Rossini: Guillaume Tellby Anonymous

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September 22, 2006: Critical consensus tells us that this opera is supposed to be flawed. The same critics assure us that astute musical minds must not enjoy Liszt's tone poem Les Preludes. I refuse to allow these critical traditions to govern or, indeed, to influence my critical responses. The suggestion that Rossini had the "temperament of a hack" may well be true but I cannot detect the decayed spots in Guillaume Tell. Instead of waiting for critical assistance, I prefer to praise the opera like a small child admiring a butterfly. In this response there is no use singling out favorite passages because they would only suggest exceptions to the unhappy rule. Instead I simply observe that Guillaume Tell continues a trend toward folk heroism such as I find in Cherubini's Les deux Journees and Beethoven's Fidelio and anticipates the colorful historical subjects of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots and Le Prophete. As for Rossini's famous overture, a fellow student of mine at Tufts told me that this is the worst piece ever composed. Perhaps the literalism of the raindrops offended his finer sensibilities. He could no doubt detect the "temperament of a hack." I view Rossini as a five-star hack. Genius by any other label is still genius.