"It is said, with what truth I know not, that Liszt got Verdi to give him a letter of introduction to Rossini and went to call on him. Rossini was exceedingly polite, asked him to play, and when he had done inquired what the piece was. Liszt said, 'It is a march I have written on the death of Meyerbeer; how do you like it, maestro?' Rossini said he liked it very much, but presently added, 'Do you not think it would have been better if it had been you who had died, and Meyerbeer who had written the music?'"
[A similar tale is told of Oscar Levant (critiquing an elegy written for George Gershwin).]
Sources
G. Keynes, Samuel Butler`s Notebooks
