Discovering museums: Walk into the world of a genius

Gioachino Rossini, who would become world famous as a composer, was born in Pesaro, Italy’s cultural capital that year, in 1792. His father was a horn player and his mother was a singer. She fought back resolutely when her son, with his fine singing voice, was about to be made a castrato singer. For this Rossini, who from then on learned the violin and harpsichord, was grateful to her throughout his life.

In 1802 the family moved to Lugo, and Gioachino took lessons from the composer and music teacher Giuseppe Malerbi, who had a lasting influence on him. In Malerbi’s library he learned about the works of Haydn and Mozart. Rossini was later called “Il Tedeschino” (The Little German) at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna because he showed a preference for the works of Mozart and even more so of Haydn. At the Lyceum, which he left without graduating, Rossini received lessons in composition as well as cello, horn, piano and singing.

His first opera, “Demetrio e Polibio,” was written before 1809 but was not premiered until 1812. She was followed by a total of 38 further pieces by 1829, such as “L’italiana in Algeri”, “Il barbiere di Siviglia”, “Ermione”, “Semiramide” and “Guillaume Tell”. According to his own statement, when composing them, Rossini repeatedly used motifs, themes and even entire overtures that had already been worked on.

The philosopher Claus-Artur Scheier writes about Rossini’s works: “No more can be admitted about Rossini’s music than that it always knows how to tie the Dionysian, even in its most frenetic crescendos, back to the Apollonian…” The orchestra, “however symphonic or German “Whatever,” always adheres to the primacy of singing, is “never expressive in the modern sense.” Rather, the music always remains restrained and rests “architecturally within itself, despite all the diversity of movement, like a fresco by Tiepolo or a veduta by Canaletto. In it, as Nietzsche heard, the 18th century sings itself out.«

In Pesaro, in addition to the Teatro Rossini, there are two other places where the composer is honored – his birthplace, the Casa Rossini, and the Museo Nazionale Rossini, which opened in 2019. In addition to portraits and caricatures, the maestro’s fortepiano can be seen in the house where he was born, as well as his will in a supplement to the “Gazetta Pesarese” from July 5, 1858.

In the Museo Nazionale, Rossini is celebrated as a “genius,” Walter Benjamin is quoted: “Entra nel mondo del Genio!” (In genius, God speaks.) In ten rooms, Rossini’s life and work up to his death in 1868 are presented chronologically using documents in an aesthetically pleasing manner , paintings, libretti, scores and costumes. The insights gained can be deepened on touchscreens. In another room there is a phonograph library with works by Rossini, and in a hall known as the “Intermezzo” you can see excerpts from opera performances. Finally, models of stage sets from selected Rossini operas are shown, although they appear quite dusty.

The museum presentation suggests Rossini’s lifelong musical commitment. However, he was already a pensioner from the age of 37 and from then on only enjoyed his fame. His late works include the “Péchés de vieillesse” (Sins of Old Age). The versatile master himself once said that anyone who started composing early should also stop early. Under the motto “Appetite is the baton that conducts the great orchestra of our passions,” he presented himself as a maître de cuisine, the legendary one for his guests Prepared banquets.

In his final years, Rossini regularly organized so-called Samedis Musicaux in his home near Paris. On these musical Saturdays, people ate, drank, sang and played music. A contemporary reports on Rossini’s culinary passion: “With his fine, fleshy hand he grabbed a piping bag with a silver nozzle, filled it with truffle farce and carefully piped this incomparable sauce into each roll of dough.”

In Pesaro, where the Rossini Opera Festival has taken place every summer since 1980, the pizzerias offer a “Pizza Rossini” in honor of the famous offspring, a pizza Margherita, topped with boiled eggs and decorated with mayonnaise.

In the 19th century, Rossini embodied a reference not only in the Italian but also in the German musical and intellectual world. Beethoven praised the “Barbere” and, during a meeting in 1822, advised Rossini that he should stay with the opera buffa and not dare to do anything serious. Carl Maria von Weber, on the other hand, wanted to combat the influences of “the Rossinian sirocco wind blowing from the south” and criticized: “Italy is in the enemy’s claws,/ because the composer is in the comfortable place,/ nature mocks, shows little grief,/ cares more about the bang than the sound,/ rather cultivates folly than the truth.”

Goethe, in turn, praised the genius of Rossini. According to Alexander Kluge, the poet laureate of Weimar is said to have planned to write a drama in which Caesar’s assassins are fended off. Rossini was supposed to provide the music for the piece about the failed assassination attempt.

Heinrich Heine was also enthusiastic and commented in 1837, not without a swipe at the spirit of his time: “The Restoration was Rossini’s time of triumph, and even the stars of heaven, who were off work at the time and no longer concerned about the fate of the people, listened to him with delight.” In 1861 in the “New Universal Lexicon of Music” it was said: “Back then, when Rossini’s rule on the stage was consolidated (1815), the Restoration period began, and this era of dullness, exhaustion and dullness is completely called and it is completely unreasonable to expect high and severe artistic creations from her.”

The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek builds on this which is reproduced here in more detail: »If there ever was a “reactionary” composer, it was Gioachino Rossini. The comparison between Mozart’s ‘Figaro’ and Rossini’s ‘Barbiere’ makes this immediately clear. In Mozart, the idea of ​​political freedom survives the pressure of censorship. (…) Rossini, on the other hand, completely depoliticized the play based on the spirit of the French Revolution and turned it into a pure opera buffa. No wonder that Rossini’s most productive period fell between 1815 and 1830: these were the years of the Restoration, and his comic operas tried to bring the innocence of the pre-revolutionary world back to life. Rossini neither hated nor fought against the new world, he simply composed as if the revolution had not existed.«

At the same time, Žižek admits: “Although he ignores the political, there is an element in his music that not only preserves the revolutionary spirit, but even causes it to erupt.” The philosopher then asks rhetorically: “So why not the Rossinian joy of life enjoy that has survived into the 20th century in the pathos of spaghetti westerns?”

A further recommendation should be added to this gracious recommendation: If you are currently on holiday in Italy, dear readers, why not stop by Rossini in Pesaro on the Adriatic coast.

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