Talk:Gioachino Rossini/Archive 1

Marriage
What i've seen so far, is that Rossini marriage occured in 1822, not 1821 as refers the article. Rossini, Roger Alier.--80.102.173.211 17:31, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Anecdotes
This was originally on Gioacchino Rossini Anecdotes. I'm putting it here in anticipation of a deletion of that page, because I think some of it might be useful for editing the main page or for any of the individual opera pages. --Camembert

Gioacchino Rossini was suspected of a certain laziness, and many popular stories might sound as a confirmation. I.e., he was supposed to have composed his best known "Barbiere" in a very short time, because as usual he was late in respecting the delivery date. Some say he did it in 7 days; others, like Lodovico Settimo Silvestri, suggest in 14. Whatever the precise length, it was anyway a very little time for such masterpieces. Was it this one, pehaps, the secret of the "Crescendo"? 'I do no know'

However, all the work was done with Rossini in his bedroom, wearing his dressing-gown. A friend once pointed out that it was undoubtedly funny that he had composed the "Barber" without shaving himself for such a long time. Rossini promptly replied that if he had to get shaved, he would have had to get out of his house, and he therefore would never had completed his opera.

Another story of Rossini composing in the comfort of his bed: One day an impresario went visiting him and found him writing music in his bed. Rossini, without even looking at him, begged him to collect a sheet that had fallen from the bed to the floor. When the impresario picked it, Rossini gave him the other sheet he was writing and asked him: "Which one do you think is the better?" "But... they are completely alike..." said the embarrassed impresario. "Well... you know... it was easier for me to write another one than to get off the bed and search and pick the first one and then come back to bed..." Rossini himself was very glad to describe his special virtues: here is what he told about his way of composing ouvertures:
 * Wait until the evening of the day before the "Prima" (first night). Nothing can better excite the inspiration than the presence of a "copista" (copyst) waiting for your work and the mess of an "impresario" tearing his hair. At my time in Italy all the impresari had been bald for thirty years.
 * I made the ouverture of Otello in a small room of the Palazzo Barbaja, where the baldest and rudest of directors had closed me in.
 * I wrote the ouverture of the Gazza Ladra the day before the "Prima" under the roof of the Scala Theatre, where I had been emprisonned by the director and secured by 4 scene-shifters.
 * For the Barbiere, I did better: I did not even compose an ouverture, I just took one already destinated to an opera called Elisabetta.
 * Public was very pleased.

More on Rossini's methods
Here's the original quotation on his method of composing overtures:


 * Aspettate fino alla sera prima del giorno fissato per la rappresentazione. Nessuna cosa eccita più l'estro come la necessità, la presenza d'un copista, che aspetta il vostro lavoro, e la ressa d'un impresario in angustie, che si strappa a ciocche i capelli. A tempo mio in Italia tutti gli impresari erano calvi a trent'anni.

duetto buffo di due gatti
I just added some works by Rossini, and in the same time deleted the "duetto buffo di due gatti". Although widely attributed to him, music researcher Richard Osborne pointed out in his book that it was not composed by Rossini.

Spelling of his name
'''The spelling in the title and the spelling in the rest of the article of this dude's name are diffrent!!! WTF? Someone who knows the real thing pls correct it.''' Qwertyca 18:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The New Grove has Gioachino, in both the 1980 and 2006 editions. Usually they list alternate spellings, but none are given.  The Baker's Biographical Dictionary also has Gioachino, and so does the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.  Anyone object if I move the article to Gioachino Rossini?  Antandrus  (talk) 20:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No-one's objected, so please go ahead. Nunquam Dormio 11:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks like I forgot. These things happen.  But now someone else has taken care of it, so thanks!  Antandrus  (talk) 04:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, now I'm confused -- is it Gioachino or Gioacchino, because it is still spelt both ways. Mnoe817 05:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Gioachino is currently the more widely-accepted spelling. I fixed all the double redirects, and the double 'c' spelling, in this article, now only occurs in the external links.  Where do you see it appearing?  Antandrus  (talk) 05:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I think my eyes crossed and I was seeing this page, not the main article. Thanks! Mnoe817 01:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Excuse me. I haven't ever seen an Encyclopedia Britannica, but I'm Italian, and I assure you, it's "Gioacchino", with the double c. And it would be also better to correct the spelling ("Giacchino") there is at the bottom of the page about Pierre Beaumarchais. Well, thanks to who will read, anyway. mise_keith  15:47, 21 September 2007


 * I would have thought the usual spelling has a double-c, too.  However, we're respecting Rossini's own spelling of his own name - which is all that's relevant here.  He started out using a double-c but switched to a single-c.  --  JackofOz 00:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Lone Ranger???
Do we need to remove this early reference? I'd expect that over 50% of our contemporaries do not know what the Lone Ranger was, much less its theme. Perhaps move it to a later section that cites other uses of the theme, such as the Lark cigarette commercial from the 1960s ("Have a lark, have a lark, have a lark to-day") and then later in the Geno's Pizza Rolls commercial ("Have a peets- have a peets- have a piz-za roll") in which first a smoker, then a Lone Ranger lookalike, appeared to say "I think I've heard that tune before."
 * So no one remembers the Lone Ranger, yet everyone remembers old commercials? Peculuar, I'd think it to be the other way around. Tenk you veddy much. --Wack'd Talk to me! • Admire my handiwork! 15:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Spelling
I can see his name spelled 3 different ways on the page; Gioachino Rossini - Headline Giacchino Rossini - Picture Gioacchino Rossini - IMDB Link at bottom

Assuming this should be fixed, but not the person to do it.


 * Some of us are trying to standardise this. I've now fixed what can be fixed (exceptions:  the link to Commons and some of the non-English wikis).  Look at Note 1, which explains the position.  And note that, although many non-English Wikipedias use Gioacchino, the Italian one has Gioachino.  The spelling in the picture caption was a typo.


 * P.S. Please sign your posts - click the tenth button from the left above the editing space, or click the "Sign your username" link below the Edit summary space near the bottom. --GuillaumeTell 15:50, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Gioacchino is correct. Everything else is a typo. The page should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.126.17 (talk) 16:17, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Your assertion is not correct, 67.188.126.17. Here is what Note 1 in the article says:


 * Rossini's first name is often spelled "Gioacchino." Rossini himself spelled it with either one "c" or two early in life, but eventually settled on "Gioachino." Baker's, Grove, and most Rossini scholars use "Gioachino.


 * What that means is that both spellings were used. Rossini himself eventually decided to use the version with one c.  The spelling in the article respects the composer's own choice.  If you have a reliable source that says that the two c version is the only possible choice, let's hear about it. --GuillaumeTell 17:27, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * This has been exhaustively discussed in the past. As GuillaumeTell explains "Gioachino" is correct. -- Kleinzach 23:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

July 2008
212.55.205.205 recently changed the spelling back to Gioacchino with two c's. I did not know about the two discussions in this talk page, so I used web search to check it, before reverting. I came up with two results, which reproduce the concise Grove and use two c's, Gioacchino: Then I looked at the discussion and everyone seems to say it's Gioachino. Since I have no idea about this, I will do nothing. --Atavi (talk) 14:49, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * PBS
 * The Classical Music Pages

Opera count 39 or 40?
With the addition of Ivanhoé, Rossini's opera count jumps to 40. However, he didn't compose any new music for it so I could see why that opera might not count. On the other hand, the opera is an original story with an original libretto and it has been revived (and recently recorded) on ocassion, so maybe it should be counted. What all do you think? Regardless, we should add Ivanhoé to the list of operas on this page.Nrswanson (talk) 12:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that the count should stay at 39. I agree that Ivanhoé should go into the list, but it should be made clear that that it's a pasticcio (as is Robert Bruce of 1846, with music from La donna del lago and other operas). --GuillaumeTell 16:24, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree; though "Ivanhoé" does consist entirely of recycled music taken from earlier Rossini operas, it is still a separate work and opera. Throughout musical history, many composers have used music previously written, both by themselves and by other composers. Though "Ivanhoé" is somewhat of an extreme because it consists entirely of reused music, because the it uses an original plot and because the composer had to decide what music to use and how to fit it to the new libretto, it should be considered one of Rossini's operas. Thus the number of operas written by Rossini should be 40. It is worth mentioning that in all of his works, Rossini reuses the same structures, yet these are considered separate works. --71.116.171.185 (talk) 02:25, 29 July 2008 (UTC) Sorry, "Ivanhoé" is not an opera by Rossini, as it was not arranged by Rossini himself. I did not realize this earlier. Rossini actually wrote 39 operas. --71.116.174.56 (talk) 06:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think that a mention of Ivanhoe is not merited in the lead and also that it is not really necessary to pinpoint the number of operas to 39 or 40 in the lead. I'm going to change the lead. If someone disagrees with what I've done, feel free to change it again.--Atavi (talk) 14:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 14:51, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Writing by formula
Rossini is somewhat infamous as a composer who wrote music by formula. Many of his overtures, with the exception of "William Tell", have similar structures. Additionally, most of his operatic music follows the set formulas of Bel Canto opera. Nevertheless, there is no mention of this anywhere in the page. Perhaps this should be included somewhere. --71.116.174.249 (talk) 21:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think "infamous" and "wrote music by formula" rather overstate the case. Yes, he did stick to what worked best; but that's really no different in essence from what many other successful composers did.  Haydn wrote huge amounts of piano sonatas, most with the same structure.  Would you say he "wrote by formula"?  If Rossini really was "infamous", the great conductors of the world would refuse to conduct a bar of him.  --  JackofOz (talk) 23:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

It is more than the basic structure that is identical in different works by Rossini. His overtures are basically compilations of two to four crescendi, all of which even have nearly identical harmonic structures. I think writing music in a single, predetermined manner is by definition writing by formula. This is not necessarily negative, as his music is still effective; however, since his music was still composed largely in this manner, I think that it should be mentioned in the article. --71.116.171.185 (talk) 02:08, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The name (again!)
The name is Gioacchino —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.207.76.202 (talk) 23:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Please RTA. -- Klein zach  04:29, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Rossini the virtuoso pianist
He described himself as "a pianist of the 4th order" (= 4th rate), but some of his Péchés de vieillesse would seem to belie that. On Aldo Ciccolini's old Seraphim LP of some of the pieces, is a quote from Maurice Tassart (unknown to me, but apparently a minor writer on opera):
 * The composer of "William Tell" was, according to Liszt, Saint-Saens and Diémer, a virtuoso of the first order.

I've not been able to confirm this quote anywhere, or find anything of substance about Rossini's pianistic prowess. A few sites say he was anything but 4th-rate, but don't give any further details. Can anyone help me? Thanks. --  Jack of Oz   [your turn]  05:49, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been looking at . It doesn't mention Tassart.  There's a more recent edition, which I really ought to get, but there's enough on the subject in the above edition to confirm the substance of Tassart's statement, as follows (authors' quotes are italicised, the rest is Osborne)
 * "In his journal of 7 March, 1824, Thomas Moore ... added: His [i.e. Rossini's] mastery over the pianoforte is miraculous, a judgement which such expert witnesses as Saint-Saëns would again endorse in later years." (p.63)
 * "Pianists, all of whom marvelled at Rossini's own playing, included Diémer and Thalberg, as well as Liszt and Saint-Saëns" (p.112)
 * "Most contemporary witnesses seem to agree with him [Saint-Saëns] when he writes that Rossini played the piano to perfection." (p.268; from S-S's Ecole buissinière, 1913)
 * Hope this helps. Feel free to quote any or all of the above.--GuillaumeTell 17:40, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Excellent. It's amazing, the things we keep on finding out about the composers we thought we knew well.  Thanks heaps, M. Tell.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  20:52, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * 15 months on, I've included your references in the text. Thanks again, M. Tell.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  03:31, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Gioachino Rossini
On his birthday in 2012, goggle honoured Gioachino Rossini with a google doodle 75.117.161.45 (talk) 05:10, 29 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Not done. This is emphemeral trivia which doesn't contribute to an understanding of Rossini's life and music. Voceditenore (talk) 06:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 29 February 2012
Gioachino Antonio Rossini[1] (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoaˈkiːno anˈtɔːnjo rosˈsiːni] (Giovacchino Antonio Rossini in the baptismal certificate)[2] (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces. His best-known operas include the Italian comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola and the French-language epics Moïse et Pharaon and Guillaume Tell (William Tell). A tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, which led to the nickname "The Italian Mozart." Until his retirement in 1829, Rossini had been the most popular opera composer in history.[3] Contents [hide] 1 Biography 1.1 Education 1.2 Early career 1.3 The Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia) 1.4 Marriage and mid-career 1.5 End of career 1.6 Later years 1.7 Honors and tributes 1.8 Rossiniana 1.9 Notes 2 Works 3 References 4 External links Biography

Portrait of Gioachino Rossini in 1820, International Museum and Library of Music, Bologna Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro, a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy which was then part of the Papal States. His father, Giuseppe, was a horn player and inspector of slaughterhouses. His mother, Anna, was a singer and a baker's daughter. Rossini's parents began his musical training early, and by the age of six he was playing the triangle in his father's musical group. Rossini's father was sympathetic to the French Revolution and welcomed Napoleon Bonaparte's troops when they arrived in northern Italy. When Austria restored the old regime in 1796, Rossini's father was sent to prison and his mother took him to Bologna, making a living as a leading singer at various theatres of the Romagna region. Her husband would ultimately join her in Bologna. During this time

Ok, so it states that at the age of six Gioachino Rossini was playing the triangle in his dad's band. In the next paragraph it states that after Austria restored the old regime in 1796, his father was thrown in jail and his mother took him to Bologna. In 1796 Gioachino was only four. Unless his father was thrown in jail for an unpaid speeding ticket in his horse and buggy (I suspect it was for treason or something of the sort), and unless the mother and father reconnected after she ran off with the their little four year old to Bologna, I doubt that Gioachino played the triangle in his fathers' band at AGE SIX.

66.214.235.107 (talk) 05:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't even find a reference for the triangle bit, but the article dates are wrong. His father was imprisoned by the Austrians in 1799 and released in June 1800. (Prior to his marriage, Rossini's father had had a brief prior spell in prison for insubordination when he was in the army band.) So it's quite possible that he was playing in his father's band at age 6. I'll make some changs in the article. Voceditenore (talk) 06:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Playing with his father's musical group does not depend on whether his father was out of prison (or not), although it's unclear which. Hopefully Voceditenore's edits will clarify. Dru of Id (talk) 06:26, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Opera singing
Canto opera. Nevertheless, there is no mention of this anywhere in the page. Perhaps this should be included somewhere. --71.116.174.249 (talk) 21:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've moved your comment here. Please add comments to the bottom of this page and do not remove material already on the page. Voceditenore (talk) 09:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It is mentioned: "In 1805 he appeared at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in Ferdinando Paer's Camilla, his only public appearance as a singer." Voceditenore (talk) 09:20, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

21st Birthday

 * One paragraph begins "By his 21st birthday Rossini had established himself as the idol of the Italian opera public." But Rossini, born on February 29, never had a 21st birthday (he only lived to be 76 years old, not 88!) Since I presume the sentence means "by February 1813", shouldn't it more properly read "by his 5th birthday" (February 29, 1816 - 1800 was not a leap year), or of course it could just be corrected to be "By the time he was 21 years old", but that's not as fun! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.142.4.32 (talk) 13:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 29 February 2012
Under "Honors and tributes" please add reference to Google Doodle from 29 Feb. 2012

Kickandrew (talk) 19:32, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Not done. This is emphemeral trivia which doesn't contribute to an understanding of Rossini's life and music, and doesn't compare to the sorts of things that are mentioned in the "Honors and tributes" section, and not even all of those are mentioned, only the most important. Voceditenore (talk) 19:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Rossini as pop song writer
There was a minor edit which removed a the statement (not added by me, by the way): "Critic David Dubal has said that Rossini could be called the inventor of the pop song. His operatic arias were hummed by people in the street and were written with a genuinely mass audience in mind." The grounds for removal was that there was no citation provided, and "if citable, Dubal doesn't know what he's talking about." [revision 07:26, 30 December 2012] I believe this reversion may be a bit hasty.

The statement is citable, to "The Essential Canon of Classical Music," By David Dubal, North Point Press, NY 2001, p. 178. The relevant portion of Dubal's text is as follows: "Rossini’s music is crystal clear: his constructions are tight; the harmony is clever and diatonic; above all, the melodies are easy to remember. His type of melody – simple, rather square, and easily developed in sequence – was the secret of his success.  Rossini was the first tunesmith; one might even say that he was the inventor of the pop song.  He caught the ear of a growing middle-class public with music that appealed as never before to a mass audience."

We are left with the objection that the statement is simply erroneous, but at this point the proposition that Dubal is mistaken itself lacks verification. More importantly, the claim being made by Dubal credits Rossini with doing something rather important. It places Rossini as a point of transition between opera as court entertainment versus opera as popular entertainment. Opera has been both, in its history. And, at some point popular song moved from being dominated by non-professional/traditional music-makers to being dominated by professional song-writers. If the man on the street in 1830 was singing Rossini instead of a folk melody, then Rossini is part of that story too. In this context, I don't think Dubal's statement is inherently silly. It's not like Dubal is comparing Rossini to Lady Gaga. From Rossini through Gershwin, popular music and opera were close enough to one another that they could overlap, and did overlap. It is also worth keeping in mind that many people coming to Wikipedia may not be aware that some of what is now lumped together as "classical" music was popular rather than elite entertainment.

While the material added could have been cited, simply deleting it seems not to be the right approach, since it cuts off the possibility of developing that subject matter further. I would suggest that the deleted material should probably be restored (with a citation). Hopefully future edits will elaborate on Rossini's place in the history of popular music. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David.thompson.esq (talk • contribs) 00:41, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I removed that section as it was written because opera composers have written for a mass audience well before Rossini and people were humming melodies in the street at least since Handel. The full quote (thank you for that) claims Rossini as the first tunesmith. Really? This is just too silly for words. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:25, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If Rossini significantly expanded the audience for opera, the statement would be non-silly and perhaps even correct. This is a C-class article that could use some serious attention, which is less likely to happen if good-faith, citable revisions are simply reverted on the basis of the reverter's own knowledge and expertise.  I realize that you may in fact be right that the statement is incorrect or so exaggerated as to be valueless (tho David Dubal disagrees with you, and is published), but I think there should be some other process for amending such errors (if error it is) than reversion.  I will be on the lookout for sources that discuss Rossini's audience -- perhaps you can do the same.  As for "tunesmith", at least Dubal didn't call him the George M. Cohan of 19th Century Italy.  : ) David.thompson.esq (talk) 19:58, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sure the wider audience at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera could give this matter more informed consideration than I can. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:54, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't know why the statement I added was deleted. David Dubal teaches at Julliard and I gainsay knows a bit more about the matter than the people here calling him silly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.247.125 (talk) 00:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Beethoven's advice to Rossini
I'm less concerned with "what page" in Fisher 2005 as with Fisher's sources (assuming this is the source of the quote). Other more proximate sources have Rossini and Beethoven meeting briefly but, by Rossini's own account as quoted by them, unable to talk because of Beethoven's deafness. Schissel | Sound the Note! 22:33, 15 June 2016 (UTC) Schissel | Sound the Note! 22:33, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Deletion of Rossini in Wildbad
The page Rossini in Wildbad has been twice deleted by, with the reasons given as
 * Redir. in absence of any sources....Did not check local lang. sources....
 * Does not pass WP:GNG.Own website is not a WP:RS.Don't revert.Discuss on talk. (TW))

It would be helpful if the article was restored and a warning template added to the top so that the problems can be addressed. I cannot revert it, and therefore I cannot fix it. Scarabocchio (talk) 10:48, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
 * --The page is not deleted.It stands redirected.Can you list some [{WP:RS|reliable sources]] which you plan to use? Winged Blades Godric 10:56, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
 * [Note]. The content of the page Rossini in Wildbad has been re-instated. Conversations about this page can now continue on the relevant talk page. Scarabocchio (talk) 16:54, 4 June 2017 (UTC)