip: To read the entire article, use the “browse” mode in the RIPM e-library for the periodical Musical Canada, specifically the October 1925 issue.

[The Baton III, no. 3 (December, 1923): 13] [The Baton V, no. 3 (December, 1925): 1]

To celebrate the holiday season, we turn to the December 1925 issue of The Baton (New York, 1922-1932). The following article, “Glimpses of Christmas: From the Correspondence of Great Musicians” shows how some celebrated nineteenth-century musicians “of the past spent Christmas” as illustrated through their correspondence and diaries.

Read the article below to see how Robert Schumann, Jenny Lind, Hans von Bülow, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner and others celebrated Christmas and the holiday season. (Click on each image to zoom in.)

[The Baton V no. 3, (December, 1925): 2-4]

The staff at the RIPM Center wishes all of you a happy and healthy holiday season and best wishes for the coming year!

RIPM Search Tip: For more interesting holiday stories, search RIPM’s Retrospective Index for “Christmas” within the periodical The Baton.

[The Juilliard Review I, no. 3 (Fall, 1954): 4/5]

50 years ago today, on November 6, 1965, French composer Edgard Varèse died in New York. During his lifetime, Varèse was a lightning rod for controversy, particularly among American concertgoers after he founded the International Composers Guild, the first U.S. society dedicated to championing the music of contemporary composers. The first mention of Varèse in the RIPM databases occurs in 1916 with the following article in which the “ultra-modern music of the futurists” is discussed:

[New Music Review 15, no. 177 (August, 1916): 270]

On the composer’s 70^th birthday, the following article appeared in The Juilliard Review in honor of Varèse, recalling how early performances of his works in New York and Philadelphia were received with catcalls, hisses, and applause. In fact at the end of one concert, opinions were so divergent they led to a fistfight:

[The Juilliard Review I, no. 3 (Fall, 1954): 3-10]

And yet, the actions of Varèse were closely watched in the musical press, which tracked his professional activities (the progress of the International Composers’ Guild and his first appearance as conductor of the New Symphony Orchestra) as well as his personal life (his marriage, and even an auto accident).

[Musical America 24, no. 19 (September 9, 1916): 14] [Musical America 24, no. 25 (April 19, 1919): 2]

[Musical America 35, no. 14 (January 28, 1922): 2] [The Baton III, no. 4 (January, 1924): 12]

Varèse’s music also attracted the attention of fellow composers, as evidenced by this discussion of his music by Henry Cowell.

[Modern Music V, no. 2 (January-February 1928): 9-19]

When questioned whether it was necessary for people to understand his music to truly enjoy it, Varèse replied simply: “You have just to listen with unprejudiced ears.”

[Modern Music V, no. 2 (January-February 1928): 19]

The following two documentary films offer fascinating insights into Varèse’s music and life. The first (with English subtitles) contains an interview with the composer in which he recounts how he moved to New York with only $90 (around 1:42). The documentary also contains interviews with Iannis Xenakis and Olivier Messaien, who was not surprised by the public’s intense reaction to modern music (around 8:00).

And in the second documentary film, also with English subtitles, one can see the house in Eindhoven, the Netherlands in which Varèse lived from 1957-1958 (around 1:58) and his residence in New York, now occupied by one of his students, Chou Wen-Chung (around 14:35). The video also displays historic footage of interviews with Varèse, sprinkled throughout, and the composer Iannis Xenakis’ sharing his memories of collaborating with Varèse (around 6:25).

RIPM Search Tip: For the articles cited above and related articles, simply search the RIPM Retrospective Index for “Varèse” and/or “International Composer’s Guild.”

[Il Teatro illustrato I, no. 3 (March 1881): 5]

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the first performance of Tristan und Isolde (1865). While now accepted as a masterpiece, critics at first performances were not always complimentary. On September 16, 1876, a letter to the editor of The Musical World gave a scathing and strident condemnation of Wagner's work, deploring the discordant harmonies and lack of melody in a review titled “The Wagner Epidemic” (excerpts below):

[The Musical World 54, no. 38 (September 16, 1876): 623]

Six years later, on June 24, 1882, four days after the London premiere of Tristan und Isolde, The Musical World published this caricature, supporting the opinion initially expressed. It depicts James William Davison, editor of The Musical World, reacting to the "Tristan chord."

[The Musical World 60, no. 25 (June 24, 1882): 385]

One month later on July 1, 1882, a much more nuanced and somewhat favorable view emerges.

[The Musical World 60, no. 26 (July 1, 1882): 395-96]

However, the journal also underscored the difficulties in performing this work. One week later The Musical World published on July 8, 1882 these two caricatures by Charles Lyall — the first depicting the conductor Hans Richter during a rehearsal of Tristan and the second, his appearance after the first performance.

[The Musical World 60, no. 27 (July 8, 1882): 415]

The following two French caricatures were reproduced in Musical America on February 12, 1910. The first one (bottom left), an 1869 caricature by Andre Gill, expresses a similar view as Wagner ‘worked’ “on the eardrum of his contemporaries.” The second (bottom right) illustrates the effect of a performance of a Wagner opera.

[Musical America XI, no. 14 (February 12, 1910): 18]

The past was not always kind to Music of the Future.

In honor of the 150th anniversary of Tristan und Isolde, here is an arrangement of "Happy Birthday" in a style we think you will recognize.

And finally, one of the earliest recordings of the Prelude (1932), conducted by Arturo Toscanini two years after he conducted a performance at Bayreuth, the first by a non-German musician.

RIPM Search Tip: For the articles cited above and others related, search the RIPM Retrospective Index for "Wagner" or "Tristan" in The Musical World from 1876-1882. The full text of the journal’s complete run (1836-1891) is available.