With humble yet musical beginnings, Rossini was born in Pesaro,
on the Adriatic coast of Italy on February 29, 1792. Rossini's father,
Guiseppe was a town trumpeter and inspector of slaughter houses
and his mother, Anna a singer, was a baker's daughter. Rossini's
musical career started early at the age of six, when he played the
triangle in his father's band. As the war approached, Guiseppe being
sympathetic to the French was arrested in 1796. Anna, Rossini's
mother took little
Rossini to Bologna, where she sang as the lead singer in several
theatres. Guiseppe joined the family eventually, but Rossini was
left in the care of his aging grandmother.
Rossini in the meantime was coached by Prinetti of Novara and learned
to play the harpsichord. Later trained under Angelo Tesei,
Rossini was soon adept at sight-reading and played accompaniments
on the Pianoforte. Rossini could also sing well and he sang solos
in church when he was barely ten years old. In 1805, when Rossini
was thirteen, he sang at a public performance at the theatre of
the Commune in Paer's 'Camilla'. Inheriting his
father's genes, he could also play competently on the horn.
Talented with the ability to grasp easily, Rossini joined the
counterpoint class of Padre P. S. Mattei in 1807, and later learned
to play the cello, training under Cavedagni at
the Conservatorio of Bologna. Determined with the spirit of freedom,
young Rossini started composing in his own style with the knowledge
that he acquired while scoring the quartets and symphonies of Haydn
and Mozart. As an ardent disciple of Mozart, Rossini was known in
Bologna as 'il Tedeschino'. |
