ROSSINI IN LONDON.—The season was attended with enormous loss; and
Rossini left England without Having fulfilled his engagement to compose an opera. His residence in London, however, was a very profitable one to him- self. He was just the kind of man to be the fashionable lion of the day. His music was universally popular ; he was himself a first -rate comic singer ; and his manners and address were calculated to gain the favour of the gay and the courtly. The aristocracy, from royalty downwards, were profuse in their in- vitations and attentions; and he left England loaded with solid proofs of their liberality. His regular fee for attending a private musical party was fifty guineas; but those who invited him seldom contented themselves with giving him that sum. As if this were not enough, two subscription concerts were set on foot for him, to take place at Almack's rooms; the price of a ticket of admission to both to be three guineas, and none to be admitted except such as were approved of by lady patronesses, appointed to guard the assembly from the approach even of that portion of tbe profanum vulva who were able and willing to give three guineas for a couple of concerts! This, however, was too much, even for the extravagance of our beau monde; and the price of ad- mission was reduced to a guinea for each concert. The concerts were attendid by a crowd of fashionables, who had the gratification of hearing Rirssini's most hackneyed songs, sung by the performers whom they heard every day, and accompanied by a pitiful band of twenty performers.— Hoyarth's Musical History.
WEBER IN LosmoN.—The composer of Oberon, while he was the delight of the small circle of musical friends among whom he lived, was disqualified, by his feelings, habits, and manners, from sharing iu the golden harvest so .abundantly reaped by foreign favourites among the English aristocracy. His feelings were too high, his habits too retiring, and his manners too plain and simple, to enable him to profit by their liberality. He was willing to increase the emoluments of his long and painful journey to England, by attending pri- vate parties for the usual remuneration to artists of distinction; but he was not willing to seek invitations to such parties by paying court to their givers; • and the consequence was, that two or three such invitations were all he received. On the 26th of May, he had a benefit concert; and on this occasion, when it might naturally have been expected that an overflowing audience would have testified the sentiments of the English public towards one of the greatest mu- sicians who had ever visited our shores, the room was not more than half filled.' Weber, struggling at once with illness and with suppressed feelings of disappointment and mortification, was hardly able to get through the business Of the evening as conductor. At the end of the Concert, he threw himself on a sofa in a state of exhaustion which filled his surrounding fi leads with alarm. —Hoyarth's Musical History. • On the same evening, a favourite singer had his benefit concert at the mansion of one of the nobility. About four hundred persons, chiefly of the fashionable world, Were present ; the tickets being one guinea each.
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