Cimarosa, Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini--The last writers of the Neapolitan school--Tune for tune's sake--Rossini's improvements in methods of opera writing--Verdi and his three styles--"Aïda," and "Otello," "Falstaff," and the new school of Italian opera. Domenico Cimarosa (Naples, Dec. 17, 1749--Venice, Jan. 11, 1801) wrote seventy-six operas, none of which are heard to-day outside of Italy, where recently there has been a movement to revive some of the operas of the end of the last century. Cimarosa's masterpiece is "Il Matrimonia Segreto," a genuinely fine work in the department of Italian opera buffa. The music is distinguished for its flow of genuine and spirited humor and its constant melody. The ensembles are excellently made and have served as models to later masters. The most celebrated, original, and influential of Italian masters of the present century before Verdi was Gioachino Antonio Rossini, born at Pesaro, Feb. 29, 1792. His principal works are: "Tancred" (1813), "Otello" (1816), "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" (1816), "Semiramide" (1823), and "Gillaume Tell" (1829). The last named opera was written for Paris and it was not warmly received. Rossini appears to have taken its failure greatly to heart, and finding himself independent he wrote no more for the stage. He died in Paris, Nov. 13, 1868. "William Tell" is usually classed by historians among French operas, because it was written for the French stage and was a deliberate attempt to follow the French style. But it was its pure Italianism that prevented it from winning immediate success in Paris. Nevertheless it is Rossini's masterpiece. Rossini was not a man of musical genius, nor was he one of profound musical learning. As soon as he had enough musical science to write a score, he dropped study once and for all and embarked upon his career as a composer. He had a keen perception of the nature of those musical means which could be employed to produce a stage effect, and wrote always with these in his mind. There is no depth, no sincerity, in the music of Rossini. It is always theatrical and full of imposition. Perhaps the most heartless music ever written for an opera by a man of real talent is that of "Semiramide." Hardly an air in it will stand the test of comparison with its own text, and the manner in which a plotting priest, supposed to be a dark and mysterious villain, goes about expressing his desperate soul through trills and scales is almost ridiculous. Yet "Semiramide" is full of melody, and it contains musical effects which were new and striking at the time of its production. The employment of four horns together with clarinets in the finale, for instance, was an innovation.