Composer of the Week: Rossini

Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Migrated podcast image for: Composer Of The Week

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): Stick to Comedy!

composer-of-the-week_Gioachino-Rossini_100214_s_get.jpg

Stick to Comedy!

Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), Stick to Comedy!

Donald Macleod takes a look at Rossini's serious side

Donald Macleod presents five takes on the life and music of Gioachino Rossini. Today, Rossini’s serious side.

This week, Donald Macleod presents five takes on the life and music of Gioachino Rossini. Today, Rossini’s serious side.

With the exception of William Tell, from which most people know only the overture, Rossini is generally regarded first and foremost as a composer of comic operas – the most familiar of these being The Barber of Seville. With a couple of notable exceptions, his serious operas remain relatively virgin territory, yet as Rossini expert Richards Osborne points out, it’s on the sequence of nine opere serie Rossini wrote for Naples between 1815 and 1822 that his reputation as the founding father of Italian 19th-century opera principally rests. Today’s programme explores three of these operas: Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra, with which Rossini made his dazzling Neapolitan début; Zelmira, with which he said farewell Naples and hello Vienna; and Ermione, which ran for only seven performances before being indefinitely mothballed. “Ermione is my little William Tell,” said Rossini, “and it will not see the light of day until after my death.” He was right; a century-and-a-half after its disastrous opening run it was triumphantly revived, and many now regard it as his tragic masterpiece.

Il barbiere di Siviglia; Act 1 Scene 1, ‘Largo al factotum’
Sesto Bruscantini, baritone (Figaro)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Vittorio Gui, conductor

Zelmira; Act 1 Scene 5 (extract):
– ‘S'intessano agli allori’
– ‘Terra amica’
Juan Diego Flórez, tenor (Ilio)
Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro di Milano Giuseppe Verdi
Riccardo Chailly, conductor

Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra; Act 2 Scene 1 (extract)
– ‘Dov'è Matilde?’	
– ‘Pensa che sol per poco’
– ‘Non bastan quelle lagrime’
– ‘Misero me!...la sposa’	
– ‘L'avverso nio destino’	
– ‘Ah! Fra Poco, in Faccia A Morte’
Montserrat Caballé,  (Elisabetta)
Neil Jenkins, (Guglielmo)
Valerie Masterson, (Matilde)
London Symphony Orchestra
Gianfranco Masini, conductor

Ermione; Act 1 Scene 6 (finale)
Colin Lee, tenor (Oreste)
Carmen Giannattasio, soprano (Ermione)
Paul Nilon, tenor (Pirro)
Rebecca Bottone, soprano (Cleone)
Patricia Bardon, mezzo soprano (Andromaca)
Victoria Simmonds, alto (Cefisa)
Bülent Bezdüz, tenor (Pilade)
Loïc Félix, tenor (Attalo)
Graeme Broadbent, baritone (Fenicio)
Geoffrey Mitchell Choir
London Philharmonic Orchestra
David Parry, 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.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Composer of the Week

Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

Stick to Comedy!

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3