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Gioacchino Rossini: Works
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Rossini was notoriously lazy. He delayed completing his commissions until the last possible moment, and often "borrowed" music from his other operas to spare himself the labor of writing new material. The famous overture from Il Barbiere di Siviglia, for instance, had been previously attached to three different operas. Rossini ... worked fast; Il Barbiere was dashed off in an incredible thirteen days. In all, his gift for melodic invention allowed him to produce an astounding thirty-nine operas in nineteen years.
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Gioacchino Antonio Rossini ( February 29 , 1792 — November 13 , 1868 ) was an Italian musical composer who wrote more than 30 opera s as well as sacred music and chamber music. His best known works include Il barbiere di Siviglia ( The Barber of Seville ), and "Guillaume Tell" William Tell (the end of the overture of is popularly known for being the theme song for The Lone Ranger ).
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Rossini was in Naples until 1822; during this period he ... composed works for such cities as Rome, Milan, Venice, and Lisbon. Almaviva, ossia l'inutile precauzione, based on Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais's Le Barbier de Séville, was poorly received on the occasion of its first performance in Rome in 1816, but soon (renamed Il barbiere di Siviglia) it enjoyed incredible success in Italy and all over the world, becoming one of the most widely sung works in the entire history of opera. La Cenerentola, based on the Cinderella story and premiered in Rome in 1817, was almost as successful; and these two comic operas established Rossini beyond question as the most successful operatic composer of the day.
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"Gioacchino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868): Rossini, an Italian composer, helped form the 19th-century Italian operatic style. Many of his works are still performed - the vivacity of the overtures keeps them in the concert repertory, particularly Semiramide (1823) and Guillaume Tell (1829).
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Rossini's 38 operas run the gamut from brief one-act comic works to the monumental and historic five-act Guillaume Tell. Some of his contemporaries and some historians, misled by the facility and speed of his writing, his habit of using portions of unsuccessful or forgotten works over again in new operas, and the easy charm of his solo arias and ensembles, have considered him a clever but superficial composer of no outstanding importance in the development of opera. But his works show remarkable craftsmanship, and in their brilliant integration of solo, ensemble, and orchestral writing and their sharp character delineation they are the most important link in the Italian operatic tradition between the late Italian works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the first works of Giuseppe Verdi. And Rossini's Guillaume Tell altered the entire course of French opera.
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Rossini's contract with the Neapolitan theaters allowed him to accept commissions elsewhere on the Italian peninsula. Two of his most popular comic works, Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola, premiered in Rome. By 1822... the composer showed signs of his patience wearing thin; during the contract period he had written a total of 18 operas. The composer later quipped, "If he had been able to do so, Barbaja would have put me in charge of the kitchen as well."
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