In connection with _La Gazza Ladra_ a few words may here be said of Rossini's orchestration; much more varied, more brilliant and more sonorous than that of his predecessors. Rossini introduced new instruments, and with them new instrumental combinations. These innovations, like those consisting in a new distribution of the voice parts, and in the substitution of orchestral melodies with declamatory phrases here and there for the singers in lieu of endless recitative accompanied by chords for the violoncello and piano, excited the hostility of many orthodox professors, together with old-fashioned connoisseurs and amateurs of all kinds. They accused Rossini of bringing clarinets from cowherds, horns from the hunting field, trumpets from the camp, and trombones from the infernal regions. He was destined, on establishing himself at Paris, to introduce cornets, ophicleides, and, in the overture to _William Tell_, the nearest possible approach to the instrument with which the cowherds of Switzerland do really appeal to the animals placed under their care. But before he had reached these extremes, before he had in _Semiramide_ brought an entire military band on to the stage, and had in the same opera written for four horns a beautiful and beautifully harmonised melody which does not in any way suggest the chase, he raised the mortal anger of one of his adversaries and actually placed his life in danger by beginning the overture to _La Gazza Ladra_ with a duet for drums. A young enthusiast on the side of stagnation went about armed with the proclaimed intention of slaying the ruthless innovator. Rossini sent for the juvenile fanatic, talked to him, explained that in a piece of a military character drums were not altogether out of place and at last succeeded in appeasing his fury. To appreciate at a glance Rossini's importance as a writer for the orchestra it is only necessary to recall the fact that he alone of Italian composers has composed overtures which live with a life of their own apart from the works to which they belong, and that of such overtures he has left five; those of the _Barber_, of _La Gazza Ladra_, of _Semiramide_, of the _Siege of Corinth_, and of _William Tell_. CHAPTER XI. ROSSINI ON HIS TRAVELS. When in 1823, the year of _Semiramide's_ being produced at Venice, Rossini started with his wife, the former Mdlle. Colbran, for Paris--whence he made his way to London, returning to Paris soon afterwards--he enjoyed a world-wide reputation, but was far from being rich. Thanks, however, to a season in London, and to five years' residence in Paris, where lucrative posts were given to him, he soon made his fortune.