Gioachino Rossini

by Gaia Servadio

"Brilliant, dashing, the most sought-after composer of opera in the Romantic age, Gioachino Rossini won over music lovers throughout Europe. From his native Italy to Paris to London, he mounted triumph after triumph - works like the grandly comic The Barber of Seville, the charming La Cenerentola, and his masterpiece William Tell. Prodigiously talented, by the age of thirty-two, in 1820, he had written thirty-nine operas and commanded universal adoration. Then he fell silent, for more than forty years." "With the benefit of Rossini's previously unpublished letters and other new material, Gaia Servadio's perceptive and revealing biography explores the mystery of Rossini's withdrawal from the forefront of Europe's cultural stage and the curtailing of an unparalleled operatic career. She traces the remarkable rise of Rossini - a man who parleyed with Richard Wagner and in Paris kept company with Victor Hugo and Eugene Delacroix - from a difficult, impoverished childhood through complicated relationships with his divas to his long battle with nervous illnesses." "Servadio also sets this fascinating life against the Romantic era of European history, an age defined musically by Beethoven and betrayed politically by Napoleon. Rossini - whose career peaked between Napoleon's downfall in 1815 and the "July Monarchy" of 1830 - was the link between the neoclassical and the romantic, between monarchies and revolutions, autocracy and liberalism." When Beethoven told him that he should stick to comedies, however, Rossini never forgot or forgave him. After he returned to Italy in 1836, he did not compose again until he moved back to Paris in his final years. His last major composition of this period is his Petite messe solennelle, holds Rossini's final testament. For Servadio's conclusion of this unparalleled career, it is this Mass that yields a clue to the mystery and the key to the soul of the man who made music once for all Europe and finally for God alone.

300 pages, Paperback

First published February 27, 2003

About the author

Gaia Cecilia M. Servadio is an Italian writer. She received a bachelor's degree from London's Camberwell School of Art. Her first novel Tanto gentile e tanto onesta, aka Melinda, was published in 1967 by Feltrinelli in Italy and Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK, and was a "a runaway success".

Reviews

[Sebaloo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[David Montgomery · Rating 3 out of 5]

An OK biography of an interesting composer, though marred by a loose, gossipy tone and at least a few factual errors. Servadio marshals available evidence about Rossini's life, from his impoverished childhood to the astonishing productivity of his early career, to his shocking decision to largely stop composing at the height of his powers. Along the way she explores sensitive topics like Rossini's lifelong battle with depression, and his transition from a youthful liberal to a notable conservative-cum-reactionary who palled around with Metternich and Napoleon III. (In one striking moment, Rossini is meeting with Italian friends after the failure of the 1848 Revolutions in Italy when an official from occupying Austria pays his respects. All the Italians immediately turn their backs and leave the room, a silent treatment that was common for Austrians in that tense period. Rossini, one of the greatest living Italians, was upset — at his friends, whose departure he took as a personal affront.)

I do think this book could have done with slightly more in-depth analysis of Rossini's music — some of his monumental works came and went in little more than a paragraph. Servadio was at her best covering Rossini's social and psychological life, and at her weakest relating him to the big events going on in Europe at the time (some of which she mis-characterizes).

[Ellen Marchessault · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt more like something I would have/could have read in college. It was filled with more than just stories about his life, because the political atmosphere when he was composing was so relevant to the music world at the time. But all-in-all I guess I'm glad that I read it. Now I need to listen to more Rossini than just the Barber of Seville!

[Andlandm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good bio of Rossini focusing on his life, and not so much about the operas, although all are noted. Very focused on his later in life illness and on his childhood, as there are newly available letters to his parents which include new information.