vehicles. All business is suspended, and, during the performances, the
town has the appearance of a desert. The passions, the anxieties, the
very life of a whole population are centered in the theatre."

Rossini would preside at the first three representations, and, after
receiving a grand civic banquet, set out for the next place, his
portmanteau fuller of music-paper than of other effects, and perhaps
a dozen sequins in his pocket. His love of jesting during these gay
Bohemian wanderings made him perpetrate innumerable practical jokes,
not sparing himself when he had no more available food for mirth. On one
occasion, in traveling from Ancona to Reggio, he passed himself off for
a musical professor, a mortal enemy of Rossini, and sang the words of
his own operas to the most execrable music, in a cracked voice, to show
his superiority to that donkey, Rossini. An unknown admirer of his was
in such a rage that he was on the point of chastising him for slandering
the great musician, about whom Italy raved.

Our composer's earlier style was quite simple and unadorned, a fact
difficult for the present generation, only acquainted with the florid
beauties of his later works, to appreciate. Rossini only followed
the traditions of Italian music in giving singers full opportunity to
embroider the naked score at their own pleasure. He was led to change
this practice by the following incident. The tenor-singer Velluti was
then the favorite of the Italian theatres, and indulged in the most
unwarrantable tricks with his composers. During the first performance
of "L'Aureliano," at Naples, the singer loaded the music with such
ornaments that Rossini could not recognize the offspring of his own
brains. A fierce quarrel ensued between the two, and the composer
determined thereafter to write music of such a character that the most
stupid singer could not suppose any adornment needed. From that time the