Rossini was, perhaps, too indolent to
devote much attention to his texts, and he was apt to postpone even
the _musical_ work to the last moment, so that he sometimes had to be
locked up in his room by his friends, to enable him to finish his
score by the date named in his contract. Yet it is worthy of note that
during the composition of what Rossini's admirers commonly regard as
his best and most characteristic work--the "Barber of Seville"--he
lived in the same house with his librettist. "The admirable unity of
the 'Barber,' in which a person without previous information on the
subject could scarcely say whether the words were written for the
music or the music for the words, may doubtless," as Mr. Sutherland
Edwards suggests, "in a great measure be accounted for by the fact
that poet and musician were always together during the composition of
the opera; ready mutually to suggest and to profit by suggestions."
"Donizetti," the same writer informs us, while at the Bologna Lyceum,
"occupied himself not only with music, but also with drawing,
architecture, and even poetry; and that he could turn out fair enough
verses for musical purposes was shown when, many years afterward, he
wrote--so rapidly that the word 'improvise' might here be used--for
the benefit of a manager in distress, both words and music of a little
one-act opera, called 'Il Campanello' founded on the 'Sonnette de
Nuit' of Scribe.
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