‘William Tell’ Rossini called the first performance of his grand opéra Guillaume Tell a ‘quasi-fiasco’. The overture, he said, was fine, the first act had some interesting effects, and the second was a triumph, but the third and fourth were disappointing. However, the theatre director was more concerned with audience reaction at the Théâtre de ...
‘The Barber of Seville’ Rossini’s opera was given its first performance, in Rome, on 20 February 1816, but not under the name by which it is now known. The reason was that Rossini’s Il barbiere was faced with a rival – an opera on the same subject by Giovanni Paisiello, that had first been produced in St Petersburg ...
‘The Italian Girl in Algiers’ Despite its North African setting, Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri was a resolutely Italian opera. Unlike Aida (1871), in which Verdi took care to evoke the mysterious atmosphere of ancient Egypt, Rossini made no particular attempt to reflect the exotic nature of Algiers. However, given the good-natured harum-scarum fun of this two-act comic opera ...
Rossini’s two-act version of the Cinderella story, his twentieth opera and last Italian comic opera, received its first performance at the Teatro Valle in Rome on 25 January 1817. This was followed by performances in London (1820), Vienna (1822) and New York (1826). The Teatro Valle, which had commissioned Rossini to write the opera for the carnival in ...
Le Comte Ory (1828) was another of Rossini’s bright, brilliant operas buffa. This one, based on an old Picardy legend, premiered at the Paris Opéra on 20 August 1828. The first performance in London took place at the Haymarket on 28 February 1829, and was possibly intended as a celebration for Rossini’s thirty-seventh birthday, the best ...
(Jo-ak-ke’-no Ros-se’-ne) 1792–1868 Italian composer Rossini dominated Italian opera during the first half of the nineteenth century, writing nearly 40 operas in less than 20 years. He established new conventions in the genre, and was the first Italian composer to abandon unaccompanied recitative in an attempt to create a more continuous flow in the music. He also developed rhythm and ...
1792–1868, Italian By the age of 14, Gioachino Rossini could play the violin, cello, harpsichord and horn, and had written a buffo-style cavatina, a short solo song. In 1806, Rossini was studying at the Bologna Conservatory and wrote his first opera, Demetrio e Polibio. The next year he produced his first professional work ...
Often regarded as the country cousin (and hence the bumpkin) of the organ family, the harmonium did add a touch of warmth to many nineteenth-century rural homes, where the purchase of a piano would have been an unaffordable luxury. But the two instruments often cohabited, too. Harmonium Compositions Today, unlike the piano, the harmonium is a ...
The snare drum and tenor drum both originated in the Middle East. Today, cylindrical drums like these are played in western classical music, and in pop, rock and jazz. They appear in marching and military bands, in the orchestra and as part of the drum kit. Cylindrical Drums The body of a cylindrical drum is usually made ...
The bizarre Telharmonium is widely regarded as the earliest example of a purely electronic instrument. Patented in 1897 by Thaddeus Cahill (1867–1934), a lawyer and inventor from Washington D.C., the Telharmonium pioneered several important technologies. The sound was generated by a series of electromechanical tone wheels (rather like the Hammond organ), each of which produced a pure sine tone ...
The trumpet is one of the most ancient instruments still played today. Clear depictions of trumpets survive in Egyptian paintings and two trumpets – one of silver, the other of gold and brass – found in the tomb of Tutankhamun date back to at least 1350 BC. There are many examples of Roman and Greek trumpets which, like the ...
(An’-to-nyen Ri-kha) 1770–1836 Czech-French composer Born in Prague, Reicha studied the violin and piano with his uncle, Joseph Reicha. He then lived in Bonn, where he became a friend of Beethoven. After striving largely in vain for operatic success, he settled in 1801 in Vienna, where he formed a close friendship with Haydn. In 1808 he went ...
(D’me’-tre Shus-ta-ko’vich) 1906–75 Russian composer Shostakovich was the first of his country’s composers to come to attention after the Russian Revolution of 1917, and since Stravinsky, Rachmaninov and (until the 1930s) Prokofiev were all living abroad, his early successes made him the great hope of Soviet music. He became associated with the Western-influenced modernist movement in the Soviet ...
1788–1865, Italian Felice Romani was greatly admired by around 100 Italian composers who sought to enlist his instinct for operatic drama and his ability to write elegant verse. Among them were Rossini, for whom Romani wrote Il turco in Italia (‘A Turk in Italy’, 1814) and Verdi, whom he provided with the libretto for Un giorno di regno ...
1873–1938, Russian Almost entirely self-taught as a singer, Chaliapin began singing in Tbilisi and St Petersburg. He made a name for himself singing both Boris and Valaam from Modest Mussorgsky’s (1839–81) Boris Godunov (1874). Although best known for singing the Russian repertoire, Chaliapin performed in a wide range of operas, including those by Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) and ...
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