a) who was gioacchino rossini? course hero

by Lynn Dach 4 min read

Gioachino [n 1] Antonio Rossini [n 2] (29 February 1792 – 13 November 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.

Full Answer

Who was Gioachino Antonio Rossini?

For other people with the surname, see Rossini (surname). Rossini as a young man, circa 1810–1815. Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, ...

Who wrote Rossini's biography?

Stendhal, who published a colourful biography of Rossini in 1824, wrote: Rossini's portion from his father, was the true native heirship of an Italian: a little music, a little religion, and a volume of Ariosto.

What happened to Rossini in 1820?

By the early 1820s Rossini was beginning to tire of Naples. The failure of his operatic tragedy Ermione the previous year convinced him that he and the Neapolitan audiences had had enough of each other. An insurrection in Naples against the monarchy, though quickly crushed, unsettled Rossini; when Barbaia signed a contract to take the company to Vienna, Rossini was glad to join them, but did not reveal to Barbaia that he had no intention of returning to Naples afterwards. He travelled with Colbran, in March 1822, breaking their journey at Bologna, where they were married in the presence of his parents in a small church in Castenaso a few miles from the city. The bride was thirty-seven, the groom thirty.

How old was Rossini when he wrote his first opera?

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 and Giovanni Paisiello. 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 .

How many performances of Le Comte Ory did Rossini have?

It was Rossini's last opera with an Italian libretto. He permitted only four performances of the piece, intending to reuse the best of the music in a less ephemeral opera. About half the score of Le comte Ory (1828) is from the earlier work. Isolier, Ory, Adèle and Ragonde, in Le comte Ory.

What year did Rossini move to Naples?

1814 was a less remarkable year for the rising composer, neither Il turco in Italia or Sigismondo pleasing the Milanese or Venetian public, respectively. 1815 marked an important stage in Rossini's career. In May he moved to Naples, to take up the post of director of music for the royal theatres.

What was the success of Rossini's opera?

The success of Tancredi made Rossini's name known internationally; productions of the opera followed in London (1820) and New York (1825). Within weeks of Tancredi, Rossini had another box-office success with his comedy L'italiana in Algeri, composed in great haste and premiered in May 1813.

Why is Gioachino Rossini called Il Tedeschino?

At Bologna, he was known as “il Tedeschino” (“the Little German”) on account of his devotion to Mozart. Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868).

Where was Gioachino Antonio Rossini born?

Early life. Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro, a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy which was then part of the Papal States. His father, Giuseppe, was a horn player and inspector of slaughterhouses. His mother, Anna, was a singer and a baker’s daughter.

How old was Rossini when he met Beethoven?

Later in 1822, a 30-year -old Rossini succeeded in meeting Ludwig van Beethoven, who was then aged 51, deaf, cantankerous and in failing health. Communicating in writing, Beethoven noted: “Ah, Rossini. So you’re the composer of The Barber of Seville. I congratulate you.

What did Angelo Tesei learn?

In Angelo Tesei, he found a congenial music master, and learned to sight-read, play accompaniments on the piano and sing well enough to take solo parts in the church when he was ten years of age. Important products of this period are six sonate a quattro, or string sonatas, composed in three days, unusually scored for two violins, cello and double bass. The original scores, dating from 1804, when the composer was twelve, were found in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Often transcribed for string orchestra, these sonatas reveal the young composer’s affinity for Haydn and Mozart, already showing signs of operatic tendencies, punctuated by frequent rhythmic changes and dominated by clear, songlike melodies.

Where did Rossini learn to play the cello?

In 1806, Rossini became a cello student under Cavedagni at the Conservatorio di Bologna. The following year he was admitted to the counterpoint class of Padre Stanislao Mattei (1750–1825). He learned to play the cello with ease, but the pedantic severity of Mattei’s views on counterpoint served only to drive the young composer’s views toward a freer school of composition. His insight into orchestral resources is generally ascribed not to the strict compositional rules that he learned from Mattei, but to knowledge gained independently while scoring the quartets and symphonies of Haydn and Mozart. At Bologna, he was known as “il Tedeschino” (“the Little German”) on account of his devotion to Mozart.

What was Rossini's father's musical training?

Rossini’s parents began his musical training early, and by the age of six he was playing the triangle in his father’s musical group. Rossini’s father was sympathetic to the French Revolution and welcomed Napoleon’s troops when they arrived in northern Italy.

When was Rossini's father sent to prison?

When Austria restored the old regime, Rossini’s father was sent to prison in 1799, where he remained until June 1800. Rossini’s mother took him to Bologna, making a living as leading singer at various theatres of the Romagna region.

What is Gioacchino Rossini's most famous opera?

His best-known work is " The Barber of Seville.". Gioacchino Rossini was born in Pesaro on Feb. 29, 1792, into a musical family: his father was a trumpeter ...

Where did Rossini study music?

During Rossini's formal musical training at the Liceo Comunale in Bologna (1807-1810) he composed prolifically. His first opera was Demetrio e Polibio, written in 1809, but his first work to be put on the stage was the comic opera La cambiale di matrimonio, composed in 1810 and performed successfully at the Teatro di S. Moise‧ in Venice that year.

What year did Rossini go to Vienna?

The year 1822 was a critical one for Rossini in many ways. He went to Vienna for performances of several of his operas in German, married the famous singer Isabella Colbran, who had performed with great success in many of his operas, and worked with even greater care than usual on the new opera, Semiramide, for Venice.

How many operas did Rossini write?

Rossini's 38 operas run the gamut from brief one-act comic works to the monumental and historic five-act Guillaume Tell. Some of his contemporaries and some historians, misled by the facility and speed of his writing, his habit of using portions of unsuccessful or forgotten works over again in new operas, and the easy charm of his solo arias and ensembles, have considered him a clever but superficial composer of no outstanding importance in the development of opera. But his works show remarkable craftsmanship, and in their brilliant integration of solo, ensemble, and orchestral writing and their sharp character delineation they are the most important link in the Italian operatic tradition between the late Italian works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the first works of Giuseppe Verdi. And Rossini's Guillaume Tell altered the entire course of French opera.

How old was Gioacchino when his mother took him to Bologna?

When he was 4 years old, Gioacchino's mother took him to Bologna, where she sought and found singing engagements and where the child received instruction in singing, theory, keyboard, and several other instruments.

What was the success of Tancredi?

Success came quickly to the young composer. He wrote rapidly and fluently, in a style pleasing to singers and audiences alike. La pietra del paragone was staged to great acclaim at La Scala in Milan in 1812; Tancredi became a genuine international hit following its premiere in Venice the following year.

When did Rossini move to Florence?

Political disturbances forced a move to Florence in 1847, the year after his marriage to his second wife, Olimpia Alessandrina Pélissier. In 1855 he returned to Paris, remaining there until his death on Nov. 13, 1868. The most curious aspect of Rossini's later years is that he wrote no operas after 1829.

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Overview

Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 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.

Life and career

Rossini was born in 1792 in Pesaro, a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy that was then part of the Papal States. He was the only child of Giuseppe Rossini, a trumpeter and horn player, and his wife Anna, née Guidarini, a seamstress by trade, daughter of a baker. Giuseppe Rossini was charming but impetuous and feckless; the burden of supporting the family and raising the child fell mainly o…

Music

The writer Julian Budden, noting the formulas adopted early on by Rossini in his career and consistently followed by him thereafter as regards overtures, arias, structures and ensembles, has called them "the Code Rossini" in a reference to the Code Napoléon, the legal system established by the French Emperor. Rossini's overall style may indeed have been influenced more directly by the Fr…

Influence and legacy

The popularity of Rossini's melodies led many contemporary virtuosi to create piano transcriptions or fantasies based on them. Examples include Sigismond Thalberg's fantasy on themes from Moïse, the sets of variations on "Non più mesta" from La Cenerentola by Henri Herz, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Hünten, Anton Diabelli and Friedrich Burgmüller, and Liszt's transcriptions of the William Tell o…

Notes, references and sources

1. ^ According to his baptismal certificate, Rossini's first name was originally Giovacchino, and he is so referred to in at least one later document from his early years. In the Cambridge Companion to Rossini, the editor, Emanuele Senici, writes that Rossini spelt the name variously as Gioachino or Gioacchino in his early years, before finally settling on the former in the 1830s. The latter spelling is now more usual among bearers of the forename, but Rossini experts generally regar…

External links

• Fondazione Gioachino Rossini, Pesaro (in Italian)
• The Center for Italian Opera Studies: Rossini critical edition
• Free scores by Rossini at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• Free scores by Gioachino Rossini in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)