Gioachino Rossini (jan 1, 1792 – jan 1, 1868)

Description:

Nationality: Italian

Verdi studied music as a child and performed professionally as a violist, singer, and pianist. Haydn and Mozart's music had a permanent impact on his style. He was commissioned to write his first opera when he was 18, and off his career went. He composed an impressive amount of operas because he could only earn money from operas that he participated in the performance of (no copyright protection). Having to constantly produce new works had him often borrowing or reworking material from his previous works, though he always wrote with the particular singer in mind.

After 1823, Rossini and his wife soprano Isabella Colbran relocated to Paris where he reworked some of his Italian operas to French librettos translated or adapted from the Italian. He retired a rich man in 1829 (not even 40), and he lived for forty more years. He lived in financial comfort for the remainder of his life.
While he composed music for church and salons and little witty piano pieces and songs, he remains known best for his operas.

Standard Pattern
Rossini developed the standard pattern of solo scenes in operas: Orchestral intro, followed by an aria that expresses two or more contrasting moods in a least two sections (slow cantabile and a faster cabaletta).

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