"Rossini" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not seen or even heard of one, with the exception of "The Magic Flute," and less probably "Don Juan." This is bad enough; but if we look at works belonging to the first part of the nineteenth century, we find the same state of affairs. The operas of Spontini, Rossini, most of Meyerbeer's, even Weber's "Freischuetz," have passed away, seemingly never to return. Even "Cavalleria Rusticana," of recent creation, is falling rapidly into oblivion. Thus the opera comique early disappeared in favour of the romantic ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... such preposterous vanities, encircled with saints, angels, and clouds; the whole got up very like a scene in a pantomime, and accompanied by music from a concealed orchestra, which was intended, I believe, to be sacred music, but sounded to me like some of Rossini's airs. In front of the stage there was a narrow passage divided off, admitting one person at a time, through which a continued file of persons moved along, who threw down their contributions as they passed, bowing and crossing themselves with great devotion. ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... suppressed at Berlin, as Tell had been—not modern imitations of those heroes, but the operas so called, by Rossini and Auber. The Prussian Government, liberal as it was a few months ago in professions, cannot stand ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... scrapings of dissatisfaction were heard, which would have been more audible had Signor Mancussi not been present. As the last twang of the fiddle died on the air, M. Bartin was heard by several persons to say, "Bah! a bad hash from Rossini and Auber." The remark was reported to Signor Mancussi, and did not tend to enhance his friendly regards for ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... difficult to be sure where George Frederick left off and somebody else began. Bellini wrote fashionable music and Norma and La Sonnambula sound a trifle faded although they are still occasionally performed, but Rossini, whose only desire was to please his public, (Liszt once observed "Rossini and Co. always close with 'I remain your very humble servant'"), wrote melodies in Il Barbiere di Siviglia which sound as fresh to us today as they did when they were first composed. And when this prodigiously ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... respect one compares it with florid soprano voices of the phenomenal order. Otherwise, so far as the high notes are concerned, the difference lies in quality rather than in compass. The Inflammatus in Rossini's Stabat Mater, which is written for dramatic soprano, contains the high C, and no one who has heard Nordica sing it need be told of the noble effect a great dramatic ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... Baudraye had caught the mania for autographs; she possessed an oblong volume which deserved the name of album better than most, as two-thirds of the pages were still blank. The Baronne de Fontaine, who had kept it for three months, had with great difficulty obtained a line from Rossini, six bars written by Meyerbeer, the four lines that Victor Hugo writes in every album, a verse from Lamartine, a few words from Beranger, Calypso ne pouvait se consoler du depart d'Ulysse (the first words of Telemaque) written by George Sand, Scribe's famous lines ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... air, calculated to drive away all melancholy feelings, and cherishing sunny views of human life. But Rossini's Muse did not smile to-night upon her who invoked its gay spirit; and ere Lady Madeleine could interfere Violet Fane had found more congenial emotions in one ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... great barge advancing toward him, he guided his boat aside, and rested on his oar within a couple of yards of the river-brink. He was all the while unconsciously continuing the low-toned chant which had haunted his throat all the way up the river—the gondolier's song in the "Otello," where Rossini has worthily set to music the immortal ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... made accurate notes of all the colours and transitions—blue, and lilac, and dark brown. 'That will make a beautiful picture,' he said. He took it in just as a mirror takes in a view; and as he worked he whistled a march of Rossini. And last of all came a poor girl. She laid aside the burden she carried, and sat down to rest upon the Hun's Grave. Her pale handsome face was bent in a listening attitude towards the forest. Her eyes brightened, she gazed earnestly at the sea and the sky, her hands were ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... characters; and he is also at the mercy of the orchestra. Wagner's Tannhaeuser led a stormy life at the Paris opera for a very few evenings, and its failure the composer has never been willing to let the world forget. Rossini was more philosophical. On its first performance the Barber of Seville, like the comedy of Beaumarchais, whence its libretto is taken, was a failure; and when the curtain fell, Rossini, who had led the orchestra, turned to the audience and calmly clapped his hands. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... to that exclusive little palace, where, did his protege prove a boor, he knew well he should never find a place for himself again. But Vladimir had spent many an evening at the opera with Ivan; and had studied well the expressions that Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, even Flotow, at his best, could bring out upon his companion's mobile face. And her Royal Highness was well known to reward the discoverer of any new man of talent in her ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... measure owing to that gentleman, and the false taste he introduced and has kept alive, that they are now so seldom heard in our theatres, concerts, or drawing-rooms. We have lost the notes of melody and feeling, and what have we in their stead? The glitter and plagiarism of Rossini, the ponderous science of Weber, and the absolute trash of all our English composers. The last mentioned gentlemen certainly came into court "in forma pauperis,"—satisfied with the merit of arrangers, harmonizers, &c., and are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... Empire by Velloni, an Italian lemonade vender, was the most popular of the boulevard cafes, and was generally thronged with fashionables from all parts of Europe. Here Louis Blanc, historian of the Revolution, spent many hours in the early days of his fame. Talleyrand; Rossini, the musician; Alfred Stevens and Edouard Manet, artists, are some of the names still linked with the traditions of the Tortoni. Farther down the boulevard were the Cafe Riche, Maison Doree, Cafe Anglais, and the Cafe de Paris. The Riche and the Doree, standing side by side, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... in Naples, in the spring of ——, I was practising over some operas of Rossini with a musical friend. He had known the great maestro personally, and his intelligence on musical matters, his numberless anecdotes and reminiscences, made him a charming companion; he was a living, talking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... ranged themselves on either side in bitter contest. The battle between Handel and Bononcini, as the exponents of German and Italian music, was also repeated in after-years between Mozart and Salieri, Weber and Rossini, and to-day is seen in the acrimonious disputes going on between Wagner and the Italian school. Bononcini's career in England came to an end very suddenly. It was discovered that a madrigal brought out by him was pirated from another Italian composer; whereupon Bononcini left England, humiliated ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... Rossini's "Stabat Mater" of a fervor more theatric than religious, will find the same faults in Parker's work, along with much that is purely ecclesiastical. Though his sorrow is apt to become petulance, there is much that is as big in spirit as in handling. The work ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... sort of 'first appearance in England.' A good test, too, because all the English eat nearly to bursting before they go to the opera. No wonder they never can grasp what the music is about, or who's who! It's all salmon and chicken and lobster and champagne with them—not Beethoven or Wagner or Rossini. Good old Gigue! His spirits are irrepressible! How he is laughing! Mr. Walden looks very serious—almost tragic—I wonder what he is thinking about! I wish I could hear what they are all saying—but it's nothing but ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... altogether unsuited to the lyrical drama, and supposing the contrary, Rossini, of all composers, was the most unfit to treat such a subject in music. The catastrophe in the English tragedy is necessary; we see it from the beginning as through a long and gloomy vista. We weep, or shudder, we draw a long sigh of despair, and feel that it could ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... gorgeous fane, I raved about Rossini, Hoped Ronzo would come back again, And criticized Paccini; I wished the chorus singers dumb. The trumpets more pacific, And eulogized Brocard's APLOMB And voted Paul "terrific." What cared she for Medea's pride Or Desdemona's ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton |
