Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Key to Sigla
Preface to First Edition
Preface to Second Edition
1: The formative years (1792-1810)
2: Venice and Milan (1811-14)
3: Arrival in Naples (1815)
4: Rome and Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816)
5: Naples, Rome and Milan (1816-17)
6 Mosè in Egitto and Return to Pesaro (1818):
7: 1819-21
8: Vienna, Verona, Venice (1822-3)
9: Paris and London (1823-4)
10 Paris (1824-9)
11: Retirement from operatic composition
12: Bologna, Paris, Madrid (1829-34), Stabat mater, Olympe Pd'elissier, and Balzac
13: Paris, the Rhineland, and return to Italy (1835-46)
14: Times of Barricades and Assassinations, Bologna, Florence, and departure from Italy (1847-55)
15: Return to Paris (1855)
16: Saturday soirées and a New Mass
17: Last Years (1865-8)
18: Entr'acte: Some Problems of Approach to the Works
19: The Early Operas (I): Farse for Venice's Teatro San Moisd`e
20: Overtures
21: The Early Operas (ii): Demetrio e Polibio, L'equivoco stravagante,Ciro in Babilonia, La Pieta del Paragone
22: Tancredi: Heroic Comedy and the Forming of a Method
23: L'italiana in Algeri: Formal Mastery in the Comic Style
24: Milan and Venice (1813-14), Aureliano in Palmira, Il turco in Italia, Sigismondo
25: Arrival in Naples (1815-16), Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, La gazzetta
26: Il barbiere di Siviglia and the Transformation of a Tradition
27: Otello and the Confrontation of Tragedy
28: La Cenerentola: an Essay in Comic Pathos
29: La Gazza Ladra and the Semiseria Style
30: Armida and the New Romanticism
31: Mosè in Egitto (1818-19) and Mo:ise et Pharaon (1827)
32: A lost Masterpiece and a Forgotten Favorite: Ermione,and Ricciardo e Zoraide
33: Rossini and Scott: La Donna del Lago
34: Maometto II (1820) and Le Siège de Corinth (1826)
35: Back from the Shadows: Matilde di Shabran and Zelmira
36: Farewell to Italy: Semiramid
37: Il viaggio a Reims (1825) and Le Comte Ory (1828)
38: Guillaume Tell
39: Sacred Music, Messa di Gloria, Stabat mater, Petite Messe Solennelle
40: Vocal and Piano Music, Early Songs, Giovanna d'Arco, Les soirées Musicales, Péchés de Vieillesse
Appendices
A: Calendar
B: List of works
C: Personalia
D: Select bibliography
Index

About the Author

Richard Osborne is one of Britain's best known writers and broadcasters, and a leading authority on Rossini. Widely praised for its scholarship and readability, the original edition of his Master Musicians Rossini was seen as an influential act of revaluation at a time of renewed interest in the composer's music and personality. Other books by Richard Osborne include Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music (1998) and Till I End
My Song. English Music and Musicians 1440-1940: A Perspective from Eton (2002). critic and broadcaster, author of Conversations with Karajan (OUP 1991), Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music (Chatto & Windus 1998), and Till I End My Song.
English Music and Musicians 1440-1940: A Perspective from Eton (Cygnet Press 2002).

Reviews

"Osborne's Rossini remains indispensable both as a conspectus of, and prolegomenon to, the life and work of this most colourful of operatic composers." Conor Farrington, Times Literary Supplement "The 1985 edition of Richard Osborne's Rossini was already the very best Rossini biography available; the new edition surpasses it in every way. Writing now with access to the published correspondence from throughout the
composer's operatic career (through 1830) and with new editions and excellent performances of most of the operas, Osborne provides real insight into the life and works of a composer whose art had been poorly understood since the middle of the
nineteenth century. He hones in on the major works and explains their historical significance and aesthetic appeal. Those who love Rossini and bel canto opera are truly in Osborne's debt."-Philip Gossett, Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor of Music, University of Chicago
"Perhaps the best general study of this composer's life and work available in any language."-Alex Liddell
"Richard Osborne's Rossini is an invaluable work of scholarship and passion. Life and Works together, in great detail, give the reader a splendid fund of information and allow a much clearer picture than we have ever had before, of an often misunderstood, and under-rated genius."--Sir Roger Norrington
"The 1985 edition of Richard Osborne's Rossini was already the very best Rossini biography available; the new edition surpasses it in every way. Writing now with access to the published correspondence from throughout the composer's operatic career (through 1830) and with new editions and excellent performances of most of the operas, Osborne provides real insight into the life and works of a composer whose art had been poorly understood since the middle
of the nineteenth century. He hones in on the major works and explains their historical significance and aesthetic appeal. Those who love Rossini and bel canto opera are truly in Osborne's debt."-Philip
Gossett, Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor of Music, University of Chicago
"Richard Osborne's Rossini is an invaluable work of scholarship and passion. Life and Works together, in great detail, give the reader a splendid fund of information and allow a much clearer picture than we have ever had before, of an often misunderstood, and under-rated genius."--Sir Roger Norrington