 The concert's opening number, the overture to "La gazza ladra", was disappointing too, omitting its customary cymbals in order to achieve a "bloodless correctitude in the eyes of modern scholarship".It seemed to Scherer that Rossini's music had become an industry, in thrall to academia, in which all that mattered was that more and more of his scores should be performed.Whether his music was sung beautifully or wretchedly had ceased to be important.