"No," I answered, "I know what he ought to have said. What did he say?"

"He said," Auber replied, with a merry twinkle in his eye, 'Auber est un
grand musicien qui fait de la petite musique.'"

"That was pure envy," I said. "I should like to know what you said about
Rossini."

"Well, I said," and he hesitated before continuing, "I said that Rossini
_est un tres grand musicien et fait de la belle musique, mais une
execrable cuisine_."

Rossini adores Alboni, but deplores her want of confidence in herself. She
has such stage frights that she swears that she will have to leave the
stage. He has written "La Messe solennelle" for her voice. The "Agnus Dei"
is perfectly wonderful. She sang it after I had sung. If she had been
first, I never should have had the courage to open my mouth.

Auber asked him how he had liked the representation of "Tannhaeuser"?
Rossini answered, with a satirical smile, "It is a music one must hear
several times. I am not going again."

Rossini said that neither Weber nor Wagner understood the voice. Wagner's
interminable dissonances were insupportable. That these two composers
imagine that to sing is simply to _degoiser_ the note; but the art of
singing, or technic was considered by them to be secondary and
insignificant Phrasing or any sort of _finesse_ was superfluous. The
orchestra must be all powerful. "If Wagner gets the upper hand," Rossini
continued, "as he is sure to do, for people will run after the New, then
what will become of the art of singing? No more _bel canto_, no more