BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, March 11, 1822

The anonymous music critic of Journal des débats writes in today’s paper how preparations are going with the rehearsals in Naples of Rossini’s new opera Zelmira, which is to be officially premiered by the composer in Vienna next month. “He never gets ruffled; he hardly says two or three words…His principle is not to upset the orchestra and, above all, not to humiliate the singers. His prodigious memory allows him to make his observations singly to each one after rehearsals. Leaving the [Teatro] San Carlo, I accompanied him to the house of the copyist to whom he pointed out some fifty mistakes without looking at the score! The more one observes this man at close quarters, the more one finds him a superior being.”

(from Gaia Servadio, Rossini. New York: Carroll & Graf 2003, pp. 90-91)