Duetto buffo di due gatti

This piece of music has wrongly been attributed to Gioachino Rossini.  The Duetto buffo di due gatti is something you could imagine him writing, perhaps in one of his innumerable works he liked to call his Péchés de vielliesse or “sins of old age”.  While the melody is drawn from Rossini’s 1816 opera Otello, the piece is likely a compilation done by a forgotten British composer named Robert Lucas de Pearsall.

My brother-in-law Tom unearthed this video on YouTube.  I thought you might enjoy this performance of Les petit chanteurs á la Croix de Bois here in Seoul about ten years ago.  This choir, based in Paris, is a famous boys’ choir.  There is only one word in the entire duet.  Given that the title in English is The Comic Duet of Two Cats, I’m sure you can guess what the word is.

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