Gioachino Rossini

EARLY LIFE 

Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born on February 29, 1792 into a family of musicians in Pesaro, a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy that was then part of the Papal States.

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

His father Giuseppe was town trumpeter and inspector of slaughterhouses.

Gioachino's mother, Anna, was a soprano and a baker's daughter.

His parents began Gioachino's musical training early, and by the age of six he was playing the triangle in his father's band.

Gioachino's father was sympathetic to the French, and welcomed Napoleon's troops when they arrived in Northern Italy. This became a problem when in 1796, the Austrians restored the old regime. Rossini's father was sent to prison.

Anna took Gioacchino to Bologna, earning her living as lead singer at various theaters of the Romagna region, where she was ultimately joined by her husband. He started teaching at Bologna's prestigious Accademia Filharmonica.

Gioacchino remained at Bologna in the care of a pork butcher, while his father played the horn in the bands of the theatres at which his mother sang. The boy had three years instruction in the harpsichord from Prinetti of Novara, but Prinetti played the scale with two fingers only, combined his profession of a musician with the business of selling liquor, and fell asleep while he stood, so he was a fit subject for ridicule by his critical pupil.

Gioacchino was taken from Prinetti and apprenticed to a blacksmith. He learned to sight-read, to play accompaniments on the pianoforte, and to sing well enough to take solo parts in the church by the time he was ten years of age.

By the age of 13 Rossini could sing and play well enough to join the musical company his parents worked for. He appeared in 1805 at the theatre of the Commune in Paër’s Camilla as a singer. By now he was also a capable horn player in the footsteps of his father.

The following year, Gioacchino entered Bologna’s prestigious Accademia Filharmonica (now the G.B. Martini State Conservatory of Music).

By 15 Rossini had learned the violin, horn, and harpsichord to a proficent standard and was often appearing in public, even in the theatre, to earn some money.

CAREER AS COMPOSER 

The only truly great comic composer, Rossini wrote 38 operas, mainly cheerful light-hearted ones.

Rossini's insight into orchestral resources is generally ascribed to knowledge gained while scoring the quartets and symphonies of Haydn and Mozart. At Bologna he was known as "il Tedeschino" on account of his devotion to Mozart.

Rossini's first performed piece, written when he was sixteen years of age and executed at the Lyceum of Bologna in 1808, was "Pianto d'Armonia per la Morte d'Orfeo." The cantata was inspired by his favorite subject of Orpheus.  Rossini was awarded the prize at the Conservatorio of Bologna for his work.

After furthering his studies in Bologna, Rossini was invited by the manager of a Venice theater to write an opera for it. La Cambiale di Matrimonio (The Bill of Marriage) was a one-act piece. The sum paid for it was 200 francs.

Between 1810 and 1813, Rossini produced operas of varying success, most notably Il signor Bruschino, with its brilliant and unique overture. In 1813, Tancredi and L'italiana in Algeri were huge successes, catapulting the 20-year-old composer to international fame.

Portrait of Rossini as a young man

In 1815 Rossini retired to his home at Bologna, where Barbaja, the impresario of the Naples theatre, concluded an agreement with him by which he was to take the musical direction of the Teatro San Carlo and the Teatro Del Fondo at Naples, composing for each of them one opera a year. His payment was to be 200 ducats per month; he was also to receive a share of Barbaja's other business, popular gaming-tables, amounting to about 1000 ducats per annum. Over the next nine years, Rossini composed a series of operas and created the 19th century Italian operatic style.

In 1823, at the suggestion of the manager of the King’s Theatre, London, Rossini 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 following year, Rossini was appointed musical director of the Théatre Italien in Paris at a salary of £800 per annum.

In 1824 Rossini was contracted by the Opéra in Paris, for which he produced an opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X, Il viaggio a Reims, later cannibalized for Le comte Ory,

When the Théatre Italien agreement came to an end Rossini was rewarded with the offices of chief composer to the king and inspector-general of singing in France, to which was attached the same income.

Gioacchino Rossini virtually retired from music after his 1829 comic opera William Tell.

Rossini in 1829 (lithography by Charlet Ory)

After returning to Paris from Italy in 1855  Rossini presented salon music in the form of songs, piano pieces and small chamber ensembles that he called "Sins of Old Age". The last of these "Sins" was the unusually scored Petite messe solennelle (Little solemn mass) which he wrote in 1863. (The Petite messe solennette belied its title lasting nearly two hours.)

COMPOSITIONS 

Rossini's 1813 operatic farce Il Signor Bruschino was forward-looking in its use of new musical effects. For example, the overture had a direction in its score getting the second violinist to mark each bar of the music by striking their music stands with their violin bows.

Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) was completed by Rossini in 13 days. It was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy, Le Barbier de Séville, which took Paris by storm in 1775.

The Barber of Seville was premiered in Rome on February 20, 1816 and its first night was a disastrous failure, the audience hissing and jeering throughout. Everything went wrong, a guitar string snapped, a cat walked on stage.

There were protestations originated by a rival composer who had recently written his own version of the same Barber of Seville story. Rossini quickly added some additional humorous lyrics for characters like the resourceful, witty servant Figaro but apprehensive he missed the second night pretending to be ill. Unaware that this time, the audience loved his opera, the composer heard a commotion on the street and fearing the crowds were out to get him, he was relieved to find they were out to congratulate him.

Figaro in The Barber of Seville is the same character as in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaroopera.

The famous overture for Barber of Seville was not originally intended for it. Rossini later admitted "For the Barbiere, I did not even compose an overture, I just took one already destined for an opera called Elisabetta. Public was very pleased."

The aria and the overture of The Barber of Seville have been parodied in numerous animated cartoons including Bugs Bunny (Rabbit of Seville and Long Haired Hare), Tom and Jerry (The Cat Above and the Mouse Below and Kitty Foiled), and The Simpsons (Homer of Seville).

La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie) was a two act opera which premiered on May 31, 1817 at the La Scala in Milan.

The libretto of The Thieving Magpie by Giovanni Gherardini was based on the 1815 comedy La Pie Voleuse by JMT Badouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez. The story tells of a maid who almost goes to the gallows for stealing silver, before it is discovered that the culprit was a magpie, which had been thieving and hiding items in the church tower.

The Thieving Magpie is best known for its overture, which is notable for its arresting beginning with several consecutive military snare drum rolls. Rossini was a quick writer and he needed to be for this piece. It was reported that the composer was locked in a room writing the overture the day before his semi-seria opera was due to be premiered at La Scala in Milan. He then threw each sheet out of the window to his copyists, who wrote out the full orchestral parts.

The Thieving Magpie’s overture has provided the background score for many television and radio adverts, including the award winning "colour like no other" 2006 British TV commercial for the Sony "Bravia" TV, featuring spectacular paint explosions.

Semiramide, the grandest of his serious operas was Rossini's last Italian work. It was based on Voltaire's tragedy Semiramis, which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Assyria. The opera was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on  February 3, 1823. After this splendid work, one of his finest in the genre, Rossini turned his back on Italy and moved to Paris.

Rossini last opera, the epic Guillaume Tell (William Tell), replete with its iconic overture, helped usher in grand opera in France. Its production in 1829 brought Rossini's career as a writer of opera to a close.

Rossini portrayed in 1828, the year he began composing William Tell

William Tell is an opera in four acts to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis. Rossini had high hopes for his work about the legendary Swiss bowman, which premiered on August 3, 1829.  He considered it his masterpiece from which he could retire but because of its four-hour length and concerns it was glorifying a revolutionary figure, the opera flopped. Later the overture from it struck bulls eye and became Rossini's best known work.

Rossini used Friedrich von Schiller's 1803-04 play as the basis for his opera.

Today, William Tell is remembered mostly for its famous overture, especially the high-energy galloping finale, which is particularly familiar through its use in the American radio and television shows of The Lone Ranger.

RELATIONSHIPS 

Rossini married Spanish soprano Isabella Colbran on March 22, 1822. Colbran and Rossini separated in 1837 and the soprano succumbed to a gambling habit. Rossini continued to send support until her death in 1845 at age 60.

Isabella Colbran

Rossini began a serious relationship with the French artists' model and hostess Olympe Pélissier (1799-1878) in Paris after separating from Isabella Colbran. She famously sat to Vernet for his picture of "Judith and Holofernes."

Under the Bourbon Restoration, Pélissier had been a notable figure in Parisian society, including a 1830 liaison with Honoré de Balzac, and was famous for her entertaining and parties.

Pélissier and Rossini first met in the 1830s. Olympe began to cook for him and manage his business affairs, although they only married after Isabella's death in 1845, on August 16, 1846.

Vernet's Judith and Holofernes, for which Pélissier modelled

Pélissier lived with Rossini at his Parisian house in the Passy suburb, and continued to reside there after his death in 1868.

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER 

Rossini is supposed to have composed The Barber of Seville in just 13 days, because as usual he was late in respecting the delivery date. He worked on his masterpiece in his bedroom, wearing his dressing-gown. A friend pointed out that it was undoubtedly funny that he had composed the "Barber" without shaving himself for such a long time. Rossini promptly replied that if he had to get shaved, he would have had to get out of his house, and he therefore would never had completed his opera.

Gioachino Rossini, c. 1815 (portrait by Vincenzo Camuccini)

Rossini suffered from alopecia, which made him completely bald and as a result, he took to wearing a wig. When really cold, he wore two or three wigs simultaneously.

Rossini was not only famous as a writer of comic operas, but was also renowned for his wit. On one occasion thinking of the prima donna singers, Rossini quipped "how wonderful opera would be if there were no singers."

He once congratulated the diva Adelina Patti with the words "Madame, I have cried only twice in my life, once when I dropped a wing of truffled chicken into Lake Como and once when for the first time I heard you sing."

Rossini was scared of travelling by railway so he never did.

LATER LIFE 

After the initial failure of his opera William Tell, Gioachino Rossini gave up writing opera and decided to concentrate on cooking. He produced some inventive recipes such as Thrush and Chestnut soup and devised a way of stuffing macaroni with foie gras by means of a silver syringe.

Rossini moved to Paris from Italy in 1824. He spent his time there entertaining lavishly and giving musical evenings. He also maintained a villa in Passy nearby.

Rossini returned to Bologna for a time but political disturbances in the Romagna area compelled him to leave the city in 1847. After living for a time in Florence he settled in Paris in 1855, where his house was a center of artistic society.

Photograph by Étienne Carjat, 1865

When Rossini was old and eminent but still not rich a group of admirers raised a subscription of 20,000 Francs for a statue to their hero. "Give me the 20,000" said Rossini, "and I'll stand on the pedestal myself."

DEATH 

Rossini died at his country house at Passy of cancer of the rectum on November 13, 1868. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.

In 1887, Rossini's remains were moved to the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence, at the request of the Italian government.

Sources Some of this taken from my contributions to Songfacts, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Cook

The first winner at the Olympics in Athens in 776 BC was a Greek cook called Coroebus.

Saint Lawrence (December  31, AD 225- August 10, 258 was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome, under Pope St Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roman Emperor Valerian ordered in 258. Saint Lawrence was executed in a giant grill, and while he was being killed he screamed "I'm well done. Turn me over!". After that the Catholic Church made him saint patron of cooks, chefs and comedians.

Richard the Lionheart knighted his cook after one particularly memorable feast. Richard made him "lord of the fief of the kitchen of the counts of Poitou." In those days of little hygiene, the cook was an important member of a noble household because his mistakes could kill his employer.

The French king Charles V's master cook, Guillaume Tirel, wrote the first important French cookbook, Le Viandier, in 1375. He was more familiarly known as Taillevent (literally “cut the smell”) because of the length of his nose.

Taillevent's menus consisted mostly of soups, meats, poultry, fish and soups, which were so heavily seasoned by spices, the taste of the food was largely obscured.

Charles I once hosted a state banquet for many of his friends and family. Amongst the treats the King's French chef had concocted was an appetising new dish. It was cold and resembled fresh-fallen snow but was much creamier and sweeter than any other after dinner dessert. The guests were delighted as was Charles who summoned the cook, De Mirco and had him promise not to divulge the recipe for his frozen cream. The King wanted the delicacy only at the Royal Table and offered the cook £500 a year to keep it that way. However De Mirco did not keep his promise.

Cooks wore headgear for the first time in the 1820s in England. The cook who had to supervise the preparation of the massive joints being served wore a black cap to help enable him to carry the roast to the table on a silver platter on his head.

Eighteen-year-old Franz Joseph (1830-1916) was arguing with his cook when he was told his father had abdicated and he was now Emperor of Austro-Hungary. His first words as ruler were:  “I am the Emperor and I want dumplings."

The Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini was an inventive cook. After 1829  he  gave up composing and concentrated on cooking and produced a score of recipes such as Thrush and Chestnut soup.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's White House housekeeper, Henrietta Nesbitt, was a legendarily awful cook. "Of course Henrietta did not personally do the cooking," wrote a former White House maid, "but she stood over the cooks, making sure that each dish was overcooked or undercooked or ruined one way or another."

Marcel Boulestin became the world’s first television cook in 1937 when he presented the first of the Cooks Night Out programmes on the BBC.

In the U.S. Julia Child's 1962 cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and television show almost single-handedly changed the way Americans cooked and ate. Her detailed printed instructions for chocolate mousse and coq au vin made those French classics possible for even a limited cook. Her wildly popular recipe for the latter was copied in millions of kitchens throughout America. A simple chicken dish, it is made with mushrooms, onions, bacon and red wine.

Julia Child at WGBH. By KUHT - Wikipedia Commons

Julia Child concocted her first “recipe” while working as a spy during the Second World War It was a shark repellent.

Julia Child died on August 13, 2004 of kidney failure at the age of 91. Her last meal was French onion soup.

Vincent Price was a man of many talents. In addition to being a successful actor, he was also a gourmet chef and cookbook author. He released four cookbooks during his lifetime which includes dishes from some of the most famous restaurants around the world. He was also known for his sense of humor, and his cookbooks are full of witty anecdotes and personal stories.

In addition to his cookbooks, Price also recorded a number of audio cooking tutorials titled "International Cooking Course." These tutorials were released in the early 1970s, and they feature Price teaching listeners how to make a variety of dishes. Titles include: Bounty of Paradise, Delights from the Sultan's Pantry, Dinner at the Casbah, Dining at Versailles, Exotic Delights from the Far East, Food of the Gods, Foods from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

Sources Food For Thought by Ed Pearce, Mentalfloss.com

Chef

A chef is a trained professional cook who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation. The word  is derived from the term chef de cuisine, the director or head of a kitchen.

Le Chef de l'Hôtel Chatham, Paris (c. 1921), oil on canvas by William Orpen

The first documented recipe for pasta was in the early 11th century Italian book De arte Coquinaria per vermicelli e macaroni siciliani, (The Art of Cooking Sicilian Macaroni and Vermicelli) written by Martino Corno, chef to the powerful Patriarch of Aquileia.

Possibly the first cookbook written in English The Forme of Cury, (the word “cury” is a term for cooked food) was compiled in 1390 by King Richard II's chefs.

Charles I of England's French chef, Gerald Tirsain developed  a delicious new variation of flavoured snow for a state banquet hosted by the king. Milk, cream and eggs were added to make it much creamier and sweeter than any other iced dessert  The guests were delighted, as was Charles who summoned the cook, and made him promise to keep the recipe for his frozen cream secret. The King wanted the delicacy only at the Royal Table and offered him £500 a year to keep it that way.

Giles Rose, Charles II's chef, could fold a table napkin 26 ways.

England's King George II took such an interest in his food that he ordered every dish served to him to be labelled with the name of the chef who had made it.

A sauce made from olive oil and egg yolks was invented in 1756 by the French chef of Louis François Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu. While the Duke was defeating the British at the successful siege of the English-held St. Philip's Castle, his chef was creating a victory feast that included the new sauce. When the chef realized that there was no cream in the kitchen, he improvised, substituting olive oil for the cream. Located in Mahón, port city and the capital of Minorca, the successful siege resulted in the French’s gain of the entire island. The chef named the new sauce "Mahonnaise", (or mayonnaise) in honor of the Duke's victory.

Before ascending to the English throne as King George IV, the prince employed the most celebrated chef around, Marie-Antoine Carême (see below). The sumptuous food cooked for him gave Prince George almost permanent indigestion and his gargantuan excesses exceeded any other royals.

While cooking for Lord Stewart, the British envoy in Vienna, Marie-Antoine Carême put a tube of card into the floppy hat customarily worn by cooks to create the chef’s hat.

The tall white chef hats traditionally have 100 pleats to represent the hundreds of ways an egg can be prepared.

Carême died in his Paris house on the Rue Neuve Saint Roche at the age of 48 on January 12, 1833. The cause of death may have been the many years he inhaled the toxic fumes of the charcoal on which he cooked.

The composer Rossini gave up composing to become a chef. 

Alexis Soyer (February 4, 1810 – August 5, 1858) was a French chef who became the most celebrated cook in early Victorian England. He catered Queen Victoria's coronation breakfast, developed soup kitchens in London and Ireland, designed his own cooking stove and gaders, and worked with Florence Nightingale to address malnutrition in the British military.

Alexis Soyer in 1849

In 1852 a part Native Indian chef George Crum invented potato crisps by accident, thanks to a fussy customer. Industrialist Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt came to the Moon Lake House Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York, where Crum was a chef and ordered “thinner than normal French fried potatoes.” Vanderbilt kept sending them back to Crum, protesting that they were too thick. Finally, out of spite the chef sliced the potatoes paper-thin, so that he wouldn't be able to eat them with a fork then, fried them to a crisp in oil, and splashed salt on them. The fussy industrialist loved them. These "potato crunches” as Crum called them became a regular feature of the hotel’s menu.

Charles Ranhofer, the chef of the famous Delmonico's restaurant in New York, created a new sponge cake covered in ice cream to celebrate the 1867 American purchase of Alaska from the Russians. It was, at first, called Alaska-Florida Cake, but subsequently changed to Baked Alaska.

In 1943 Ignacio Anaya, a chef at the small Mexican town of Piedras Negras assembled the first nachos, a combination of tortilla pieces with jalapeño peppers and melted cheese, for some Texan ladies who were on a shopping trip.

The self-taught French chef Raymond Blanc came to Britain in his early 20s after being fired as a waiter at the Michelin-starred Le Palais de la Bière in Besançon. Blanc had upset the head chef by questioning his cooking and was hit by him with a frying pan.

The president of the World Association of Chefs Societies Billy Gallagher created International Chefs Day in 2004, which is celebrated each year on October 20th. The day focuses on educating kids around the world about eating healthy and for chefs to pass on their knowledge and skills to the next generation.

In 2008, British chef Paul Hollywood created an almond and roquefort sourdough recipe that was said to be the most expensive bread in Britain, being sold for £15 per loaf at Harrods The Roquefort was supplied from a specialist in France at £15 per kilo, while the flour for the bread was made by a miller in Wiltshire. Hollywood described it as a "Rolls-Royce of loafs".

Karre Mastanamma was an Indian YouTube celebrity chef who got her big break at the age of 105. Filmed by her grandson, she became an Internet sensation following her first recording making an Baingan bharta (aubergine curry) in 2016. Her unique ways of preparing dishes outside on an open fire - such as roasting chicken inside a steaming watermelon - were hugely appreciated. At the time of Mastanamma's death on December 3, 2018, she had 2 million followers on YouTube.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Isabella Beeton

She was born Isabella Mayson on March 14, 1836 in Marylebone, London, the eldest of three daughters to Benjamin Mayson, a linen factor merchant and his wife Elizabeth 

Shortly after Isabella's birth the family moved to Milk Street, Cheapside, from where Benjamin traded.  He died when Isabella was four years old. 

Three years after Benjamin's death, Elizabeth married Henry Dorling, a widower with four children. Henry was the Clerk of Epsom Racecourse, and lived within the racecourse grounds. 

Over the next twenty years Henry and Elizabeth had a further thirteen children. Isabella was instrumental in her siblings' upbringing, and the experience gave her much insight and experience in how to manage a family and its household.

During her youth, she studied in Germany and excelled as a pianist.

Isabella Beeton, née Mayson, photographed in about 1854

Isabella Beeton married Samuel Orchart Beeton, an ambitious publisher and magazine editor, in July 1856. 

Less than a year later, she began writing for one of his publications, The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine. Beeton translated French fiction and wrote the cookery column, though all the recipes were plagiarized from other works, or sent in by the magazine's readers. 

In 1859 the Beetons launched a series of 48-page monthly supplements to the magazine; the 24 instalments were published in one volume as Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in October 1861. Published to great acclaim, it sold 60,000 copies in the first year and by 1968 had sold nearly 2 million copies. 

Costing 7s 6d, Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management contained recipes, diet and menu plans and practical advice on running a home. Isabella's Beeton's ground breaking book made her a household name.

Title page of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, 

The earliest use of the word 'tinned' to refer to food given by the Oxford English Dictionary is an 1861 reference by Mrs Beeton to "tinned turtle."

Her short life was marred by tragedy. She gave birth to four children, two of whom died in infancy, and had several miscarriages.

Isabella Beeton was just 28 when she died of puerperal fever after giving birth to her fourth child. 

Two of her biographers posit the theory that Samuel had unknowingly contracted syphilis in a premarital liaison with a prostitute, and had passed the condition on to his wife during their honeymoon.

Marcus Gavius Apicius

Marcus Gavius Apicius was a Roman gourmet and lover of luxury, who lived sometime in the 1st century AD. He spent vast sums to satisfy his craving for exotic foods and The Roman cookbook Apicius is often attributed to him.

The Apicius manuscript (ca. 900 AD) of the monastery of Fulda in Germany. By Bonho1962

The name "Apicius" had long been associated with an excessively refined love of food, from the habits of an early bearer of the name. The first Apicius was a legendary gourmet of about 100 BC.

Athenaeus, living during the time when much about Apicius was still current, was a Greek rhetorician. He said that Marcus Gavius Apicius of the time of Tiberius (AD14-37) chose to live at Minturnae, Campania because the prawns grew bigger there than anywhere else. Then he heard  about the size and sweetness of the prawns taken near the Libyan coast. Apicius commandeered a boat and crew, but when he arrived, disappointed by the prawns he was offered by the local fishermen who came alongside in their boats, and comparing them to the excellent crawfish he was accustomed to at his villa, he ordered his boat to turn around and make straight for home. 

His recipes included numerous spices such as pepper intended to preserve food, aid the digestion, and improve the flavor of the dull Roman fare. "Sprinkle with pepper and serve" is the last step in a recipe for diced pork and apples from one cookbook. He even recommended the use of pepper in sweet desserts.

According to Pliny, Apicius devised a method of producing pork liver based on existing methods of producing goose liver (foie gras). He fed his pigs with dried figs and slaughtered them with an overdose of mulsum (honeyed wine).

The first known recipe for deep-fried chicken was called "Pullum Frontonianum" and can be found in the Apicius cookbook.

 A recipe from the Apicius cookbook details a burger-like dish called ‘Isicia Omentata'. It was made with minced meat, pepper, wine, pine nuts and a rich fish-based sauce called garum.

Apicius' colossal banquets drove him to bankruptcy. Calculating how little money he had left, he decided to poison himself rather than turning to a more modest way of living.

Source Food For Thought: Extraordinary Little Chronicles Of The World by Ed Pearce