I would disagree completely with Mr.  Satz' remarks-I find Paisiello's
instrumental music, particularly the piano concerti, intolerably dull, but
his operas [I've conducted two productions of "Barber"] quite charming.
There are several very entertaining individual comic numbers in "Barber",
at least one of which (the trio with the sneezing and yawning servants) is
remarkable for its harmonic audacity.

Paisiello's "Barber of Seville" is enormously important as a major source
for Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro"--many aspects of melodic contour and
choices of tonality in the latter were taken from the former, perhaps
deliberately.  Figaro's "catalog" aria is selfevidently either a source for
Leporello's in "Don Giovanni" or proof that both Mozart and Paisiello drew
upon a common tradition of genre arias of the time.

True, it's not Mozart--Paisiello tends towards repetition where Mozart
would devlope...but then, Mozart's da Ponte operas are sui generis and
not typical of Italian opera buffo of that period--some critics of that
day found his harmonic schemes far too complex and his orchestration
overbearing--precisely the qualities we prize so highly in these
masterpieces.

Paisiello's comic operas along with those of Salieri and Soler[heard
in the Tafelmusik in Don Giovanni] are the norm against which Mozart's
special qualities can be appreciated.  This point was made clear to me
about 35 years ago when I conducted the Paisiello "Barber" for the first
time--one of my musicology professors, the late Nino Pirrotta came to one
performance.  Talking with him afterwards I remarked that the score was
like Mozart and water.  He smiled and suggested that more accurately,
Mozart was like Paisiello and brandy.

Best wishes--Joel Lazar
Bethesda MD