Lord Mount Edgcumbe, a celebrated connoisseur and admirer of the old
school, wrote of these innovations, ignoring the fact that Mozart had
given the weight of his great authority to them before the daring young
Italian composer:

"The construction of these newly-invented pieces is essentially
different from the old. The dialogue, which used to be carried on in
recitative, and which, in Metastasio's operas, is often so beautiful
and interesting, and now cut up (and rendered unintelligible if it
were worth listening to) into _pezzi concertati_, or long singing
conversations, which present a tedious succession of unconnected,
ever-changing motives, having nothing to do with each other; and if a
satisfactory air is for a moment introduced, which the ear would like
to dwell upon, to hear modulated, varied, and again returned to, it is
broken off, before it is well understood, by a sudden transition in an
entirely different melody, time, and key, and recurs no more, so that
no impression can be made, or recollection of it preserved. Single songs
are almost exploded.... Even the _prima donna_, who formerly would have
complained at having less than three or four airs allotted to her, is
now satisfied with having one single _cavatina_ given to her during the
whole opera."

In "Otello," Rossini introduced his operatic changes to the Italian
public, and they were well received; yet great opposition was manifested
by those who clung to the time-honored canons. Sigismondi, of the Naples
Conservatory, was horror-stricken on first seeing the score of this
opera. The clarionets were too much for him, but on seeing third and
fourth horn-parts, he exclaimed: "What does the man want? The greatest
of our composers have always been contented with two. Shades of