Mass for soloists [4], choir and orchestra, "Petite messe solennelle", 1869

Gioachino Rossini was born in Pesaro in 1797 as the son of a horn player and an opera singer. His childhood was spent in the theater and opera at the age of fourteen he started studying composition in Bologna, where he was teaching in strict counterpoint. Soon Rossini composed one opera after another: his famous operas (including Il Barbiere di Siviglia) when he was in his early twenties, most of… his serious operas in Naples when he was in his late twenties. Rossini's compelling rhythmic music with his orchestral exuberance and coloratuurvuurwerk conquered the world, to the chagrin of academics and critics. He was thirty when he left Italy for London and Paris. His success there made him fabulously rich. In Paris Rossini composed a few operas and when it was quiet. Guillaume Tell proved his last opera, although he would live nearly forty years. The reasons for his unexpected retirement are disease called financial security and adverse political and artistic conditions. Rossini struggled for twenty years with his health. In 1855 he returned to Paris, where he flourished again. Together with his wife he organized dinners for the elite. For these occasions he composed many chamber music which he called the Péchés Vieillesse. He died in 1868. Rossini's image is determined by the many humorous anecdotes that surround him. This has had its drawbacks, because Rossini's comic operas are undoubtedly masterly, the composer has had more influence with his serious operas with which he laid the foundation for the romantic operas of Donizetti and Bellini. (CP)more