Review (PDF) Rossini In Restoration Paris: The Sound Of Modern Life (Cambridge Studies In Opera)
Best remembered for such light-hearted works as Il barbiere di Siviglia, Gioachino Rossini produced a sequence of large-scale serious French operas after his move to Paris in 1824 which overwhelmed audiences with their musical power, and responded to the French Restoration. Rather than presenting a traditional account of Rossini's life and works, Benjamin Walton traces instead the shifting patterns of Rossinian criticism from before the composer's arrival in Paris to the end of the 1820s, outlining a type of musical history that uses immersion in a narrow time period as a way to reconceive the relationships between opera and the wider currents of life outside the opera house. In place of the comic Rossini of later memory, this book argues for a composer whose music resonated with the experience of contemporary life, and was integrally bound up in the struggle to define French romanticism at the time.
Series: Cambridge Studies in Opera
Paperback: 366 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; Reissue edition (February 17, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0521172373
ISBN-13: 978-0521172370
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #3,846,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #76 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Sheet Music & Scores > Composers > Rossini #2719 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Sheet Music & Scores > Forms & Genres > Opera #7472 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Opera
This is a wonderful book dealing with a period of Rossini's life that has not had much in depth coverage previously. Despite his fame and the perception of his musical imapct on the city, it turns out that Rossini really only composed one "original" opera for Paris... and what an opera it was, the momnumental work, Guillaume Tell. It was also to be the great composer's last opera, even though he was only 37 at the time. He lived for many more years without ever composing another opera.The Book provides an interesting insight into Paris, and its musical personalities at a period when the city was considered the most important musical center for opera in Europe. It was also a time when Paris was going through great changes politically and culturally. It was before the other great Italian composers, Donizetti, Bellini or Verdi emerged on the scene in Paris.All together an interesting book. Very well written, informatiave and educational for any scholar of the great operatic bellcanto period in Europe.BASIL WALSH
Excellent scholarship probes the five actice years of Rossini's Parisian residence. The reasoned background of each production is argued very well revealing much about the political and economic conditions of the times.
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