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Before industrial sound recording, music circulated in the form of copies and transcriptions. Opera melodies became a neverending source of fantasias, symphonies and rhapsodies, relatively free-form works designed for a solo instrument such as the piano or guitar. Transcriptions became a genre in themselves, with great success among virtuoso soloists from the 19th century onwards and both improvised and written. Document FA293 of the Historical Archive in the Music Museum of Barcelona is a "symphony" for guitar based on best-known melodies from Rossini's opera La Cenerentola. The history of this manuscript passed through the hands of Carlos Santías and, later, formed part of the Fernando Alonso Fund that we now keep in the archivve.

In the case of the piano we can find transcriptions of several Rossini operas on pianola roll, from the Victoria factory (wich was active between 1905 and 1929), as is the cas of this sympphony of El Barbero de Sevilla.