Rossini, Gioacchino

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) occupied during his lifetime an unrivalled position in the Italian musical world. The son of a horn-player and an opera singer, Rossini had as a boy direct experience of operatic performance, both in the orchestra pit and on stage. He is considered to be the last and greatest composer of comic opera in the buffo style, but is more important as a composer of opera seria.

From his first relative success in 1810, his operas were performed in all the Italian operatic centres. In 1824 Rossini settled in Paris where he wrote his final opera, "Guillaume Tell", which was staged there in 1829.
The revolution of 1830 put an end to French royal commissions for the theatre, and Rossini returned to Italy. Although he continued to enjoy considerable esteem, both in Paris and in his native Italy, he stopped composing, partly due to bad health.

He returned to Paris in 1855 and began to compose again, writing a number of piano works and ensembles, many of which were performed at Rossini's "Samedi Soirs".

Of Rossini's three dozen or so operas, Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) is probably the best known, a treatment of the first play of the Figaro trilogy by Beaumarchais on which Mozart had drawn thirty years before in Vienna. Other well known comic operas by Rossini include La Scala di Seta (The Silken Ladder), Il Signor Bruschino, L'Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers), Il Turco in Italia (The Turk in Italy), La Cenerentola (Cinderella) and La Gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie). More serious subjects were tackled in Otello, Semiramide, Mose in Egitto (Moses in Egypt) and the French Guillaume Tell (William Tell), based on the play by Schiller. The overtures to many of these operas are a recurrent element in the repertoire of the concert-hall.

Church music by Rossini includes the Petite Messe Solennelle, originally for twelve solo voices, two pianos and harmonium, but rescored four years later, in 1867, with orchestral accompaniment. Rossini's Stabat Mater was written in 1841 in its final version. Instrumental compositions by Rossini include his early String Sonatas, designed for two violins, cello and double bass and thought to have been written when the composer was twelve. The String Sonatas show a precocious command of Italian operatic style, here translated into instrumental terms.

The so-called Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age) consist of thirteen volumes of varied music, some vocal, some instrumental, five of the collections designed for the piano, pieces that demonstrate both the well known wit of the composer as well as his continuing technical command of musical resources.