His insight into orchestral writing, however, came rather from the knowledge he gained by scoring Haydn’s and Mozart’s quartets and symphonies than from Mattei’s instruction. For counterpoint he never had much sympathy; but, though the stricter forms of composition did not appeal to him, he was well enough grounded in the grammar of his art to enable him at all times to give the most effective expression to the delicious conceptions which continually presented themselves to his mind. In 1808 the Conservatory of Bologna awarded him a prize for his cantata _Il pianto d’armonia per la morte d’Orfeo_, and two years later the favor of the Marquis Cavalli secured the performance of his first opera, _Il cambiale di matrimonio_, at Venice. Rossini now produced opera after opera with varying fortune in Bologna, Rome, Venice, and Milan. The success of _La pietra del paragone_ (Milan, 1812), in which he introduced his celebrated _crescendo_,[67] was eclipsed by that of _Tancredi_ (Venice, 1813), the only one among these early works of which the memory has survived. In it the plagiarism to which Rossini was prone is strongly evident; it contains fragments of both Paer and Paesiello. But the public was carried away with the verve and ingenuity of the opera, and the charm of melodies like _Mi rivedrai, ti rivedrò_, which, we are told, so caught the public fancy that judges in the courts of law were obliged to call those present to order for singing it. Even the arrival of the Emperor Napoleon in Venice, which took place at the time, could not compete in popular interest with the performances of _Tancredi_. In 1814 Rossini’s _Il turco in Italia_ was heard in Milan, and in the next year he agreed to take the musical direction of the Teatro del Fondo at Naples, with the understanding that he was to compose two operas every year, and in return to receive a stipend of 200 ducats (approximately one hundred and seventy-five dollars) a month, and an annual share of the gaming tables amounting to one thousand ducats (eight hundred and seventy-five dollars)! In Naples the presence of Zingarelli and Paesiello gave rise to intrigue against the young composer, but all opposition was overcome by the enthusiastic manner in which the court received _Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra_, set to a libretto by Schmidt, which anticipated by a few years the incidents of Scott’s ‘Kenilworth.’ As in _La pietra del paragone_, Rossini had first made effective use of the _crescendo_, so in _Elisabetta_ he introduced other innovations. The classic _recitative secco_ was replaced by a recitative accompanied by a quartet of strings.[68] And for the first time Rossini wrote out the ‘ornaments’ of the arias, instead of leaving them to the fancy of the singers, on whose good taste and sense of fitness he had found he could not depend.