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Gioacchino Rossini: Bologna Academy
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From 1830 to 1855 Rossini lived primarily in Italy, at first in Bologna and after 1848 in Florence. A visit to Madrid, Spain, in 1831 inspired his Stabat Mater, which was completed in 1842. In 1832 he met Olympe Pelissier, with whom he fell in love. After the death in 1845 of his wife, from whom he had separated, he married Pelissier. Rossini wrote some songs after that and one more significant work. The Petite Messe Solonnelle (Solemn Little Mass, 1863), his last work, is neither little nor especially solemn, and it contains some beautiful music.
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With more than half of his life ahead of him at that time - Rossini lived to be almost 77 years old - he settled into a routine of splendid indolence, composing and teaching only for his own amusement. He spent the years 1838 through 1855 casually reforming the Liceo in Bologna, during which time he ... completed his last serious work, the Stabat Mater (1841). His wife of 23 years, Isabella Colbran, died in 1845, and he promptly married Olympe Pélissier, a woman who was his mistress, presumably, for many years prior to Isabella's death. Olympe attended to the aging and frequently ill composer for the remaining 13 years of his life, a time that he spent mostly eating and drinking to excess - when he was well enough - and occasionally composing trifles for himself. Among them are the joyful, not quite religious, Petite Messe solennelle, and 14 volumes of piano pieces called Sins of Old Age. Rossini remained a source of delight and entertainment to his friends, both musical and gastronomical, until his death in Paris in 1868.
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In 1822 Rossini directed his Cenerentola in Vienna, where Zelmira was ... performed. After this he returned to Bologna; but an invitation from Prince Metternich to come to Verona and "assist in the general reestablishment of harmony" was too tempting to be refused, and he arrived at the Congress in time for its opening on the 20th of October 1822. Here he made friends with Chateaubriand and Madame de Lieven. In 1823, at the suggestion of the manager of the King's Theatre, London, he came to England, being much fêted on his way through Paris. In England he was given a generous welcome, which included an introduction to King George IV and the receipt of £7000 after a residence of five months. In 1824 he became musical director of the Théâtre Italien in Paris at a salary of £800 per annum, and when the agreement came to an end he was rewarded with the offices of chief composer to the king and inspector-general of singing in France, to which was attached the same income.
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In his later operas, such as Semiramide and Mose in Egitto, Rossini turned to more dramatic subjects and forms. Despite their huge success, he was only 37 when in 1829 he composed his last opera. Guillaume Tell (William Tell), the story of a Swiss hero who rebels against Austrian rule. After its premiere. Rossini worked at the Bologna Conservatoire before settling in Paris to indulge his second love in life, food; indeed he became famous for his gastro-nomical gifts, bequeathing to the world the fillet steak dish Tournedos Rossini.
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In 1806, age 14, Rossini became a student of the cello under Cavedagni at the Conservatorio of Bologna. In 1807 he was admitted to the counterpoint class of Padre P. S. Mattei. He learned to play the cello with ease, but the pedantic severity of Mattei's views on counterpoint only served to drive the young composer's views toward a freer school of composition. His insight into orchestral resources is generally ascribed not to the strict compositional rules he learned from Mattei, but to knowledge gained independently while scoring the quartets and symphonies of Haydn and Mozart. At Bologna he was known as "il Tedeschino" ("the Little German") on account of his devotion to Mozart.
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Rossini began composing as early as 1802-03 and entered Bologna's Liceo Musicale at the precocious age of 14. Shortly after finishing his studies, he obtained a commission for a one-act farce, La cambiale di matrimonio , for the Venetian Teatro San Moisè. Further commissions from Venice yielded more successes, and by the time La pietra del paragone had premiered in 1812, Rossini was without a doubt the leading composer in Italy.
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