Composer of the Week: Rossini

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868): The Rossini Code

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The Rossini Code

Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), The Rossini Code

Donald Macleod looks at the winning formula of Rossini's early operas.

Donald Macleod presents five takes on the life and music of Gioachino Rossini. Today, the winning formula Rossini hit upon, right at the start of his operatic career.

This week, Donald Macleod presents five takes on the life and music of Gioachino Rossini. Today, the winning formula Rossini hit on right at the start of his operatic career.

Rossini had the good fortune to learn his craft not from a course of dry academic study but by toiling in the operatic trenches of Venice’s Teatro San Moisè, for which he produced a youthful string of one-act farces – four of which are sampled in today’s programme. Thrown in at the deep end at the tender age of 18, Rossini almost immediately – and apparently instinctively – caught on to the essentials of writing music for the stage. More than that, he seems to have codified his instincts into a structural ground plan that not only underpins his early farces, but continued to serve him when he graduated to writing comic operas on a larger scale – a case in point being the deftly-paced 1st-act finale of Cinderella, which concludes today’s programme.

La cambiale di matrimonio; overture
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

La scala di seta; scene 1, Introduzione
Teresa Ringholz, soprano (Giulia)
Alessandro Corbelli, baritone (Germano)
Francesca Provvisionato, mezzo soprano (Lucilla)
English Chamber Orchestra
Marcello Viotti, conductor

L’inganno felice; scene 8 (extract): Terzetto: ‘Quel sembiante’
Raúl Giménez, tenor (Bertrando)
Pietro Spagnoli, bass (Tarabotto)
Annick Massis, soprano (Isabella)
Le Concert des Tuileries
Marc Minkowski, conductor

L’occasione fa il ladro (or Il cambio della valigia); scenes 12 (extract)–13:
– Duet: ‘Voi la sposa!’
– Recit: ‘Qui non c’è scampo’
– Aria: ‘Il mio padrone’
Enrico Fissore, bass (Don Parmenione)
Margherita Rinaldi, soprano (Berenice)
Antonio Pirino, tenor (Don Eusebio)
Gianni Socci, baritone (Martino)
Italian Radio Symphony Orchestra Turin
Vittorio Gui, conductor

La Cenerentola; Act 1, finale
Luigi Alva, tenor (Ramiro)
Renato Capecchi, baritone (Dandini)
Margherita Guglielmi, soprano (Clorinda)
Laura Zannini, soprano (Tisbe)
Ugo Trama, bass (Alidoro)
Teresa Berganza, mezzo soprano (Cenerentola)
Paolo Montarsolo, bass (Don Magnifico)
Scottish Opera Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor

Produced by Chris Barstow for BBC Wales

Composer of the Week: Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod presents five takes on the life and music of Gioachino Rossini.

This week, Donald Macleod presents five takes on the life and music of Gioachino Rossini.

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