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Book Review
Sep. 11th, 2018 10:15 pmRossini
by Richard Osborne
This biography of Gioachino Rossini was surprisingly entertaining. He achieved huge success in the 19th century Italian and French opera worlds while in his early 20s and retired from opera composing in his late 30s. During his opera-writing years, he produced 39 operas including favorite masterpieces Il barbiere di Siviglia, Cenerentola, and Guillaume Tell. Rossini's life was neither tragic nor cut short, so the purely biographical parts of the book made for pretty cheerful reading.
Osborne did a wonderful job with the chapters describing Rossini's operas and other works. He provided just enough information about the content and features of each opera, with judiciously chosen musical examples, to provide the reader with a real sense of what the piece is like and how it works, without going into a tedious play-by-play description of the work from start to finish. I came away with a better understanding of each opera without feeling overwhelmed or bored by too much detail.
by Richard Osborne
This biography of Gioachino Rossini was surprisingly entertaining. He achieved huge success in the 19th century Italian and French opera worlds while in his early 20s and retired from opera composing in his late 30s. During his opera-writing years, he produced 39 operas including favorite masterpieces Il barbiere di Siviglia, Cenerentola, and Guillaume Tell. Rossini's life was neither tragic nor cut short, so the purely biographical parts of the book made for pretty cheerful reading.
Osborne did a wonderful job with the chapters describing Rossini's operas and other works. He provided just enough information about the content and features of each opera, with judiciously chosen musical examples, to provide the reader with a real sense of what the piece is like and how it works, without going into a tedious play-by-play description of the work from start to finish. I came away with a better understanding of each opera without feeling overwhelmed or bored by too much detail.
