While Weber was reconstructing opera in Germany and laying the foundations upon which the vast structure of modern lyrical drama was afterwards reared by the composers of our own day, reforms, or at any rate innovations, were being introduced into Italian opera by a musician scarcely less gifted even than the founder of the romantic school himself.  Rossini (1792-1868) owed but little of his fame to instruction or study.  As soon as he had been assured by his master that he knew enough of the grammar of music to write an opera, he relinquished his studies once for all, and started life as a composer.  In this perhaps he showed his wisdom, for his natural gifts were of such a nature as could scarcely have been enhanced by erudition, and the mission which he so amply fulfilled in freeing his national art from eighteenth-century convention was certainly not one which depended upon a profound knowledge of counterpoint.  Nature had fortunately endowed him with precisely the equipment necessary for the man who was to reform Italian opera.  The school of Paisiello, notwithstanding its many merits, had several grievous weaknesses, of which the most prominent were uniformity of melodic type, nerveless and conventional orchestration, and intolerable prolixity.  Rossini brought to his task a vein of melody as inexhaustible in inspiration as it was novel in form, a natural instinct for instrumental colour, and a firm conviction that brevity was the soul of wit.  He leapt into fame with ‘Tancredi,’ which was produced in 1813 and established his reputation as a composer of opera seria.  In opera buffa, a field in which his talents shone even more brilliantly, his earliest success was made with ‘L’Italiana in Algeri’ (1813), which was followed in 1815 by the world-famous ‘Barbiere di Siviglia.’  This was originally produced in Rome under the name of ‘Almaviva,’ and strangely enough, proved an emphatic failure.  For this, however, the music was scarcely responsible.  The people of Rome were at that time devotees of the music of Paisiello, and resented the impertinence of the upstart Rossini in venturing to borrow a subject which had already been treated by the older master.  ‘Il Barbiere’ soon recovered from the shock of its unfriendly reception, and is now one of the very few of Rossini’s works which have survived to the present day.  The story is bright and amusing and the music brilliant and exhilarating, but it is to be feared that the real explanation of the continued success of the little opera lies in the opportunity which it offers to the prima donna of introducing her favourite cheval de bataille in the lesson scene.  The scene of the opera is laid at Seville.  Count Almaviva has fallen in love with Rosina, a fascinating damsel, whose guardian, Bartolo, keeps her under lock and key, in the hope of persuading her to marry himself.  Figaro, a ubiquitous barber, who is in everybody’s confidence, takes the Count under his protection, and contrives to smuggle him into the house in the