Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas, as well as some sacred music, songs, chamber music and piano pieces.
A precocious composer of operas, he made his full debut at the age of eighteen . His best-known operas include the Italian comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia , L'italiana in Algeri and La Cenerentola . He also wrote a string of serious operas in Italian, including works such as Tancredi, Otello and Semiramide. The semi-serious opera La Gazza Ladra has one of Rossini's most celebrated overtures. After moving to Paris in 1824, he eventually started to write in French. His last opera, the epic Guillaume Tell , replete with its iconic overture, helped usher in grand opera in France.
After composing thirty-nine significant operas in nineteen years Rossini retired from the theatre in 1829. Later, he was affected by both physical and mental illnesses and for decades wrote relatively little apart from a setting of the Stabat Mater. A return to Paris from Italy in 1855 was followed by better health and the provision of exclusive musical and culinary soirées. During these, he presented salon music in the form of songs, piano pieces and small chamber ensembles that he called "Sins of Old Age". He considered the last of these "Sins" to be the unusually scored Petite messe solennelle that he wrote in 1863.
Rossini had been the most popular opera composer in history, and he was one of the most renowned public figures of his time. A rapid and prolific composer, he was quoted as joking, "Give me the laundress' bill and I will even set that to music." A tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, earning him the nickname "The Italian Mozart." Use of an exciting buildup of orchestral sound over a repeated phrase—commonly known as a "Rossini crescendo"—also prompted the nickname "Signor Crescendo".
“Simple melody and variety in rhythm.”
Melodia semplice e varietà nel ritmo.
His motto for Italian music, formulated in a letter to Filippo Filippi, August 26, 1868; Luca Somigli Legitimizing the Artist (2003) p. 103.
Often misquoted as "Simple melody – clear rhythm!"
Je le prends deux fois par semaine, Haydn quatre fois et Mozart tous les jours. Vous me direz, Beethoven est un colosse, qui vous donne souvent des coups de poing dans les côtes, tandisque Mozart est toujours adorable. C'est que lui a eu la chance d'aller très jeune en Italie à un époque, où l'on chantait encore bien.
Alfred Christlieb Kalischer Beethoven und seine Zeitgenossen (1908) p. 83. Translation from Charlotte Moscheles (trans. A. D. Coleridge) Life of Moscheles (1873) vol. 2, p. 275.
“Give me the laundress' bill and I will set to music even that.”
Datemi il conto della lavandaia e vi metterò in musica anche quello.
Indro Montanelli L'Italia giacobina e carbonara, Rizzoli, Milano 1972, p. 612.
“This little composition, which is, alas, the last mortal sin of my old age.”
Cette petite composition qui est, hélas, le dernier péché mortel de ma vieillesse.
Introductory note to the Petite Messe Solennelle. Translation from Justin Wintle (ed.) Makers of Nineteenth Century Culture (2002) vol. 2, p. 527.
“Monsieur Wagner has good moments, but awful quarters of an hour!”
Monsieur Wagner a de beaux moments, mais de mauvais quart d'heures.
Letter to Emile Naumann, April 1867, quoted in E Naumann Italienische Tondichter (1883) vol. 4, p. 5. Translation from The Riverside Dictionary of Biography (2005) p. 689.
Bon Dieu; la voilà terminée, cette pauvre petite messe. Est-ce bien de la musique sacrée que je viens de faire, ou bien de la sacré musique ? J'étais né pour l'opera buffa, tu le sais bien! Peu de science, un peu de coeur, tout est là. Sois donc béni et accorde-moi le Paradis.
Epigraph to his Petite Messe Solennelle (1863). Translation from Emanuele Senici (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Rossini (2004) p. 23.
Aspettate fino alla sera prima del giorno fissato per la rappresentazione. Nessuna cosa eccita più l'estro come la necessità, la presenza d'un copista, che aspetta il vostro lavoro e la ressa d'un impresario in angustie, che si strappa a ciocche i capelli. A tempo mio in Italia tutti gli impresari erano calvi a trent'anni.
From an undated letter, published in Luigi Rognoni Gioacchino Rossini (1968) p. 337. Translation from Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (1997) p. 67.
On the right time to write an overture.
