Rossini was well known for being remarkably productive, completing an average of two operas per year for 19 years, and in some years writing as many as four. Musicologists believe that, true to form, the music for "Il barbiere di Siviglia" was composed in just under three weeks, although the famous overture was actually recycled from two earlier Rossini operas, "Aureliano in Palmira" and "Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra" and thus contains none of the thematic material in "Il barbiere di Siviglia" itself.