Gioachino Antonio Rossini (1792 – 1868) was an
Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas,
although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music
and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new
standards for both comic and serious opera before
retiring from large-scale composition while still in
his thirties, at the height of his popularity.
Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his
father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began
to compose by the age o...(+)
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (1792 – 1868) was an
Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas,
although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music
and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new
standards for both comic and serious opera before
retiring from large-scale composition while still in
his thirties, at the height of his popularity.
Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his
father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began
to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music
school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in
Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was
engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples.
In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the
Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan,
Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity
necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some
components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of
self-borrowing. During this period he produced his most
popular works including the comic operas L'italiana in
Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia (known in English as
The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola, which
brought to a peak the opera buffa tradition he
inherited from masters such as Domenico Cimarosa. He
also composed opera seria works such as Otello,
Tancredi and Semiramide. All of these attracted
admiration for their innovation in melody, harmonic and
instrumental colour, and dramatic form. In 1824 he was
contracted by the Opéra in Paris, for which he
produced an opera to celebrate the coronation of
Charles X, Il viaggio a Reims (later cannibalised for
his first opera in French, Le comte Ory), revisions of
two of his Italian operas, Le siège de Corinthe and
Moïse, and in 1829 his last opera, Guillaume Tell.
Rossini's withdrawal from opera for the last 40 years
of his life has never been fully explained;
contributary factors may have been ill-health, the
wealth his success had brought him, and the rise of
spectacular Grand Opera under composers such as Giacomo
Meyerbeer. From the early 1830s to 1855, when he left
Paris and was based in Bologna, Rossini wrote
relatively little. On his return to Paris in 1855 he
became renowned for his musical salons on Saturdays,
regularly attended by musicians and the artistic and
fashionable circles of Paris, for which he wrote the
entertaining pieces Péchés de vieillesse. Guests
included Franz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Giuseppe Verdi,
Meyerbeer and Joseph Joachim. Rossini's last major
composition was his Petite messe solennelle (1863). He
died in Paris in 1868.
L'italiana in Algeri, which became Rossini's first real
smash in 1813, has maintained its place in the
repertory not least because of its ever popular
overture. In many ways it set the pattern for the
pop-favorite Rossini overtures that followed: it
features a theatrically heavy slow introduction leading
into an exciting Allegro with elements of sonata form.
Exceptionally, the overture is thematically linked with
the opera itself (Rossini, an inveterate recycler of
his own material, rarely allowed an overture to be tied
too closely to any individual work). Even more
exceptionally, the thematic link occurs not in the slow
introduction but in the Allegro section, whose second
theme is basis for act II aria "Sullo stil de'
viaggiatori."
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gioachino_Rossini).
Although originally scored for Orchestra, I created
this Arrangement of the Overture from L'Italiana in
Algeri (IGR 37) for Small Orchestra (Bb Trumpets,
Flutes, Oboes, Bb Clarinets, French Horns, Bassoons,
Timpani, Cymbals, 2 Violins, Violas, Cellos & Basses).
