Rossini : A Life

Rossini : A Life by Servadio, Gaia. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781841194783.

"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 "With the benefit of Rossinis previously unpublished letters and other new material, Gaia Servadios perceptive and revealing biography explores the mystery of Rossinis withdrawal from the forefront of Europes 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 Napoleons 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 Rossinis final testament. For Servadios 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.