Italian composer Rossini: biography, creativity, life story and best works

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Italy is an amazing country. Either the nature there is special, or the people living in it are extraordinary, but the world's best works of art are somehow connected with this Mediterranean state. Music is a separate page in the life of Italians. Ask any of them what the name of the great Italian composer Rossini was and you'll get the right answer in no time.

A talented bel canto singer

It seems that the gene of musicality is embedded in every inhabitant of the Apennine Peninsula by nature itself. It is no coincidence that all the musical terms used in writing scores originated from the Latin language.

It is impossible to imagine an Italian who cannot sing beautifully. Beautiful singing, bel canto in Latin, is a truly Italian manner of performing musical works. Composer Rossini became famous throughout the world for his delightful compositions created in this manner.

In Europe, the fashion for bel canto came at the end of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It can be said that the outstanding Italian composer Rossini was born at the most appropriate time and in the verysuitable place. Was he a darling of fate? Doubtful. Most likely, the reason for his success is the divine gift of talent and character traits. And besides, the process of composing music was not at all tiring for him. Melodies were born in the composer's head with amazing ease - just have time to write it down.

Composer's childhood

The full name of the composer Rossini sounds like Gioacchino Antonio Rossini. He was born on February 29, 1792 in the city of Pesaro. The kid was incredibly adorable. “Little Adonis” was the name of the Italian composer Rossini in early childhood. The local artist Mancinelli, who painted the walls of the church of St. Ubaldo at that time, asked permission from Gioacchino's parents to depict the baby on one of the frescoes. He captured it in the form of a child, to whom an angel points the way to heaven.

His parents, although they had no special professional education, were musicians. Mother, Anna Guidarini-Rossini, had a very beautiful soprano and sang in musical performances of the local theater, and her father, Giuseppe Antonio Rossini, played the trumpet and horn there.

The only child in the family, Gioacchino was surrounded by the care and attention of not only his parents, but also numerous uncles, aunts, grandparents.

First pieces of music

He made his first attempts to compose music as soon as he got the opportunity to pick up musical instruments. The scores of a fourteen-year-old boy lookquite convincing. They clearly trace the tendencies of opera construction of musical plots - frequent rhythmic permutations are accentuated, in which characteristic, song melodies predominate.

The US Library of Congress holds six scores with sonatas for quartet. They are dated 1806.

"The Barber of Seville": the story of the composition

All over the world, the composer Rossini is known primarily as the author of the buff opera "The Barber of Seville", but few can say what the story of its appearance was. The original title of the opera is "Almaviva, or Vain Precaution". The fact is that one “Barber of Seville” already existed by that time. The first opera based on a funny play by Beaumarchais was written by the venerable Giovanni Paisiello. His composition was a great success on the stages of Italian theaters.

Teatro Argentino commissioned the young maestro for a comic opera. All librettos proposed by the composer were rejected. Rossini asked Paisiello to allow him to write his opera based on the play by Beaumarchais. He didn't mind. Rossini composed the famous Barber of Seville in 13 days.

Two premieres with different results

The premiere was a resounding failure. In general, many mystical incidents are connected with this opera. In particular, the disappearance of the score with the overture. It was a potpourri of several cheerful folk songs. The composer Rossini had to hastily come up with a replacement for the lost pages. In his papersthe notes to the long-forgotten opera Strange Case, written seven years ago, have been preserved. Having made minor changes, he included lively and light melodies of his own composition in the new opera. The second performance was a triumph. It was the first step on the way to the world fame of the composer, and his melodious recitatives still delight the public.

He had no more serious worries about the performances.

The fame of the composer quickly reached continental Europe. Information has been preserved about the name of the composer Rossini by his friends. Heinrich Heine considered him the "Sun of Italy" and called him the "Divine Maestro".

Austria, England and France in Rossini's life

After the triumph in the homeland, Rossini and Isabella Colbrand went to conquer Vienna. Here he was already well known and recognized as an outstanding contemporary composer. Schumann applauded him, and Beethoven, completely blind by this time, expressed admiration and advised him not to leave the path of composing opera buff.

Paris and London met the composer with no less enthusiasm. In France, Rossini stayed for a long time.

During his extensive tour, he composed and staged most of his operas on the best stages of the capital. The maestro was favored by the kings and made acquaintances with the most influential people in the world of art and politics.

Rossini will return to France at the end of his life to be treated for stomach ailments. In Paris, the composer will die. This will take place on November 13, 1868.

William Tell is the composer's last opera

Rossini did not like to spend too much time on work. Often in new operas he used the same motifs long ago invented. Each new opera rarely took him more than a month. In total, the composer wrote them 39.

"William Tell" he devoted six months. I wrote all the parts again, without using the old scores.

Rossini's musical description of the Austrian soldiers-invaders is intentionally emotionally poor, monotonous and angular. And for the Swiss people, who refused to submit to the enslavers, the composer, on the contrary, wrote diverse, melodic, rhythm-rich parts. He used the folk songs of the Alpine and Tyrolean shepherds, adding to them the Italian flexibility and poetry.

In August 1829, the premiere of the opera took place. King Charles X of France was delighted and awarded Rossini with the Order of the Legion of Honor. The audience reacted coldly to the opera. Firstly, the action lasted for four hours, and secondly, the new musical techniques invented by the composer turned out to be difficult to perceive.

In the following days, the theater management cut the performance short. Rossini was outraged and offended to the core.

Despite the fact that this opera had a huge impact on the further development of opera art, as can be seen in similar works of the heroic genre by Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi and Vincenzo Bellini, "William Tell"and is now extremely rarely staged.

Revolution in opera art

Rossini took two major steps to modernize modern opera. He was the first to record in the score all the vocal parts with the appropriate accents and graces. In the past, singers improvised their parts however they wanted.

The next innovation was the accompaniment of recitatives with musical accompaniment. In the opera series, this made it possible to create through instrumental inserts.

The end of writing activity

Art critics and historians have not yet come to a consensus, which forced Rossini to leave his career as a composer of musical works. He himself said that he had completely secured a comfortable old age for himself, and he was tired of the bustle of public life. If he had children, he would certainly continue to write music and stage his performances on opera stages.

The last theatrical work of the composer was the opera series "William Tell". He was 37 years old. In the future, he sometimes conducted orchestras, but never returned to composing operas.

Cooking is the maestro's favorite pastime

The second great hobby of the great Rossini was cooking. He suffered a lot because of his addiction to delicious foods. Retiring from public musical life, he did not become an ascetic. His house was always full of guests, feasts abounded with exotic dishes that the maestro invented personally. You might think that writing operas gave him the opportunity to earn enough moneyso that in my declining years I can devote myself to my favorite hobby with all my heart.

Two marriages

Gioacchino Rossini has been married twice. His first wife, Isabella Colbran, the owner of the divine dramatic soprano, performed all the solo parts in the maestro's operas. She was seven years older than her husband. Did her husband, the composer Rossini, love her? The biography of the singer is silent about this, and as for Rossini himself, it is assumed that this union was more business than love.

His second wife, Olympia Pelissier, became his companion for the rest of her life. They led a peaceful existence and were quite happy together. Rossini no longer wrote music, with the exception of two oratorios - the Catholic Mass "The Sorrowing Mother Stood" (1842) and "A Little Solemn Mass" (1863).

Three Italian cities, the most significant for the composer

Residents of three Italian cities proudly claim that the composer Rossini is their countryman. The first is the birthplace of Gioacchino, the city of Pesaro. The second is Bologna, where he lived the longest and wrote his main works. The third city is Florence. Here, in the Basilica of Santa Croce, the Italian composer D. Rossini was buried. His ashes were brought from Paris, and the wonderful sculptor Giuseppe Cassioli made an elegant gravestone.

Rossini in Literature

Rossini's biography, Gioacchino Antonio, was described by his contemporaries and friends in several fiction books, as well as innumerous art studies. He was in his early thirties when the first biography of the composer, described by Frederik Stendhal, was published. It's called The Life of Rossini.

Another friend of the composer, writer-novelist Alexandre Dumas, described him in a short novel "Dinner at Rossini's, or Two Students from Bologna". The lively and sociable disposition of the great Italian is captured in numerous stories and anecdotes preserved by his friends and acquaintances.

Subsequently, separate books were published with these funny and funny stories.

Filmmakers also did not ignore the great Italian. In 1991, Mario Monicelli presented to the audience his film about Rossini, starring Sergio Castellito.