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GIOACCHINO ROSSINI (ANTONIE)

29th February 1792 --- 13th November 1868

Gioacchino Rossini(born 1792, Pesaro, Papal States [Italy]--died 1868 Passy,  near Paris,  France),  Italian composer noted for his
operas, particularly his comic operas, of which The Barber of Seville (1816), Cinderella (1817), and Semiramide (1823) are among
the best known. Of his later, larger scale dramatic operas, the most widely heard is William Tell (1829).

Gioacchino Rossini was the son of Giuseppe Rossini  a impoverished trumpeter who played in miscellaneous bands and orchestras
and Anna Guidarini, a singer of secondary roles. Thus Rossini spent his entire childhood in the theatre. Though a lazy student,  the
young  Rossini found  it easy to learn to sing and play.  At the age of 14 he entered Bologna's  Philharmonic  School (now the  G.B.
Martini  State  Conservatory  of Music)  and  composed his  first opera  seria,   Demetrio e Polibio (1806,  staged  in 1812)  for  the
Mombelli, a family  of singers.  At 15 he had learned  the violin,  horn,  and harpsichord  and had often  sung in public,  even in the
theatre, to earn some money.  When his voice broke and he was unable to continue singing,  Rossini became an  accompanist and
then a conductor.  He had already realized the importance of the German school of composition,  perceiving the new  elements by
which  Joseph Haydn and  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had enriched music.  These influences  can be found in the  early cantata he
wrote for the Philharmonic School,  performed there in 1808.  During the next 20 years  (from 1808) this genial  lazybones was to
compose more than 40 operas.

By taste, and soon by obligation, Rossini threw himself into the genre then fashionable, opera buffa (comic opera). His first opera
buffa, La cambiale di matrimonio (1810,  The Bill of Marriage),  was performed in  Venice and had a certain success,  although his
unusual orchestration made the singers indignant. Back in Bologna again,  he gave cantata La morte di Didone  (1811, The Death
of Dido) in  homage  to the Mombelli family,  who had helped him so much, and he scored a triumph with the two-act opera buffa
L'equivoca stravagante (1811, The Extravagant Misunderstanding).  The following year, two more of his  comic operas were then
produced in Venice. Rossini had already broken the traditional form of opera buffa, he embellished his melodies (he was the true
creator of  bel canto,  a florid style  of singing), animated his ensembles and finales,  and used  unusual rhythms,  restored to the
orchestra  its rightful place,  and put the  singer at the service of the music.  In 1812 Rossini wrote the oratorio  Ciro in Babilonia
(Cyrus in Babylon) and La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder), another comic opera.

The same year,  Marietta Marcolini,  who had already sung in one of Rossini's  operas and  was interested  in the young  composer
recommended Rossini  to the committee of La Scala opera house in Milan.  It was under contract to them that he wrote  La pietra
del paragone (1812, The Touchstone), a  touchstone of  his budding genius.  In its finale,  Rossini  for  the first time   made use of
the crescendo effect that he was later to use and abuse indiscriminately.

By this time Rossinis experience in writing seven operas and several cantatas and his intimate contact with the theatre had given
him a profound knowledge of his profession. Singers no longer held terrors for him he was now ready for his major works. Venice
the most refined city in Italy was to offer him his true glory. After the comic opera Il signor Bruschino (1813), written for the San
Moisè Theatre, he next wrote--for La Fenice--his first serious opera, Tancredi (1813), in which he tried to reform opera seria (the
formula-ridden, serious operas  of the 18th century), and he composed an  authentically dramatic  score. This work,  spirited and
melodious was an instant success. Tancredi's famous song, Di tanti palpiti,  was whistled all over town. The success of  L'Italiana
in Algeri (1813, The Italian Girl in Algiers) followed, but showing  a further refinements in his reforms of  opera buffa.  These two
successes opened wide the doors of La Scala. With Aureliano in Palmira (1814) the composer then affirmed his authority over the
singers he decided to prescribe and write the ornaments for his arias, but the work was not a success. After L'Italiana he wrote Il
Turco in Italia (1814, The Turk in Italy) he did for the Milanese and a cantata for Princess Belgioioso, "one of the most likeable of
protectresses," as the French novelist Stendhal referred to her. His next work, Sigismundo (1814), was a failure.

Rossini's fame had soon spread to Naples where the reigning impresario was Domenico Barbaia an ambitious former coffeehouse
waiter, who by gambling and running a gaming house had amassed a fortune and was now in charge of the two great Neapolitan
theatres.  Barbaia realized  Rossini's growing  fame and went to Bologna to offer him a contract.  Impressed by the  terms of this
contract security, two operas a year as well as by Barbaia, a millionaire  rather than the customary fourth  rate impresario on the
verge of bankruptcy,  Rossini did not  hesitate to accept.  How could anyone refuse  a tempting  impresario whose  favourite was
none other than the imposing diva Isabella Colbran?.

Colbran's first Rossini opera, Elisabetta, Stevenina  d'Inghilterra (1815; Elizabeth, Queen of England), was a triumphant success.
Rossini admired  Colbran very  much and soon fell  in love  with her.  The brilliant  success  of Elisabetta  prompted an  invitation
from Rome to spend the time at carnival season of 1816. The first of Rossinis Rome operas was unsuccessful. So was the second
Almaviva soon to become famous Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816,The Barber of Seville). The Romans, who knew and loved Giovanni
Paisiello's version of Eugène de Beaumarchais's play, took a dislike to this new setting, but when it was given elsewhere in Italy
it was received with  unbounded  success.  Written in 16 days,  the work  is a piece of inspired inventiveness  that has  delighted
opera lovers ever since. There followed La cenerentola (1817, Cinderella). As with The Barber, this work uses a contralto for the
heroine's role, though both roles are often sung by sopranos, it proved no less successful. In between these two comedies came
Otello (1816, Othello),  a setting of William Shakespeare's play that held the stage until superseded by Giuseppe Verdi's greater
opera of the same name. La gazza ladra (1817, The Thieving Magpie), a semiserious work, was a triumph in Milan.

Armida was a grand opera requiring a trio of tenors and a dramatic soprano Colbran, appeared in 1817. Rossini was now finding
interpreters that suited his music. Colbran, the tenor Manuel Garcia, the bass Filippo Galli (the most beautiful voice in Italy) and
the contralto Benedetta Pisaroni (whose art had no equal in depth) were his usual  exponents and carried forward  his art of bel
canto.

La donna del lago  (based on Sir Walter Scott's poem  "The Lady of the Lake")  failed at its premiere in 1819 but  soon came into
favour.  After several more or  less successful works, he left Naples for Vienna,  along with Colbran  (whom he had just married)
anxious to meet Ludwig van Beethoven.  Disappointed by the economic situation of the composer of Fidelio, he then returned to
Venice, where he attempted to crown his Italian career with Semiramide (1823). The old-fashioned Venetians, however, did not
understand this  most astonishing work,  his longest  and most ambitious, and so  he resolved not to  write another note  for his
countrymen. Following his resolution, he decided to leave Italy.

Rich, his married, unstable, and by nature an epicurean, Rossini wanted to travel. He arrived in Paris in November 1823 and was
enthusiastically welcomed in the French capital. The Academy in Paris received him all of the town fawned upon him. At the end
of the year, he visited London, where he conducted and sang in concerts with his wife and met King George IV. Back in Paris, he
embarrassed the old musicians. "Rossini," wrote the Escudier brothers, Paris music publishers.

He was then 31  years old and in his prime.  His countenance revealed a lofty  and congenial expression. His subtle,  with a quick
penetrating eye held one magnetically before him.  His smile, was benevolent and  caustic at the same time,  reflected his whole
disposition.  The clear line of his aquiline nose,  his vast  and prominent brow,  which his prematurely  receding hairline  entirely
revealed,  the even oval  of his face enclosed in jet-black sideburns,  all formed a  kind of virile and fascinating beauty.  He has a
a marvelously shaped hand,  which he displayed  somewhat  coquettishly through his cuff.  He dressed in a simple manner,  and
under his clothes, which were more proper  than elegant, the appearance of a newly  disembarked provincial into the capital.  If
the old  nicknamed  him "Monsieur  Crescendo",  the young very  quickly paraded  their admiration  for him.  Paris was  then the
centre of the world and Rossini knew it. After some of his works had been staged, he composed Il viaggio a Reims (The Journey
to Reims), a cantata improvised for the coronation of Charles X.

For a long while Rossini hoped to modify his style: to replace the comparative artificiality and coldness of florid opera coloratura
with declamatory and lofty singing  that is,  with truth and intensity. In order to do that, he also had to reform the orchestra and
give more importance to  the chorus.  Thus appeared Le Siège de Corinthe  (The Siege of Corinth, 1826),  a revision of the earlier
Maometto II (1820), which was saluted by the then prominent composer Hector Berlioz. Le Siège was followed by Moïse (Moses
1827) and Le Comte Ory (Count Ory, 1828), an adaptation of opera buffa style to French opera.

Rossini's final opera, Guillaume Tell (William Tell), is on the noble themes of nationalism and liberty,  and his music  is worthy of
the elevated subject.  The Parisian public  gave him an ovation,  and, in a single work,  he had responded  to all the  critics in the
most elegant manner. Then he decided, at the age of 37, not to write again for the theatre. Tell was to have been the first of five
operas for the Opéra, but the new government following the Revolution of 1830 set aside Rossini's contract.

The reasons for his musical silence remain only suppositions. Some cite his legendary laziness as the cause, while others point to
the Parisian hostility to his work and Rossini's resulting sulkiness. Another cause might have been his jealousy over the Parisian
success of the opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer.

In 1845, Colbran died. In 1847 Rossini married Olympe Pélissier. During his retirement he had written, returning to his first love
some religious pieces: the Stabat Mater (1832) and Petite messe solennelle (1864).  He also wrote a few songs and piano pieces
but never agreed to their publication.

After a period in Italy, he then returned to Paris in 1855,  never again to leave it.  His parents being deceased, his  new wife less
demanding than the preceding one,  and he himself was a wealthy man whose retirement was assured,  Rossini gave way to the
sweetness of life, to  being a wise man who permitted himself  to shine in society with  some clever expressions  and witticisms.
His bons mots, in fact,  are legendary, as were his  caustic wit  and low humour.  At his Paris home and later at his  villa in Passy
Rossini gave superb gourmet dinners attended  by many of the greats of the musical and literary world of the mid 19th century.
In 1860 the renowned  German composer Richard Wagner visited him,  and their fascinating conversation that was recorded by
Wagner in his essay "Eine Erinnerung an Rossini" ("A Memory of Rossini").

For years Rossini was known virtually only  by the omnipresent  Barber of Seville and an occasional  revival of William Tell. From
the 1950s more and more of his operas were revived, particularly at festivals, and nearly always with public and critical acclaim.

MAJOR WORKS.  Operas.  Some 35  including La pietra del paragone ( The Touchstone,  first  performed 1812),  Tancredi (1813)
L'Italiana in  Algeri Italian Girl Algiers, 1813),  Il Turco  Italia Turk Italy,  1814),  Elisabetta, Stevenina  d'Inghilterra  (Elizabeth
Queen of England, 1815), barbiere di Siviglia Barber Seville, 1816), cenerentola (Cinderella, 1817),  Armida (1817),  gazza ladra
Thieving Magpie, donna lago Lady the Lake 1819), Semiramide (1823), Le Siège de Corinthe Siege Corinth 1826), Moïse (Moses
1827), Guillaume Tell (William Tell, 1829).

Choral music.    Il viaggio a Reims  (cantata  with ballets,  completed 1825),  Stabat  Mater (1832,  revised 1842),  Petite messe
solennelle (1864).

Chamber music.    Five string quartets (1808).

Songs.    Various, among them Les Soirèes musicales (published 1835).

Piano.    Pèchès de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), about 180 pieces for piano or for various instruments, voice, and piano.

Copyright 1994-1998 Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated on 2018
By Steven Ritchie

And now for the Music

"Semiramide Overture". Sequenced by Steven Ritchie

"Overture To 'Il Tancredi". Sequenced by Steven Ritchie

Thanks to Dr Roger H Sugg for the music below. Email (rhsugg@hotmail.com)

"The Barber of Saville". Sequenced by Dr Roger H Sugg

Thanks to Dereck Riddell for the music below. Email (dereck.riddell@ntlworld.com)

"Domine Deus from Petite Messe Solennelle". Sequenced by Dereck Riddell

Thanks to B.S. Lengton for the music below. Email (mb.lengton@12move.nl)

(2671)"La Danza, An Neopolitan Tarantella". Sequenced by B.S. Lengton

Thanks to George Pollen for the music below. Visit my Bookmark page for his website

(2075)"Overture to Tancredi". Sequenced by George Pollen

Thanks to Scott P. Anderson for the music below. Email (hi_desert01@hotmail.com)

(1866)"William Tell Overture". Sequenced by Scott P. Anderson

Thanks to Ramon Pajares Box for the music below. Visit my Bookmark page for his website

(1542)"L'Italiana in Algeri (1813) Overture". Sequenced by Ramon Pajares Box

(1179)"Count Figaro". Sequenced by Bill King

(177)"La Calunnia e Ventacello,(Info by Cheryl Evans)". Seqenced by Bill King

(246)"Rosina Figaro duet from The Barber of Seville". Sequenced by Bill King

(1181)"Largo al Factotum, from Barbiere di Siviglia". Sequenced by Lft weimermt

(1185)"I Gondolieri". Sequenced by Remi Lucet

(1186)"Signor Bruschino". Sequenced by A. Zammarrelli.

(1180)"Overture, La Cenerentola". Sequenced by G.Borello

(1187)"Overture, Italiana in Algeri". Sequenced by G.Borello

(1182)"Aria di Berta, from Barbiere di Siviglia". Sequenced by G.Borello

(1183)"Barber of Seville, Overture". Sequenced by Andrew Parr

(1184)"Overture William Tell". Sequenced by Brian Ames

(411)"Overture from the Barber of Seville". Sequenced by Mark Anthony Williams.

(1188)"Overture from Gazza". Sequencer Unknown

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