Name: _____________________________________________________ Homeroom teacher: ______________________________ Gioachino Rossini, 1792-1868 Romantic Period Composer Gioachino Rossini, a jolly Italian man with an outgoing personality, was born in the small town of Pesaro, on the east coast of Italy on February 29, 1792. Like many composers, Rossini learned about music from his parents. Gioachino's father played the horn and the trumpet, and his mother was an opera singer. As a boy, he was a singer and played the cello and trumpet. At the age of fifteen, he entered a music school in Bologna, Italy where he learned to compose music. Rossini once said that someone could give him a laundry list and he would set it to music! His first successful composition was completed at age eighteen in Venice, Italy. Rossini’s opera masterpiece, "The Barber of Seville," was first performed in Rome, Italy, when he was only twenty-four years of age. In Rossini's day, the opening of a new opera was as exciting as the opening of a new movie is for us. Most composers take months or years to compose an opera…. Rossini composed “The Barber of Seville” in three weeks! He composed more than thirty operas in all, the last of which was "William Tell," with its famous overture, storm scene, and ballet music. Rossini even had a musical technique named after him: the Rossini Crescendo. The Rossini Crescendo described an orchestra getting louder and louder over a period of time by adding more and more instruments to the music. Rossini was a bit of a lazy man, fond of women, and a very good cook. He liked to host dinner parties for his friends. He had fun teasing and playing tricks on his friends. (Those characteristics are also found in his music.) Rossini was married two times and both wives were opera singers. When criticized about his life-style, he responded that one should not expect much more of a man born on leap day! How is an opera different from a play? ___________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .