Sooner or later every composer has to deal with a deadline. Gioacchino Rossini shared some of his trade secrets in a letter that shows his boisterous sense of humor:

Wait until the evening before the performance. Nothing stirs up a person’s enthusiasm so much as pure necessity, a copyist waiting for your work and the pleadings of an impresario at the end of his rope, tearing out his hair by the handful. In my day in Italy all impresarios were bald by the age of thirty.

I wrote the overture to Othello in a little room in the Palazzo Barbaja where the baldest and fiercest of the directors had shut me in by force with nothing but a plateful of macaroni, vowing not to let me out until I had written the last note.

I wrote the overture to La Gazza Ladra on the very day of the premiere, beneath the roof of La Scala, where I had been imprisoned by the director and put under guard by four stage carpenters who were under orders to throw my manuscript out the window, page by page to the copyists, who were down below waiting to copy it out. If the pages of music failed to come out, their orders were to throw me out.

For The Barber of Seville I did better. I didn’t write any overture at all. I just borrowed one I had designated for a semi-serious opera calledElisabetta. The public was perfectly satisfied. I wrote the overture to Le Comte Ory while standing with my feet in the water, fishing, in the company of Signor Aguado, who was talking about Spanish finance. I wrote the William Tell Overture under similar circumstances. For Moise I didn’t write one at all.

或遲或早，每個(gè)作曲家都會(huì)遇到如何應(yīng)付交稿期的情況。吉奧阿基諾?羅西尼在一封信中分享了這個(gè)行業(yè)秘密。從信中還可以看出羅西尼狂放的幽默感：

要一直等到演出前的傍晚才開始創(chuàng)作。沒有什么能夠像純粹的需要那么強(qiáng)烈挑起人的熱情，一個(gè)抄寫員等著你的作品，一個(gè)走投無(wú)路的經(jīng)理人對(duì)你苦苦哀求，經(jīng)理人急得大把大把地抓頭發(fā)。我在意大利時(shí)發(fā)現(xiàn)，所有的經(jīng)理人在30歲時(shí)都已經(jīng)謝頂了。

我在帕拉熱巴巴加的一間小屋子里寫《奧賽羅》的序曲，那個(gè)最禿最暴烈的劇院經(jīng)理強(qiáng)行把我關(guān)在里面，什么都沒有，就是一大盤通心粉。他發(fā)誓，我不寫完最后一個(gè)音符，就甭想出來!

《賊鵲》首演的當(dāng)天，我在斯卡拉劇院里為這部歌劇寫序曲。我被劇院經(jīng)理囚禁在那里，四個(gè)舞臺(tái)道具師奉命當(dāng)起了警衛(wèi)。他們接到命令，將我寫的稿子一頁(yè)一頁(yè)地扔到窗外，由幾個(gè)等候在外面的抄寫員火速抄寫出來。老板命令他們，如果我沒有把稿子寫出來，就把我從窗戶扔出去。

到《塞維利亞的理發(fā)師》時(shí)，我幸運(yùn)得多了。我壓根就沒有寫任何序曲。我只是把以前寫給不太重要的歌劇《伊麗莎白》的序曲移花接木。觀眾非常滿意。我寫《羅伊伯爵》序曲時(shí)，站在水里，一邊釣魚一邊寫，西格羅?阿古多在旁邊陪著，他談?wù)撝靼嘌赖慕鹑跔顩r。我在同樣的環(huán)境下寫出了《威廉?退爾》序曲。而《莫伊斯》，我一個(gè)音符還沒寫呢。

Sooner or later every composer has to deal with a deadline. Gioacchino Rossini shared some of his trade secrets in a letter that shows his boisterous sense of humor:

Wait until the evening before the performance. Nothing stirs up a person’s enthusiasm so much as pure necessity, a copyist waiting for your work and the pleadings of an impresario at the end of his rope, tearing out his hair by the handful. In my day in Italy all impresarios were bald by the age of thirty.

I wrote the overture to Othello in a little room in the Palazzo Barbaja where the baldest and fiercest of the directors had shut me in by force with nothing but a plateful of macaroni, vowing not to let me out until I had written the last note.

I wrote the overture to La Gazza Ladra on the very day of the premiere, beneath the roof of La Scala, where I had been imprisoned by the director and put under guard by four stage carpenters who were under orders to throw my manuscript out the window, page by page to the copyists, who were down below waiting to copy it out. If the pages of music failed to come out, their orders were to throw me out.

For The Barber of Seville I did better. I didn’t write any overture at all. I just borrowed one I had designated for a semi-serious opera calledElisabetta. The public was perfectly satisfied. I wrote the overture to Le Comte Ory while standing with my feet in the water, fishing, in the company of Signor Aguado, who was talking about Spanish finance. I wrote the William Tell Overture under similar circumstances. For Moise I didn’t write one at all.

或遲或早，每個(gè)作曲家都會(huì)遇到如何應(yīng)付交稿期的情況。吉奧阿基諾?羅西尼在一封信中分享了這個(gè)行業(yè)秘密。從信中還可以看出羅西尼狂放的幽默感：

要一直等到演出前的傍晚才開始創(chuàng)作。沒有什么能夠像純粹的需要那么強(qiáng)烈挑起人的熱情，一個(gè)抄寫員等著你的作品，一個(gè)走投無(wú)路的經(jīng)理人對(duì)你苦苦哀求，經(jīng)理人急得大把大把地抓頭發(fā)。我在意大利時(shí)發(fā)現(xiàn)，所有的經(jīng)理人在30歲時(shí)都已經(jīng)謝頂了。

我在帕拉熱巴巴加的一間小屋子里寫《奧賽羅》的序曲，那個(gè)最禿最暴烈的劇院經(jīng)理強(qiáng)行把我關(guān)在里面，什么都沒有，就是一大盤通心粉。他發(fā)誓，我不寫完最后一個(gè)音符，就甭想出來!

《賊鵲》首演的當(dāng)天，我在斯卡拉劇院里為這部歌劇寫序曲。我被劇院經(jīng)理囚禁在那里，四個(gè)舞臺(tái)道具師奉命當(dāng)起了警衛(wèi)。他們接到命令，將我寫的稿子一頁(yè)一頁(yè)地扔到窗外，由幾個(gè)等候在外面的抄寫員火速抄寫出來。老板命令他們，如果我沒有把稿子寫出來，就把我從窗戶扔出去。

到《塞維利亞的理發(fā)師》時(shí)，我幸運(yùn)得多了。我壓根就沒有寫任何序曲。我只是把以前寫給不太重要的歌劇《伊麗莎白》的序曲移花接木。觀眾非常滿意。我寫《羅伊伯爵》序曲時(shí)，站在水里，一邊釣魚一邊寫，西格羅?阿古多在旁邊陪著，他談?wù)撝靼嘌赖慕鹑跔顩r。我在同樣的環(huán)境下寫出了《威廉?退爾》序曲。而《莫伊斯》，我一個(gè)音符還沒寫呢。