Italy is an amazing country. Either nature is special there, or the people in it live extraordinary, but the best world 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 will immediately receive the correct answer.
Talented Belcanto Chaser
It seems that the gene of musicality is laid in every resident of the Apennine Peninsula by nature itself. It is no coincidence that all musical terms used in writing scores come from the Latin language.
It is impossible to imagine an Italian who does not know how to sing beautifully. Beautiful singing, in Latin Belcanto, is a truly Italian manner of performing musical works. The composer Rossini became famous throughout the world for his delightful compositions created in this manner.
In Europe, Belcanto fashion came in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We can say that the outstanding Italian composer Rossini was born at the most suitable time and in the most suitable place. Was he a minion of fate? It is doubtful. Most likely, the reason for his success is in the divine gift of talent and in character traits. And besides, the process of composing music was not tiring for him at all. Melodies were born in the head of the composer with amazing ease - just have time to record.
Composer's childhood
The full name of the composer Rossini sounds like Joaccino Antonio Rossini. He was born on February 29, 1792 in the city of Pesaro. The kid was incredibly charming. “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 for permission from the parents of Joacchino to depict the baby on one of the frescoes. He captured it in the form of a child to whom an angel shows the way to heaven.
His parents, although they did not have special professional education, were musicians. Mother, Anna Gvidarini-Rossini had a very beautiful soprano and sang in the musical performances of the local theater, and her father, Giuseppe Antonio Rossini, played the trumpet and horn there.
The only child in the family, Joacchino was surrounded by the care and attention of not only parents, but also of many uncles, aunts, grandparents.
First 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 look quite convincing. The tendencies of opera construction of musical plots are clearly traced in them - frequent rhythmic rearrangements are emphasized, in which characteristic, song melodies prevail.
There are six musical scores with sonatas for the quartet in the Library of Congress . They are dated 1806 year.
The Barber of Seville: The History of the Composition
Composer Rossini is known all over the world primarily as the author of the opera-buff "The Barber of Seville", but few can tell 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 venerable Giovanni Paisiello. His composition with great success was on the stages of Italian theaters.
The Argentino Theater placed an order for a comic opera for the young maestro. All librettos proposed by the composer were rejected. Rossini asked Paisiello to allow him to write his opera on the play Beaumarchais. He did not 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 associated with this opera. In particular, the disappearance of the score with an overture. It was a potpourri of several funny folk songs. Composer Rossini had to hurryly come up with a replacement for the lost pages. His papers contain notes for the opera Strange Case written seven years ago and the long-forgotten opera. Having made minor changes, he included lively and light melodies of his own composition in a new opera. The second performance turned out to be triumphant. It was the first step towards the world fame of the composer, and his songwriting recitations still delight the audience.
He had no more serious worries about the productions.
The fame of the composer quickly reached continental Europe. Preserved information about the name of the composer Rossini his friends. Heinrich Heine considered it the "Sun of Italy" and called it the "Divine Maestro."
Austria, England and France in the life of Rossini
After the triumph in the homeland of Rossini, Isabella Colbran went to conquer Vienna. Here he was already well known and recognized as an outstanding composer of our time. Schumann applauded him, and Beethoven, completely blinded by this time, expressed admiration and advised him not to leave the path of composing the opera buff.
Paris and London met the composer with no less enthusiasm. In France, Rossini lingered for a long time.
During his lengthy tour, he composed and staged most of his operas on the best stages of the capital. The maestro was kindly kissed by 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 happen on November 13, 1868.
"William Tell" - the last opera of the composer
Rossini did not like to spend too much time on work. Often in new operas, he used the same, long-thought-out motives. For each new opera, he rarely took more than a month. In total, the composer wrote them 39.
He devoted “William Tell” for six whole months. He wrote all the parts anew, without using the old score.
The musical outline of the Austrian invading soldiers at Rossini is intentionally emotionally poor, monotonous and angular. And for the Swiss people, who refused to obey the enslavers, the composer, on the contrary, wrote diverse, melodic, rhythm-rich parts. He used folk songs of Alpine and Tyrolean shepherds, adding Italian flexibility and poetry to them.
In August 1829, the opera premiered. King Charles X of France was delighted and awarded Rossini with 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 were difficult to understand.
In the following days, the theater management reduced the performance. Rossini was indignant and insulted to the core.
Despite the fact that this opera had a huge impact on the further development of opera art, which can be seen in similar works of the heroic genre of Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi and Vincenzo Bellini, “William Tell” and is currently extremely rarely put on stage.
The revolution in opera
Rossini took two serious steps to modernize the modern opera. He was the first to record all vocal parts in the score with corresponding accents and graces. Previously, singers improvised with their parts as they wanted.
The next innovation was the accompaniment of recitatives with musical accompaniment. In opera series, this made it possible to create end-to-end instrumental inserts.
End of writing
Art historians and historians still have not come to a consensus, which made Rossini quit her career as a music writer. He himself said that he had completely secured a comfortable old age, and he was tired of the bustle of public life. If he had children, then 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. Later, he sometimes conducted orchestras, but did not return to composing operas.
Cooking is a maestro's favorite pastime.
The second great hobby of the great Rossini was cooking. He suffered a lot because of his addiction to gourmet foods. Leaving the public musical life, he did not become an ascetic. His house was always full of guests, feasts abounded with exotic dishes that the maestro personally invented. You might think that the composition of the operas gave him the opportunity to earn enough money to surrender to his favorite hobby with all his heart.
Two marriages
Gioacchino Rossini was married twice. His first wife, Isabella Colbran, the owner of a divine dramatic soprano, performed all solo parts in the operas of the maestro. She was seven years older than her husband. Did her husband, composer Rossini love her? The singer’s biography is silent about this, and as for Rossini himself, they suggest that this union was more likely business than not love.
His second wife, Olympia Pelissier, became his companion until the end of her life. They led a peaceful existence and were quite happy together. Rossini no longer wrote music, with the exception of two oratory pieces - the Catholic Mass "The Sorrowing Mother stood" (1842) and the "Little solemn Mass" (1863).
Three Italian cities most important to the composer
Residents of three Italian cities proudly claim that the composer Rossini is their countryman. The first is the birthplace of Joacchino, 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 tombstone.
Rossini in the literature
Rossini's biography, Gioacchino Antonio, has been described by his contemporaries and friends in several fiction books, as well as in numerous art studies. He was thirty and a little when the first biography of the composer, described by Frederick Stendhal, was published. It is called Rossini's Life.
Another composer friend, novelist and novelist Alexander Dumas, described it in a short short story, “Dinner at Rossini, or Two Students from Bologna”. The lively and companionable character of the great Italian is captured in numerous stories and jokes preserved by his friends and acquaintances.
Subsequently, separate books with these funny and funny stories were published.
Filmmakers also did not ignore the great Italian. In 1991, Mario Monicelli presented the audience his film about Rossini with Sergio Castellito in the title role.