Speaking some thirty years afterwards of his visit to London, Rossini said to Hiller:[9] "'From the beginning I had an opportunity of observing how disproportionately singers were paid in comparison with composers. If the composer got fifty ducats, the singer received a thousand. Italian operatic composers might formerly write heaven knows how many operas, and yet only be able to exist miserably. Things hardly went otherwise with myself until my appointment under Barbaja.' "'_Tancredi_ was your first opera which really made a great hit, maestro; how much did you get for it?' "'Five hundred francs,' replied Rossini, 'and when I wrote my last Italian opera, _Semiramide_, and stipulated for 5,000 francs, I was looked upon, not by the impresario alone, but by the entire public, as a kind of pickpocket.' "'You have the consolation of knowing,' said Hiller, 'that singers, managers, and publishers, have been enriched by your means.' "'A fine consolation' replied Rossini. 'Except during my stay in England, I never gained sufficient by my art to enable me to put by anything; and even in London I did not get money as a composer, but as an accompanist.' "'But still,' observed Hiller,'that was because you were a celebrated composer.' "'That is what my friends said,' replied Rossini, 'to decide me to do it. It may have been prejudice, but I had a kind of repugnance to being paid for accompanying on the piano, and I have only done so in London. However, people wanted to see the tip of my nose, and to hear my wife. I had fixed for our co-operation at musical soirées the tolerably high price of 50_l._ We attended somewhere about sixty such soirées, and that was after all worth having. In London, too, musicians will do anything to get money, and some delicious facts came under my observation there. For instance, the first time that I undertook the task of accompanist at a soirée of this description, I was informed that Puzzi, the celebrated horn-player, and Dragonetti, the more celebrated contrabassist, would also be present. I thought they would perform solos; not a bit of it! They were to assist me in accompanying. "Have you then your parts to accompany these pieces?" I asked them. "Not we," was their answer, "but we get well paid, and we accompany as we think fit!" '"These extemporaneous attempts at instrumentation struck me as rather dangerous, and I therefore begged Dragonetti to content himself with giving a few pizzicatos when I winked at him, and Puzzi to strengthen the final cadenzas with a few notes, which, being a good musician, he easily invented for the occasion. In this manner things went off without any very disastrous results, and every one was pleased.'"