"Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough on the backside." This almost lovingly paternal criticism by Beethoven - hardly the furious, direct rebukes typical of the aging and increasingly irritable master - is a testament to GIOACCHINO ROSSINI's (1792-1868) capacity to charm even the most hostile audience. Beethoven was undoubtedly aware, after the dismal failure of his only finished opera, Leonore (retitled Fidelio), that his legacy would not be that of a composer of operas. What he could not have known, however, is that Rossini would eventually become the very embodiment of 19th century Italian opera buffa. Despite his Italian heritage, Rossini was more of a French composer; Ned Rorem's famous taxonomy categorizes all Western composers into two large groups of either French (profoundly superficial) or German (superficially profound). It goes without saying that Beethoven was the latter, and ne'er the two shall meet. For conspicuously unlike the lazy and notoriously fat composer who wrote them, Rossini's operas are long on levity, and mercifully short on high-concept, Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk. This juxtaposition in mind, no one need question the comedic judgment of the late master animator, Chuck Jones, who selected the works of these two very different men to create his own exquisite pastiche: What's Opera Doc? (1957), and The Rabbit of Seville (1950/1). Arguably, we have Mr. Jones to thank for giving millions of Americans their first exposure to opera, and I can think of no more fertile ground for his intelligent brand of comedy. Yet in the Age of Irony, as the relevance of Wagnerian myth drifts further and further towards the margins, the freshness of Rossini's irreverent humor and, furthermore, his wine-and-women-loving lifestyle remain a refreshing, if unattainable, ideal in our work-'til-you-drop world.

The picture of the musical world in 19th century was full of large figures making lofty pronouncements; the revolution in France in 1789 brought along with it a resurgence of intellectual battle, the dueling of minds. Goethe and Voltaire, and Nietzsche and Wagner… Brahms and Wagner. Grandiloquent treatises and epistles ensued. The fate of western civilization, of course, hinged upon which school of thought remained standing at the end. All of this posturing seems ridiculous to us now, as it was ridiculous to Rossini then. As magical as music is - no other human invention has the ability to transfigure us so - it still has a relatively simple function. "Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind," was Rossini's response to those who would use music as a vehicle for socio-political discourse rather than entertainment. Later, as the music and ideas of Richard Wagner spread throughout Europe, Rossini made it clear that he found it all distasteful and dull.

Rossini, on Lohengrin:
"One cannot judge Lohengrin from a first hearing, and I certainly do not intend to hear it a second time."

Rossini, on Wagner:
"Wagner is a composer who has beautiful moments but awful quarter hours."

One does get the impression that Rossini's brand of smart-assery is merely a mask for a short attention span, or maybe even a desensitized mind. He is not without detractors (there were, and are, many), but he met their shouting with dismissive terseness: "Answer them [critics] with silence and indifference. It works better, I assure you, than anger and argument." From his perspective, the objections to his "cheap" comedic style were irrelevant; Rossini had amassed such a fortune by the 1829 premiere of his final opera, William Tell, that he was able to effectively retire at the age of 36.

With more than half of his life ahead of him at that time - Rossini lived to be almost 77 years old - he settled into a routine of splendid indolence, composing and teaching only for his own amusement. He spent the years 1838 through 1855 casually reforming the Liceo in Bologna, during which time he also completed his last serious work, the Stabat Mater (1841). His wife of 23 years, Isabella Colbran, died in 1845, and he promptly married Olympe Pélissier, a woman who was his mistress, presumably, for many years prior to Isabella's death. Olympe attended to the aging and frequently ill composer for the remaining 13 years of his life, a time that he spent mostly eating and drinking to excess - when he was well enough - and occasionally composing trifles for himself. Among them are the joyful, not quite religious, Petite Messe solennelle, and 14 volumes of piano pieces called Sins of Old Age. Rossini remained a source of delight and entertainment to his friends, both musical and gastronomical, until his death in Paris in 1868.

© 2002 David Cardon
Used with permission by Discordia Music, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Read about Rossini's Duetto per violoncello e contrabasso, and Allegro Agitato for double bass and piano.