The original cast of “Guillaume Tell” included the great singers then in Paris, and these were so delighted with the music, that the morning after the first production they assembled on the terrace before his house and performed selections from it in his honor.

With this last great effort Rossini, at the age of thirty-seven, may be said to have retired from the field of music, though his life was prolonged for forty years.  True, he composed the “Stabat Mater” and the “Messe Solennelle,” but neither of these added to the reputation won in his previous career.  The “Stabat Mater,” publicly performed for the first time in 1842, has been recognized, it is true, as a masterpiece; but its entire lack of devotional solemnity, its brilliant and showy texture, preclude its giving Rossini any rank as a religious composer.

He spent the forty years of his retirement partly at Bologna, partly at Passy, near Paris, the city of his adoption.  His hospitality welcomed the brilliant men from all parts of Europe who loved to visit him, and his relations with other great musicians were of the most kindly and cordial character.  His sunny and genial nature never knew envy, and he was quick to recognize the merits of schools opposed to his own.  He died, after intense suffering, on November 13, 1868.  He had been some time ill, and four of the greatest physicians in Europe were his almost constant attendants.  The funeral of “The Swan of Pesaro,” as he was called by his compatriots, was attended by an immense concourse, and his remains rest in Pere-Lachaise.

V.

Moscheles, the celebrated pianist, gives us some charming pictures of Rossini in his home at Passy, in his diary of 1860.  He writes:  “Felix [his son] had been made quite at home in the villa on former occasions.  To me the parterre salon, with its rich furniture, was quite new, and before the maestro himself appeared we looked at his photograph in a circular porcelain frame, on the sides of which were inscribed the names of his works.  The ceiling is covered with pictures illustrating scenes out of Palestrina’s and Mozart’s lives; in the middle of the room stands a Pleyel piano.  When Rossini came in he gave me the orthodox Italian kiss, and was effusive of expressions of delight at my reappearance, and very complimentary on the subject of Felix.  In the course of our conversation he was full of hard-hitting truths on the present study and method of vocalization.  ‘I don’t want to hear anything more of it,’ he said; ’they scream.  All I want is a resonant, full-toned voice, not a screeching voice.  I care not whether it be for speaking or singing, everything ought to sound melodious.’” So, too, Rossini assured Moscheles that he hated the new school of piano-players, saying the piano was horribly maltreated, for the performers thumped the keys as if they had some vengeance to wreak on them.  When the great player improvised for Rossini, the latter says:  “It is music that flows from the fountain-head.  There is reservoir water and spring water.  The former only runs when you turn the cock, and is always redolent of the vase; the latter always gushes forth fresh and limpid.  Nowadays people confound the simple and the trivial; a motif of Mozart they would call trivial, if they dared.”