7. A new life.

The last years of Rossini's life must be understood against the background of his physical illness and mental exhaustion during the previous 20 years; for it is no exaggeration to say that, in Paris, Rossini returned to life. His health improved dramatically; his famous sense of humour returned; he bought a parcel of land in the suburb of Passy and built a villa; he rented city quarters on the rue de la Chaussée d'Antin, where before long he reigned over one of the most interesting and elegant salons in Paris. Even more remarkably, he began to compose again. The first new work was Musique anodine, six settings of Rossini’s favourite text for albumleaves, ‘Mi lagnerò tacendo’. There is something quite endearing about a composer, silent for so many years, who breaks his silence by producing multiple settings of a text that reads: ‘I will lament in silence my bitter fate’. But the songs in Musique anodine, dedicated (14 April 1857) to ‘my dear wife Olympe as a simple testimony of gratitude for the affectionate and intelligent care she offered me during my too long and terrible sickness’, have far more scope than the albumleaves Rossini continued to dash off during his retirement. They were to begin a surge of composition that ultimately included over 150 piano pieces, songs, small ensembles and the Petite messe solennelle. Most of the shorter pieces were first performed at the Rossinis' ‘Samedi soirs’, whose participants included most of the great artists and public figures living in or passing through Paris.

Rossini referred to these pieces as his Péchés de vieillesse, the ‘Sins of Old Age’, and in them he turned his wit into musical terms, incorporating in various measure grace and charm, sharp parody, a dash of sentiment, and throughout a unique combination of sophistication and naivety. He refused to permit their publication, and although some did appear in the 19th century (when a set of authenticated copies was auctioned off in London after the composer's death), they remained barely known until the Fondazione Rossini began editing them in the 1950s. Since then they have received increasingly sympathetic attention. Their historical position remains to be assessed, but it seems likely that their effect, direct or indirect, on composers like Camille Saint-Saëns and Erik Satie was significant.

Many of the piano pieces are parodies, but parodies so appealing and plausible that they could sometimes be mistaken for the things they parody, were it not that blatant excesses and Rossini's superb titles reveal his intention. One of the best is the Petit caprice (style Offenbach), allegedly a quid pro quo after Offenbach's outrageous ‘Trio patriotique’ in La belle Hélène, ‘Lorsque la Grèce est un champ de carnage’ (with its wonderful line ‘Tu t' fich' pas mal de ton pays!’), which brought Rossini's Guillaume Tell trio, ‘Quand l'Helvétie est un champ de supplices’, to the stage of the Théâtre des Variétés. The tempo indication ‘Allegretto grotesco’ leads the way, but once the music begins one feels surrounded by a slightly tipsy Offenbach cancan. The chromatic inflection of the main theme (ex.8) is suggestive. Then, within an apparently innocent F major context, Rossini first deploys a curious melodic D , and finally rings out a truly bizarre F ; the piece continues as if nothing has happened, and modulates naively back to the tonic and the main theme. The bizarre fingering, with the second and fifth fingers extended, produces a superstitious Italian gesture meant to ward off the evil eye, for which Offenbach was notorious.

Although Rossini referred to himself as a ‘pianist of the fourth class’, these pieces are often technically challenging, but they are also constantly delightful. The Prélude prétentieux is just that, with a fugal subject and development that parody one contrapuntal cliché after another. Mon prélude hygiénique du matin, with its opening C major and A minor arpeggios, is sure to bring a wistful smile to those whose piano practice has started each day with appropriate exercises. The absurd dance rhythms of the Fausse couche de polka mazurka and the asthmatic theme of the Valse torturée, in which the tonic is defined by the chord progression D major – D augmented – D diminished – D major, take salon music as their target. Bach and Chopin are never far from the surface, but they are viewed through a level of ironic respect that renders Rossini's homages a pleasure.

The songs and choruses are no less enjoyable. La chanson du bébé, with its refrain, ‘Pipi … maman … papa … caca’, is a charming spoof on the nursery. L'amour à Pékin, Rossini's nod at the whole-tone scale, is preceded by several piano vignettes, harmonizations first of the chromatic scale, then of the whole tone scale, but the song itself is a disappointment. It is a straightforward romance, with the whole-tone scale appearing only briefly in a cadential context (using the harmonization worked out previously in the piano vignette). The descriptive Choeur de chasseurs démocrates, written by Rossini at the request of the Baroness de Rothschild for the visit of Napoleon III in December 1862 to the Château de Ferrières, is a fine hunting chorus. The D major tonality of the main section is nicely balanced in the centre by Rossini's use of chromatic sequences, a frequent device in these late works.

Among the songs there are more traditional, sentimental, even maudlin compositions, such as L'orphéline du Tyrol, or the Chanson de Zora. But even without a layer of ironic distance these pieces have great appeal, for Rossini at his most conventional remains a remarkable composer. A large number of these songs were originally written to the ‘Mi lagnerò tacendo’ text; subsequently Rossini called on two poets, Giuseppe Torre (in Italian) and Emilien Pacini (in French), to supply appropriate words. That works so vastly different in style as the Ariette Pompadour and the Elégie (‘Adieux à la vie’) from the Album français could have been written at first with the same text demonstrates unmistakably what it means to insist – as Rossini did – that music does not ‘imitate’ text so much as provide itself with the means of expression.

The finest work of Rossini's late years, and indeed one of his greatest achievements, is the Petite messe solennelle for 12 voices, two pianos and harmonium, written for the Countess Louise Pillet-Will and first performed at the consecration of her private chapel on 14 March 1864. Rossini later orchestrated the work, for fear that someone else would do it if he did not, but the mass is most effective in its original form. (Actually there are two variants of the version for two pianos and harmonium: the one performed in 1864 – only recently recovered – and the familiar one probably first performed a year later, also for the Pillet-Wills, on 24 April 1865.) In an introductory note to ‘le bon Dieu’, Rossini referred to the mass as ‘the last mortal Sin of my Old Age’, and in an envoi at the end of the autograph score he addressed God as follows: ‘Dear God. Here it is, finished, this poor little Mass. Have I written sacred music [musique sacrée] or damned music [sacrée musique]? I was born for opera buffa, you know it well! Little science, some heart, that's all. Be blessed, then, and grant me a place in Paradise’. There is something enormously appealing about this ironic naivety. Whatever Rossini's public defences that caused him to gain a reputation for coldness and aloofness, in his greatest music they fall, and here he sang the praises of God con amore.

From 1857 until his death, Rossini was among subscribers to the critical edition of the works of Bach. Many of his piano compositions reveal his knowledge of Bach, and this is true also of the Petite messe. There is no mere imitation, but an attempt to return to historical traditions while holding fast to a modern compositional vocabulary. And through all the contrapuntal writing, elaborate chromaticism and harmonic audacity, beautiful melodies abound. Some pieces, such as the tenor aria ‘Domine Deus rex coelestis’, reminiscent of ‘Cujus animam’ from the Stabat mater, give an operatic prominence to good tunes. But even knowing the contrapuntal movements of his earlier sacred works, one is unprepared for the richness of the double fugues on ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’ and ‘Et vitam venturi saeculi Amen’. The entire Credo (with its tempo indication ‘Allegro cristiano’) is a masterpiece of economy. A few musical ideas are basic to the entire composition, with the text and music ‘Credo’ acting as a refrain. The ‘Crucifixus’ is set apart from its surroundings, a soprano aria with the simplest possible accompaniment, the melody studded with chromatic alterations, the middle section modulating rapidly through the octave by minor 3rds. Here, as elsewhere in the mass, Rossini tended to be somewhat literal about his chromatic techniques, but within the context they seem entirely appropriate. The Petite messe solennelle has continued to impress later generations as a deep revelation of the man whose outward character often seemed a mere witticism.

In his last years Rossini lived in honoured retirement, a composer whose fame rested on work done 40 years before, and yet a composer who after a long silence had recovered his voice. Neither an anachronism, then, nor part of current musical trends, he was content to write for himself and his circle, while expounding to those who would listen his attitudes towards art and stories of his youth. Accounts of these years were published by many, including Hiller, Saint-Saëns and Hanslick. The most significant (even if perhaps in part invented) is the alleged transcription made by Edmond Michotte of the meeting between Rossini and Wagner in 1860. Rossini's last letters too are filled with aesthetic judgments and precepts to Italian composers. He wrote in 1868 to Lauro Rossi, head of the Milan Conservatory: ‘Let us not forget, Italians, that Musical Art is all ideal and expressive … that Delight must be the basis and aim of this Art: Simple Melody – clear Rhythm’. And in an aside, referring to modern tendencies in Italian music, he added: ‘these new gross philosophers … are simply supporters and advocates of those poor musical composers who lack ideas, inspiration!!!’. He expressed similar thoughts later that year in a letter to the Milanese critic Filippo Filippi, a champion of Wagnerian ideals in Italy. Here Rossini also entered into other favourite themes, the decline in vocal art and the need to seek ‘expressive’ rather than ‘imitative’ music. Though aware of his own compositional growth in 20 years of writing opera, he objected to instant progress, the search for extreme novelty that he observed in composers who fell under Wagner's influence. He railed against those who spiced their writings with ‘certain dirty words, such as Progress, or Decadence, Future, Past, Present, convention etc.’, adding:

Do not think, my dear doctor Filippi, that I favour an anti-dramatic system, no indeed; and though I was a virtuoso of Italian bel canto before becoming a composer, I share the philosophic maxim of the great poet who said:

All genres are good, Except the boring one.

It might be said that Rossini's ideals never changed. When he abandoned composition in 1829 the world was changing, but when he took up his pen again he foreshadowed a movement of neo-classicism one of whose earliest proponents was his young admirer Saint-Saëns, and whose effects can be felt still in the music of Stravinsky. Just as his operas had defined the nature of opera for the first half of the 19th century, the Péchés de vieillesse, the music that cultivated Paris flocked to hear at the ‘Samedi soirs’, cast their spell on a younger generation of French composers.

Rossini fell seriously ill in autumn 1868. Soon afterwards, on 13 November, he died in his villa in Passy. His funeral was attended by thousands, and memorial services were held throughout France and Italy. He was buried in Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Olympe, who had hoped to be buried with him, was persuaded to permit Rossini's remains to be transported to Italy after her death. This occurred in 1887, and at a solemn ceremony on 2 May 1887 Rossini found his final resting-place at S Croce in Florence.

In his will, Rossini left a large endowment to found a conservatory in his birthplace, Pesaro. He also left to Pesaro his remaining autographs, including those of the Péchés de vieillesse.

Rossini, Gioachino