Pierre Beaumarchais
In 1786, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed an opera, "Le Nozze di Figaro", based on "The Marriage of Figaro", with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte based on the play. Several composers including Paisiello in 1782 wrote operas based on "The Barber of Seville". Rossini's 1816 version is his most successful work and still often performed. In 1966, Darius Milhaud composed an opera, "La mère coupable", based on "The Guilty Mother".
Flute Concertino (Chaminade)
Scholarship indicates that the Concertino was commissioned by the Paris Conservatoire in 1902, presumably as an examination piece for flute students, where the celebrated French flautist and teacher Paul Taffanel, to whom the Concertino was dedicated, taught. Among flautists, legend has it that Chaminade wrote the Concertino to punish a flute-playing lover after he left her to marry someone else, wanting to make a piece so fiendishly difficult that he could not play it (though he supposedly did manage). However, Chaminade had married a music publisher the year before the piece was commissioned, which lessens the validity of the legend. Not long after composing it, Chaminade orchestrated it for a London concert played by her friend, flautist Marguerite de Forest Anderson.