Aeolus

Juno asking Aeolus to release the winds, by François Boucher, 1769, Kimbell Art Museum.

Aeolus^[1] (Ancient Greek: Αἴολος, Aiolos [ajolos], Modern Greek: [ˈe.olos] ( listen)), a name shared by three mythic characters, was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which. Diodorus Siculus made an attempt to define each of these three (although it is clear he also became muddled), and his opinion is followed here.^[2] Briefly, the first Aeolus was a son of Hellen and eponymous founder of the Aeolian race; the second was a son of Poseidon, who led a colony to islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea; and the third Aeolus was a son of Hippotes who is mentioned in Odyssey book 10 as Keeper of the Winds who gives Odysseus a tightly closed bag full of the captured winds so he could sail easily home to Ithaca on the gentle West Wind. But instead his men thought it was filled with riches, so they opened it which is why the journey was extended.All three men named Aeolus appear to be connected genealogically, although the precise relationship, especially regarding the second and third Aeolus, is often ambiguous.

Son of Hellen[link]

This Aeolus was son of Hellen and the nymph Orseis, and a brother of Dorus, Xuthus and, in some sources, of Amphictyon (who is otherwise a brother of Hellen).^[3] Described as the ruler of Aeolia (later called Thessaly) and held to be the founder of the Aeolic branch of the Greek nation, this Aeolus married Enarete, daughter of Deimachus (otherwise unknown). Aeolus and Enarete had many children, although the precise number and identities of these children vary from author to author in the ancient sources.^[4] The great extent of country which this race occupied, and the desire of each part of it to trace its origin to some descendant of Aeolus, probably gave rise to the varying accounts about the number of his children. Some scholars contend that the most ancient and genuine story told of only four sons of Aeolus: Sisyphus, Athamas, Cretheus, and Salmoneus, as the representatives of the four main branches of the Aeolic race.^[2] Other sons included Deioneus, Perieres, Cercaphas and perhaps Magnes (usually regarded as a brother of Macedon) and Aethlius. Another son is named Mimas, who provides a link to the third Aeolus in a genealogy that seems very contrived. Calyce, Peisidice, Perimede and Alcyone were counted among the daughters of Aeolus and Enarete.^[5] This Aeolus also had an illegitimate daughter named Arne, begotten on Melanippe, daughter of the Centaur Cheiron. This Arne became the mother of the second Aeolus, by the god Poseidon.

Son of Poseidon[link]

Aeolus by Alexandre Jacovleff shows Aeolus as an embodiment of Wind himself.

This Aeolus was a son of Poseidon by Arne, sister of Aeolus. He had a twin brother named Boeotus. Arne confessed to her father that she was with child by the god Poseidon; her father, however, did not believe her, and handed her over to a man named Metapontus, King of Icaria. When Bœotus and Æolus were born, they were raised by Metapontus; but their stepmother (Autolyte, wife of Metapontus) quarrelled with their mother Arne, prompting Bœotus and Aeolus to kill Autolyte and flee from Icaria. Bœotus (accompanied by Arne) went to southern Thessaly, and founded Boeotia; but Aeolus went to a group of islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, which received from him the name of the Aeolian Islands; according to some accounts this Aeolus founded the town of Lipara. Although his home has been traditionally identified as one of the Aeolian Islands (there is little consensus as to which), near Sicily, an alternative location has been suggested at Gramvousa off the northwest coast of Crete. Aeolus had six sons and six daughters, whom in Homer he wed to one another and the family lived happily together. Later writers were shocked by the incest: in Hyginus,^[6] the day Aeolus learned that one of his sons, Macareus, had committed incest with his sister Canace he expelled Macareus and threw the child born of this incestuous union to the dogs,^[7] and sent his daughter a sword by which she was to kill herself.^[8] Other late accounts claim that Macareus had a daughter named Amphissa, beloved by Apollo.

Son of Hippotes[link]

This Aeolus is most frequently conflated with Aeolus, the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. It is difficult to delineate this Aeolus from the second Aeolus, as their identities seem to have been merged by many ancient writers. The father of this third Aeolus is given as Hippotes, son of Mimas, a son of the first Aeolus (son of Hellen). According to some accounts, Hippotes married the same Melanippe who was the mother of Arne.^[9] This Aeolus lived on the floating island of Aeolia and was visited by Odysseus and his crew in the Odyssey. He gave hospitality for a month and provided for a west wind to carry them home. He also provided a gift of a bag containing all winds but the west, which Odysseus's crew members unwittingly opened just before they were to reach Ithaca. Unfortunately, they were blown back to Aeolia, where Aeolus refused to provide any further help,^[10] because he believed that their short and unsuccessful voyage meant that the Gods did not favour them. This Aeolus was perceived by post-Homeric authors as a god, rather than as a mortal and simple Keeper of the Winds (as in the Odyssey).

Like the previous, this Aeolus was said to have had had twelve children - six sons and six daughters. According to Diodorus, he was father of six sons by Cyane, daughter of Liparus (the eponym of the island Lipara, whom Aeolus assisted in conquering lands above Surrentum, Italy). The sons' names were Agathyrnus, Astyochus, Androcles, Iocastus, Pheraemon, Xuthus, whereas the daughters are not mentioned at all. The sons were said to have become kings: Iocastus of the region in southern Italy as far as Rhegium; Pheraemon and Androcles of the part of Sicily between the Strait of Messina and Lilybaeum; Xuthus of Leontini; Agathyrnus of what was known as Agathyrnitis, having founded Agathyrnum; and Astyochus of Lipara. All were said to have been remembered as just and pious rulers.^[11] Another list of Aeolus' children is found in scholia on the Odyssey^[12]. The latter source gives the sons' names as Androcles, Chrysippus, Iocastus, Phalacrus, Pheraemon, Xuthus, and the daughters' as Aeole, Astycrateia, Dia, Hephaestia, Iphthe, Periboea; their mother in this account is Telepora or Telepatra, daughter of Laestrygon.

Parthenius of Nicaea^[13] recorded a love affair between Odysseus and Aeolus' daughter Polymele; the latter was said to have ended up betrothed to her own brother Diores.

In the Aeneid by Virgil, Juno offers Aeolus the nymph Deiopea as a wife if he will release his winds upon the fleet of Aeneas.^[14]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aeolus

• Theoi Project - Aiolos
• Aeolus

Early photograph of Gioachino Rossini (Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin)

Gioachino Antonio Rossini^[1] (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoaˈkiːno anˈtɔːnjo rosˈsiːni] (Giovacchino Antonio Rossini in the baptismal certificate)^[2] (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces. His best-known operas include the Italian comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola and the French-language epics Moïse et Pharaon and Guillaume Tell (William Tell). A tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, which led to the nickname "The Italian Mozart". Until his retirement in 1829, Rossini had been the most popular opera composer in history.^[3]

Early life[link]

Portrait of Gioachino Rossini in 1820, International Museum and Library of Music, Bologna

Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro, a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy which was then part of the Papal States. His father, Giuseppe, was a horn player and inspector of slaughterhouses. His mother, Anna, was a singer and a baker's daughter. Rossini's parents began his musical training early, and by the age of six he was playing the triangle in his father's musical group.

Rossini's father was sympathetic to the French Revolution and welcomed Napoleon Bonaparte's troops when they arrived in northern Italy. When Austria restored the old regime, Rossini's father was sent to prison in 1799 where he remained until June 1800.^[4] His mother took him to Bologna, making a living as a leading singer at various theatres of the Romagna region. Her husband would ultimately join her in Bologna. During this time, Rossini was frequently left in the care of his aging grandmother, who had difficulty supervising the boy.

He remained at Bologna in the care of a pork butcher while his father played the horn in the orchestras of the theatres at which his wife sang. The boy had three years of instruction in the playing of the harpsichord from Giuseppe Prinetti, originally from Novara, who played the scale with two fingers only; Prinetti also owned a business selling beer and had a propensity to fall asleep while standing. These qualities made him a subject for ridicule in the eyes of the young Rossini.^[5]

Education[link]

He was eventually taken from Prinetti and apprenticed to a blacksmith. In Angelo Tesei, he found a congenial music master, and learned to sight-read, play accompaniments on the piano and sing well enough to take solo parts in the church when he was ten years of age. Important from this period are six sonate a quattro, or string sonatas, composed in three days, unusually scored for two violins, cello and double bass. The original scores, which dated from 1804 when the composer was twelve, were found in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Often transcribed for string orchestra, these sonatas reveal the young composer's affinity for Haydn and Mozart, already showing signs of operatic tendencies, punctuated by frequent rhythmic changes and dominated by clear, songlike melodies.

In 1805 he appeared at the theatre of the Commune in Ferdinando Paer's Camilla, his only public appearance as a singer. He was also a capable horn player, treading in the footsteps of his father. Around this time, he composed individual numbers to a libretto by Vincenza Mombelli called Demetrio e Polibio, which was handed to the boy in pieces. Though it was Rossini's first opera, written when he was thirteen or fourteen, the work was not staged until the composer was twenty years old, premiering as his sixth official opera.

In 1806 Rossini became a cello student under Cavedagni at the Conservatorio di Bologna. The following year he was admitted to the counterpoint class of Padre Stanislao Mattei (1750–1825). He learned to play the cello with ease, but the pedantic severity of Mattei's views on counterpoint only served to drive the young composer's views toward a freer school of composition. His insight into orchestral resources is generally ascribed not to the strict compositional rules that he learned from Mattei, but to knowledge gained independently while scoring the quartets and symphonies of Haydn and Mozart. At Bologna, he was known as "il Tedeschino" ("the Little German") on account of his devotion to Mozart.

Early career[link]

Through the friendly interposition of the Marquis Cavalli, his first opera, La cambiale di matrimonio (The Marriage Contract), was produced at Venice when he was a youth of 18 years. But two years before this he had already received the prize at the Conservatorio of Bologna for his cantata Il pianto d'Armonia sulla morte d’Orfeo. Between 1810 and 1813 at Bologna, Rome, Venice and Milan, Rossini produced operas of varying success, most notably La pietra del paragone and Il signor Bruschino, with its brilliant and unique overture. In 1813, Tancredi and L'italiana in Algeri were even bigger successes, and catapulted the 20-year-old composer to international fame.

The libretto for Tancredi was an arrangement by Gaetano Rossi of Voltaire's tragedy Tancrède. Traces of Ferdinando Paer and Giovanni Paisiello were undeniably present in fragments of the music. But any critical feeling on the part of the public was drowned by appreciation of such melodies as "Di tanti palpiti... Mi rivedrai, ti rivedrò", which became so popular that the Italians would sing it in crowds at the law courts until called upon by the judge to desist.

Gioachino Rossini, painted c. 1815 by Vincenzo Camuccini

By the age of 21, Rossini had established himself as the idol of the Italian opera public. He continued to write operas for Venice and Milan during the next few years, but their reception was tame and in some cases unsatisfactory after the success of Tancredi. In 1815 he retired to his home in Bologna, where Domenico Barbaia, the impresario of the Naples theatre, contracted an agreement that made him musical director of the Teatro di San Carlo and the Teatro del Fondo at Naples. He would compose one opera a year for each. His payment was to be 200 ducats per month; he was also to receive a share from the gambling tables set in the theatre's "ridotto", amounting to about 1000 ducats per annum. This was an extraordinarily lucrative arrangement for any professional musician at that time.

He visited the Naples conservatory, and, although less than four years senior to Mercadante, he said to the Director Niccolò Zingarelli, "My compliments Maestro – your young pupil Mercadante begins where we finish."^[6]

Some older composers in Naples, notably Zingarelli and Paisiello, were inclined to intrigue against the success of the youthful composer, but all hostility was rendered futile by the enthusiasm that greeted the court performance of his Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, in which Isabella Colbran, who subsequently became the composer's wife, took a leading part. The libretto of this opera by Giovanni Schmidt was in many of its incidents an anticipation of those presented to the world a few years later in Sir Walter Scott's Kenilworth. The opera was the first in which Rossini wrote out the ornaments of the airs instead of leaving them to the fancy of the singers, and also the first in which the recitativo secco was replaced by a recitative accompanied by a string quartet.

[edit] The Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia)

Isabella Colbran

Rossini's most famous opera was produced on 20 February 1816, at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. The libretto, a version of Pierre Beaumarchais' stage play Le Barbier de Séville, was newly written by Cesare Sterbini and not the same as that already used by Giovanni Paisiello in his own Barbiere, an opera which had enjoyed European popularity for more than a quarter of a century. Much is made of how quickly Rossini's opera was written, scholarship generally agreeing upon two or three weeks. Later in life, Rossini claimed to have written the opera in only twelve days. It was a colossal failure when it premiered as Almaviva; Paisiello's admirers were extremely indignant, sabotaging the production by whistling and shouting during the entire first act. However, not long after the second performance, the opera became so successful that the fame of Paisiello's opera was transferred to Rossini's, to which the title The Barber of Seville passed as an inalienable heritage.

Later in 1822, a 30-year-old Rossini succeeded in meeting Ludwig van Beethoven, who was then aged 51, deaf, cantankerous and in failing health. Communicating in writing, Beethoven noted: “Ah, Rossini. So you’re the composer of The Barber of Seville. I congratulate you. It will be played as long as Italian opera exists. Never try to write anything else but opera buffa; any other style would do violence to your nature.”^[3]

Marriage and mid-career[link]

Caricature by H. Mailly on the cover of Le Hanneton, July 4, 1867

Between 1815 and 1823 Rossini produced 20 operas. Of these Otello formed the climax to his reform of serious opera, and offers a suggestive contrast with the treatment of the same subject at a similar point of artistic development by the composer Giuseppe Verdi. In Rossini's time the tragic close was so distasteful to the public of Rome that it was necessary to invent a happy conclusion to Otello.

Conditions of stage production in 1817 are illustrated by Rossini's acceptance of the subject of Cinderella for a libretto only on the condition that the supernatural element should be omitted. The opera La Cenerentola was as successful as Barbiere. The absence of a similar precaution in construction of his Mosè in Egitto led to disaster in the scene depicting the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, when the defects in stage contrivance always raised a laugh, so that the composer was at length compelled to introduce the chorus "Dal tuo stellato soglio" to divert attention from the dividing waves.

In 1822, four years after the production of this work, Rossini married the renowned opera singer Isabella Colbran. In the same year, he moved from Italy to Vienna where his operas were the rage of the audiences. He directed his Cenerentola in Vienna, where Zelmira was also performed. After this he returned to Bologna, but an invitation from Prince Metternich to come to Verona and "assist in the general re-establishment of harmony" was too tempting to refuse, and he arrived at the Congress in time for its opening on October 20, 1822. Here he made friends with Chateaubriand and Dorothea Lieven.

In 1823, at the suggestion of the manager of the King's Theatre, London, he came to England, being much fêted on his way through Paris. In England he was given a generous welcome, which included an introduction to King George IV and the receipt of £7000 after a residence of five months. The next year he became musical director of the Théâtre des Italiens in Paris at a salary of £800 per annum. Rossini’s popularity in Paris was so great that Charles X gave him a contract to write five new operas a year, and at the expiration of the contract he was to receive a generous pension for life.

End of career[link]

Gioachino Rossini, photographed by Félix Nadar, 1858

During his Paris years, between 1824 and 1829, Rossini created the comic opera Le Comte Ory and Guillaume Tell (William Tell). The production of the latter in 1829 brought his career as a writer of opera to a close. He was thirty-eight years old and had already composed thirty-eight operas. Guillaume Tell was a political epic adapted from Schiller’s play (1804) about the 13th-century Swiss patriot who rallied his country against the Austrians. The libretto was by Étienne Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, but their version was revised by Armand Marrast.^[7]

The music is remarkable for its freedom from the conventions discovered and utilized by Rossini in his earlier works, and marks a transitional stage in the history of opera, the overture serving as a model for romantic overtures throughout the 19th century. Though an excellent opera, it is rarely heard uncut today, as the original score runs more than four hours in performance. The overture is one of the most famous and frequently recorded works in the classical repertoire.

In 1829 he returned to Bologna. His mother had died in 1827, and he was anxious to be with his father. Arrangements for his subsequent return to Paris on a new agreement were temporarily upset by the abdication of Charles X and the July Revolution of 1830. Rossini, who had been considering the subject of Faust for a new opera, did return, however, to Paris in November of that year.

Six movements of his Stabat Mater were written in 1832 by Rossini himself and the other six by Giovanni Tadolini, a good musician who was asked by Rossini to complete the work. However, Rossini composed the rest of the score in 1841. The success of the work bears comparison with his achievements in opera, but his comparative silence during the period from 1832 to his death in 1868 makes his biography appear almost like the narrative of two lives—the life of swift triumph and the long life of seclusion, of which biographers give us pictures in stories of the composer's cynical wit, his speculations in fish culture, his mask of humility and indifference.

Later years[link]

Gioachino Rossini, photographed by Étienne Carjat, 1865

His first wife died in 1845, and on 16 August 1846, he married Olympe Pélissier, who had sat for Vernet for his picture of Judith and Holofernes. Political disturbances compelled Rossini to leave Bologna in 1848. After living for a time in Florence, he settled in Paris in 1855, where he hosted many artistic and literary figures. Rossini had been a well-known gourmand and an excellent amateur chef his entire life, but he indulged these two passions fully once he retired from composing, and today there are a number of dishes with the appendage "alla Rossini" to their names that were either created by or specifically for him. Probably the most famous of these is Tournedos Rossini, still served by many restaurants today.

In the meantime, after years of various physical and mental illnesses, he had slowly returned to music, composing obscure little works intended for private performance. These included his Péchés de vieillesse ("Sins of Old Age"), which are grouped into 14 volumes, mostly for solo piano, occasionally for voice and various chamber ensembles. Often whimsical, these pieces display Rossini’s natural ease of composition and gift for melody, showing obvious influences of Beethoven and Chopin, with many flashes of the composer’s long buried desire for serious, academic composition. He died at the age of 76 from pneumonia at his country house at Passy on Friday, 13 November 1868. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France. In 1887, his remains were moved to the Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze, in Florence, at the request of the Italian government.

Honors and tributes[link]

Rossini's now-empty tomb at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris

Rossini was a foreign associate of the institute, grand officer of the Legion of Honour and recipient of innumerable orders.

Immediately after Rossini's death, Giuseppe Verdi proposed to collaborate with twelve other Italian composers on a Requiem for Rossini, to be performed on the first anniversary of Rossini's death, conducted by Angelo Mariani. The music was written, but the performance was abandoned shortly before its scheduled premiere. Verdi re-used the "Libera me, Domine" he had written for the Rossini Requiem in his 1872 Requiem for Manzoni. In 1989 the conductor Helmuth Rilling recorded the original Requiem for Rossini in its world premiere.

In 1900 Giuseppe Cassioli created a monument to Rossini in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence.^[8]

Rossiniana[link]

Mauro Giuliani (who died in 1829) wrote six sets of variations for guitar on themes by Rossini, Opp. 119–124 (c. 1820-1828). Each set was called "Rossiniana", and collectively they are called "Rossiniane". This was the first known tribute by one composer to another using a title of the form -ana.

In 1925, Ottorino Respighi orchestrated four pieces from Péchés de vieillesse as the suite Rossiniana (he had earlier used pieces from the same collection as the basis of his ballet La Boutique fantasque).

Notes[link]

Portrait of Gioachino Rossini by Francesco Hayez, 1870.
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

In his compositions, Rossini plagiarized freely from himself, a common practice among deadline-pressed opera composers of the time. Few of his operas are without such admixtures, frankly introduced in the form of arias or overtures. For example, in Il Barbiere there is an aria for the Count (often omitted) "Cessa di più resistere", which Rossini used (with minor changes) in the cantata Le Nozze di Teti e di Peleo and in La Cenerentola (the cabaletta for Angelina's rondo is almost unchanged). Moreover, four of his best known overtures (La cambiale di matrimonio, Tancredi, La Cenerentola and The Barber of Seville) share operas apart from those with which they are most famously associated.

A characteristic mannerism in Rossini's orchestral scoring is a long, steady building of sound over an ostinato figure, creating "tempests in teapots by beginning in a whisper and rising to a flashing, glittering storm,"^[9] which earned him the nickname of "Signor Crescendo".

A few of Rossini's operas remained popular throughout his lifetime and continuously since his demise; others were resurrected from semi-obscurity in the last half of the 20th century, during the so-called "bel canto revival."

Rossini's final resting place, in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence

According to Herbert Weinstock's 1968 biography (see below), the composer's estate was valued at 2.5 million francs upon his death in 1868, the equivalent of about 1.4 million US dollars. Apart from some individual legacies in favour of his wife and relatives,^[10] Rossini willed his entire estate to the Commune of Pesaro.^[11] The inheritance was invested to establish a Liceo Musicale (Conservatory) in the town. When, in 1940, the Liceo was put under state control and turned into the Conservatorio Statale di Musica "Gioachino Rossini", the corporate body to which Rossini’s inheritance had been conveyed, assumed the style of Fondazione G. Rossini. The ends of the institution which is still in full activity, are to support the Conservatorio initiatives and to promote the study and the spread worldwide of the figure, the memory and the works of Rossini. The institution has collaborated since the beginning with the Rossini Opera Festival.^[12]

Rossini's estate also provided funding for the Prix Rossini, a prize to be awarded to young composers and librettist. The provision took effect in 1878 on the death of his widow and was awarded by the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Prize-winning works were produced by the Société des Concerts, Institut de France, from 1885 to 1911.^[13]

Works[link]

References[link]

Notes

Sources

• Faul, Michel (2009), Les aventures militaires, littéraires et autres d'Étienne de Jouy, Editions Seguier, France, March 2009, ISBN 978-2-84049-556-7
• Fisher, Burton D., The Barber of Seville (Opera Classics Library Series). Grand Rapids: Opera Journeys, 2005. ISBN 1-930841-96-5 ISBN 1-930841-96-5
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. Material now in the public domain is incorporated into this article.
• Gossett, Philip, "Rossini, Gioachino" in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, 17 November 2009
• Osborne, Richard, Rossini: His Life and Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 ISBN 978-1-55553-088-4
• Holoman, D. Kern (2004), The Societ́e ́des concerts du conservatoire, 1828-1967. University of California Press ISBN 0-520-23664-5 ISBN 9780520236646
• Osborne, Richard, "Rossini" in The Musical Times, Vol. 127, No. 1726 (December 1986), 691 (Musical Times Publications Ltd.) Access online
• (Italian) Radiciotti, Giuseppe, Gioacchino Rossini: vita documentata, opere ed influenza su l'arte, Tivoli, Majella, 1927-1929
• Steen, Michael, The Lives and Times of the Great Composers NY: Oxford University Press, 2004 ISBN 1-84046-679-0 ISBN 1-84046-679-0
• Weinstock, Herbert, Rossini: A Biography. New York, Knopf, 1968 ISBN 0-87910-102-4 ISBN 0-87910-102-4

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Gioachino Rossini

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gioachino Rossini

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Gioachino Antonio Rossini

• Gioachino Rossini biography
• Fondazione G. Rossini
• List and text of the songs on the website of the German Rossini Society
• Rossini Opera Festival
• Rossini in Wildbad – Belcanto opera festival
• The Center for Italian Opera Studies: Rossini critical edition
• [3] – Riccardo Caramella performs Quatre Mendiants, Quatre hors d'oeuvres

Texts, books

• Memoirs of Rossini by Marie Henri Beyle, Gioacchino Rossini, published in 1824
• Books with "Rossini" as author (at Google Books)
• Books with occurrences of "Rossini" (at Google Books)
• Texts with occurrences of "Rossini" (at archive.org)
• Works by or about Gioachino Rossini in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• La vie de Rossini (fr) by Stendhal, tome I (at gutenberg.org)
• La vie de Rossini (fr) by Stendhal, tome II (at gutenberg.org)

Scores (sheetmusic)

• Free scores by Gioachino Rossini in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores by Rossini at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Gioachino Rossini in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• The Mutopia Project has compositions by Gioachino Rossini

Historical recordings

• Rossini cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.

Films

• Gioachino Rossini at the Internet Movie Database

Performance

• Recent and future performances of Rossini operas from Operabase

Images

• 1867 Caricature of Rossini by André Gill

Soft Machine were an English rock band from Canterbury, named after the book The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs. They were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene, and helped pioneer the progressive rock genre. Though they achieved little commercial success, they are considered by Allmusic to be "one of the more influential bands of their era, and certainly one of the most influential underground ones."

History[link]

Beginnings, Psychedelic, Jazz fusion[link]

Soft Machine (billed as The Soft Machine up to 1969) were formed in mid-1966 by Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), Kevin Ayers (bass, guitar, vocals), Daevid Allen (guitar) and Mike Ratledge (organ) plus, for the first few gigs only, American guitarist Larry Nowlin.^[1] Allen, Wyatt and future bassist Hugh Hopper had first played together in the Daevid Allen Trio in 1963, occasionally accompanied by Ratledge. Wyatt, Ayers and Hopper had been founding members of the Wilde Flowers, later incarnations of which would include future members of another Canterbury band, Caravan.

This first Soft Machine line-up became involved in the early UK underground, featuring prominently at the UFO Club, and subsequently other London clubs like the Speakeasy and Middle Earth, and recorded the group's first single 'Love Makes Sweet Music', as well as some demo sessions that were released several years later. They also played in the Netherlands, Germany and on the French Riviera. During July and August 1967, the promoter and manager Giorgio Gomelsky booked shows all along the Côte d'Azur with the band's most notorious early gig taking place in the village square of Saint-Tropez. This led to an invitation to perform at producer Eddie Barclay's trendy "Nuit Psychédélique^(fr)", performing a forty minute rendition of "We Did It Again", singing the refrain over and over, achieving a Zen-like quality. This made them instant darlings of the Parisian "in" crowd, resulting in invitations to appear on leading television shows and at the Paris Biennale in October 1967. Upon their return from their sojourn in France, Allen (an Australian) was denied re-entry to the United Kingdom, so the group continued as a trio, while he returned to Paris to form Gong.

Sharing the same management team as Jimi Hendrix, the band were rewarded with a support slot on the Jimi Hendrix Experience's North America tour throughout 1968.^[1] Soft Machine's first album - a psychedelic rock/proto-prog classic - was recorded in New York in April at the end of the first leg. Back in London, eventually guitarist Andy Summers, later of The Police, joined the group, fresh from his stint with Dantalian's Chariot (previously Zoot Money's Big Roll Band). After a few weeks of rehearsals, the new quartet began a tour of the USA with some solo shows before reuniting with Hendrix for a final string of dates in August–September 1968. Summers, however, had in the meantime been fired at the insistence of Ayers.^[2] Ayers departed amicably after the final date at the Hollywood Bowl, and for the remainder of 1968 Soft Machine were no more. Wyatt stayed in the US to record solo demos, while Ratledge returned to London and began composing in earnest.

In January 1969, in order to fulfil contractual obligations, Soft Machine reformed with former road manager and composer Hugh Hopper on bass added to Wyatt and Ratledge, and set about recording their second album, Volume Two, which launched a transition towards a purely instrumental sound resembling what would be later called jazz fusion. In May 1969, this lineup acted as the uncredited backup band on two tracks of Syd Barrett's solo debut album, The Madcap Laughs. The base trio was late in 1969 expanded to a septet with the addition of four horn players, though only saxophonist Elton Dean remained beyond a few months, the resulting Soft Machine quartet (Wyatt, Hopper, Ratledge and Dean) running through Third (1970) and Fourth (1971), with various guests, mostly jazz players (Lyn Dobson, Nick Evans, Mark Charig, Jimmy Hastings, Roy Babbington, Rab Spall). Fourth was the first of their fully instrumental albums, and the last one featuring Wyatt.

Their propensity for building extended suites from regular sized compositions, both live and in the studio (already in the Ayers suite in their first album), reaches its maximum in the 1970 album Third, unusual for its time in each of the four sides featuring one suite. Third was also unusual for remaining in print for more than ten years in the United States, and is the best-selling Soft Machine recording.^[3]

This period saw them gaining unprecedented acclaim across Europe, and they made history by becoming the first 'rock band' invited to play at London's Proms in August 1970, a show which was broadcast live and later appeared as a live album.

Post-Wyatt era[link]

After differences over the group's musical direction, Wyatt left (or was fired from^[4]) the band in 1971 and formed Matching Mole (a pun on machine molle French for soft machine). He was briefly replaced by Australian drummer Phil Howard, but further musical disagreements led to Howard's dismissal after the 1971 recording of the first LP side of Fifth (1972) and, some months later, to Dean's departure. They were replaced respectively by John Marshall (drums) and, for the recording of Six (1973), Karl Jenkins (reeds, keyboards), both former members of Ian Carr's Nucleus, and The Softs' sound developed even more towards jazz fusion.

In 1973, after Six, Hopper left and was replaced by Roy Babbington, another former Nucleus member, who had already contributed with double bass on Fourth and Fifth and took up (6-string) electric bass successfully. This new quartet of Babbington, Jenkins, Marshall and Ratledge recorded the next (and last) three official Soft Machine studio releases. After they released Seven (1973) without additional musicians, the band switched record labels from Columbia to Harvest. On their 1975 album Bundles, a significant musical change occurred with fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth adding guitar as a very prominent melody instrument to the band's sound, sometimes reminiscent of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, setting the album apart from previous Soft Machine releases, which had rarely featured guitars. On the last official studio album Softs (1976), he was replaced by John Etheridge. Ratledge, the last remaining original member of the band, had left during the early stages of recording. Other musicians in the band during the later period were bassists Percy Jones (of Brand X) and Steve Cook,^[5] saxophonists Alan Wakeman and Ray Warleigh, and violinist Ric Sanders. Their 1977 performances and record (titled Alive and Well, ironically) were among the last for Soft Machine as a working band. The Soft Machine name was used for the 1981 record Land of Cockayne (with Jack Bruce and, again, Allan Holdsworth, plus Ray Warleigh and Dick Morrissey on saxes and John Taylor on electric piano), and for a final series of dates at London's Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in the summer of 1984, featuring Jenkins and Marshall leading an ad hoc lineup of Etheridge, Warleigh, pianist Dave MacRae and bassist Paul Carmichael.

Legacy[link]

In Soft Machine's Allmusic biography, authors Dave Lynch and Richie Unterberger wrote:

"Soft Machine were never a commercial enterprise and indeed still remain unknown even to many listeners who came of age during the late '60s and early ‘70s, when the group was at its peak. In their own way, however, they were one of the more influential bands of their era, and certainly one of the most influential underground ones. One of the original British psychedelic groups, they were also instrumental in the birth of both progressive rock and jazz-rock. They were also the central foundation of the family tree of the "Canterbury Scene" of British progressive rock acts, a movement that also included Caravan, Gong, Matching Mole, Hatfield and the North, and National Health, not to mention the distinguished pop music careers of founding members Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers and the jazz and jazz-rock explorations of saxophonist Elton Dean and bassist Hugh Hopper."

Since 1988, a wealth of live recordings of Soft Machine have been issued on CD, with recording quality ranging from poor to excellent.

In 2002, four former Soft Machine members - Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean, John Marshall and Allan Holdsworth - toured and recorded under the name Soft Works^[6] (initially called Soft Ware, debuting at the 2002 Progman Cometh Festival).

From late 2004 onwards, with John Etheridge replacing Holdsworth, they toured and recorded as Soft Machine Legacy.^[7] They released three albums: Live in Zaandam^[8] (2005), the studio album Soft Machine Legacy^[9] (2006) and Live at the New Morning^[10] (2006). Although Elton Dean died in February 2006, the band has continued with British saxophonist and flautist Theo Travis (formerly of Gong and The Tangent).

In December 2006, the new line-up recorded the album Steam^[11][12][13] in Jon Hiseman's studio, released by Moonjune Records in August 2007 before a European tour in autumn.

In 2008 Hopper was sidelined by leukemia and the band continued live performances with Fred Baker. Following Hopper's death in 2009, the band announced that it would continue with Babbington once again stepping into the role formerly held by Hopper.^[14]

Influence[link]

The hip hop duo Reflection Eternal was inspired by Seven and they took samples from "Carol Ann" for the song "Memories Live" on their album Train of Thought^[15].

Awards[link]

The album on which Jenkins first played with Soft Machine, Six, won first place in the Melody Maker British Jazz Album of the Year award in 1973. Soft Machine was voted best small group in the Melody Maker jazz poll of 1974.

Biography[link]

Graham Bennett's Soft Machine biography, Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous,^[16] was published in September 2005. In 2006 the book won an Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• The Soft Machine (ABC/Probe, 1968)
• Volume Two (ABC/Probe, 1969)
• Third (CBS, 1970)
• Fourth (CBS, 1971)
• Fifth (CBS, 1972)
• Six (CBS, 1973)
• Seven (CBS, 1973)
• Bundles (Harvest, 1975)
• Softs (Harvest, 1976)
• Rubber Riff (library music originally recorded for DeWolfe music in 1976 under Karl Jenkins' name - re-issued on CD as a Soft Machine title by Blueprint, 1994)^[17]
• Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris (Harvest, 1978)
• Land of Cockayne (EMI, 1981)

Live albums and compilations[link]

• Rock Generation Vol. 7 (one side only, 1967 demo recordings) (BYG, 1972)
• Rock Generation Vol. 8 (one side only, 1967 demo recordings) (BYG, 1972) - This and the preceding entry were combined on subsequent releases, under such titles as Jet Propelled Photographs or Faces & Places Vol.7 (BYG Records). A 1976 release on Charly records was entitled At the Beginning.
• Triple Echo (3 record compilation, 1967–1976) (Harvest, 1977) - Notable for containing both the rare big-band arrangement of Esther's Nose Job and the completely reworked "here at the BBC" version of the Moon in June lyrics.
• Live at the Proms 1970 (Reckless, 1988)
• Turns On Paradiso (Amazing Discs, 1988) (recordings of 1969 - bootleg?)
• The Untouchable (compilation from Bundles, Softs, and Alive and Well) (Castle Communications, 1990)
• The Peel Sessions (recorded 1969-1971) (Strange Fruit, 1990)
• BBC Radio 1 Live in Concert 1971 (Windsong, 1993; also issued as Soft Machine & Heavy Friends by Hux, 2005)
• BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert 1972 (Windsong, 1994; also issued as Softstage by Hux, 2005)
• Live at the Paradiso 1969 (Voiceprint, 1995)
• Live in France (recorded 1972; also issued as Live in Paris by Cuneiform, 2004) (One Way, 1995)
• Spaced (recorded 1969) (Cuneiform, 1996)
• Virtually (recorded by Radio Bremen 1971) (Cuneiform, 1998)^[18]
• Noisette (recorded 1970) (Cuneiform, 2000)
• Backwards (recorded 1968-1970) (Cuneiform, 2002)
• Facelift (recorded 1970) (Voiceprint, 2002)
• BBC Radio 1967-1971 (Hux, 2003)
• BBC Radio 1971-1974 (Hux, 2003)
• Somewhere In Soho (recorded 1970) (Voiceprint, 2004)
• Breda Reactor (recorded 1970) (Voiceprint, 2005)
• Out-Bloody-Rageous (compilation, 1967–1973) (Sony, 2005)
• Orange Skin Food (2 cd compilation of released live recordings) (Membran/EagleRock, 2005)
• British Tour'75 (Major League, 2005)
• Floating World Live (recorded 1975) (MoonJune Records, 2006)
• Grides (CD/DVD Recorded 1970) (Cuneiform Records, 2006)
• Middle Earth Masters (CD Recorded 1967) (Cuneiform Records, 2006)
• Drop (with Phil Howard, recorded 1971) (MoonJune Records, 2008)^[19]
• Live at Henie Onstad Art Centre (recorded 1971) (Reel Recordings, 2009)^[20]
• NDR Jazz Workshop (Hamburg, Germany, May 17, 1973) (Cuneiform Records,^[21] 2010)
• At The Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club (vinyl re-release of Somewhere In Soho - 2lp)(2011) (Lilith Records)

Singles[link]

• "Love Makes Sweet Music" / "Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin'" (Polydor UK, 1967)
• "Joy of a Toy" / "Why Are We Sleeping?" (ABC Probe USA, 1968)
• "Soft Space (part 1)" / "Soft Space (part 2)" (Harvest UK, 1977)

Line-ups timeline[link]

<timeline>

1. header

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 bar:RobertWyatt     text:Robert Wyatt
 bar:MikeRatledge    text:Mike Ratledge
 bar:KevinAyers      text:Kevin Ayers
 bar:DaevidAllen     text:Daevid Allen
 bar:LarryNolan      text:Larry Nowlin
 bar:AndySummers     text:Andy Summers
 bar:HughHopper      text:Hugh Hopper
 bar:BrianHopper     text:Brian Hopper
 bar:LynDobson       text:Lyn Dobson
 bar:EltonDean       text:Elton Dean
 bar:MarcCharig      text:Marc Charig
 bar:NickEvans       text:Nick Evans
 bar:PhilHoward      text:Phil Howard     
 bar:JohnMarshall    text:John Marshall    
 bar:KarlJenkins     text:Karl Jenkins     
 bar:RoyBabbington   text:Roy Babbington   
 bar:AlanHoldsworth  text:Alan Holdsworth  
 bar:JohnEtheridge   text:John Etheridge   
 bar:AlanWakeman     text:Alan Wakeman     
 bar:CarolBarrat     text:Carol Barratt     
 bar:RicSanders      text:Ric Sanders      
 bar:PercyJones      text:Percy Jones
 bar:SteveCook       text:Steve Cook 

1. regular albums

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 from: 15/08/1966  till: 15/03/1970    text:drums,voc color:dsvc mark:(line,white)
 from: 15/03/1970  till: 15/09/1971    text:drums color:ds mark:(line,white)

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 from: 15/08/1966  till: 15/01/1976    text:keybd color:kbd mark:(line,white)

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 bar:LarryNolan #genaue Zeit der Mitarbeit nicht dokumentiert "only a few early gigs"
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 bar:AndySummers
 from: 15/07/1968  till: 15/09/1968    shift:(32,-4) text:guitar color:git mark:(line,white)

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 from: 15/02/1972  till: 15/12/1978    text:drums color:ds mark:(line,white)

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 from: 15/01/1976  till: 15/12/1978    text:keybd color:kbd mark:(line,white) 

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 bar:PercyJones
 from: 15/09/1976  till: 15/02/1977    shift:(32,-4) text:bass color:bass mark:(line,white)

 bar:SteveCook
 from: 15/02/1977  till: 15/12/1978    text:bass color:bass mark:(line,white)

</timeline>

This timeline does not include the last Soft Machine studio album Land of Cockayne (1981) which had:

• Karl Jenkins – keyboards, synths
• John Marshall – drums, percussion

with

• Jack Bruce – bass
• Allan Holdsworth – lead guitar
• John Taylor – electric piano
• Ray Warleigh – alto saxophone, bass flute
• Dick Morrissey – tenor saxophone
• Alan Parker – rhythm guitar
• Stu Calver – backing vocals
• John Perry – backing vocals
• Tony Rivers – backing vocals

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Bennett, Graham: Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous. London: SAF Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-946719-84-5 Biography

External links[link]

• Soft Machine section at Calyx website
• Soft Machine - First period with Robert Wyatt
• Soft Machine discography
• Collapso - Canterbury Music Family Tree
• The Soft Machine - A Chronology
• Facelift Magazine - exploring the Canterbury scene and beyond
• Strongcomet:
• Interview with drummer/singer Robert Wyatt
• Elton Dean - interview for Facelift Magazine
• Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous biography
• Hugh Hopper site (hosted by Burning Shed) including link to the Hopper Archives
• Soft Machine page at Cuneiform Records
• Noisette - The ultimate Soft Machine experience, music, pictures, movies, facts
• Soft Machine at progarchives.com
• Soft Machine at Allmusic
• Soft Machine at allaboutjazz.com

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