Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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150 ROSSI ROSSINI
'Leoeadia' (1834) seems to have disgusted
Eossi with Italy ; he accepted an engagement
from Mexico, left Europe, Oct. 15, 1836, and
aiTived at Vera Cruz the 6th of the following
January. From Mexico he went to the
Havannah, New Orleans, and Madras ; mari'ied
in 1841, and returned to Europe, landing at
Cadiz, Feb. 3, 1843. He began again at once
to compose— 'Cellini «, Parigi' (Turin, 1845),
etc., but with very varying success. In 1846
he reappeared at the Soala at Milan with Azema
'
di Granata,' 'II Borgomastro di Schiedam,' and
three or four other operas in following years.
His great success, however, appears to have been
made with ' II Domino nero,' at the Teatro
Canobbiana, Sept. 1849. In 1850 he was
called to be director of the Conservatorio at
Milan. For this institution he published a
Guida di armonia pratica orale (Riooidi, 1858),
and between 1850 and 1859 composed a great
many operas, and detached pieces for voices and
for instruments. After the death of Meroadante
in 1870, Bossi succeeded him as head of the
Conservatorio at Naples. This office he resigned
in 1878, and he went to Cremona in 1880, dying
there on May 5, 1885. Lists of his works are
given by Florimo (Genni Storid, pp. 948-962),
Eiemann (Lacikon), and Pougin. They comprise
twenty -nine operas, a grand mass, and a
dozen miscellaneous compositions, including six
fugues for strings, two sets of vocal exercises,
and the Guide to Harmony already mentioned.
His best works are 'Cellini a Parigi,' ' I falsi
Monetari,' 'La Contessa di Mons,' and 'II
Domino nero.' One of his operas, 'La Figlia
di Figaro,' is said to have been produced at the
Kamthnerthor Theatre, Vienna, April 17, 1846 ;
and another, ' Biorn,' was announced for performance
at the Queen's Theatre, London, Jan.
17, 1877—^English libretto by Frank Marshall
but no notice of either performance can be
found. [An oratorio, 'Saul,' elegies on Bellini
and Meroadante, a mass, and other works, are
mentioned by Eiemann.] G.
(9) Giovanni Gaetano, bom at Borgo San
Donnino, Parma, August 5, 1828, studied at
the Milan Conservatorio, was leader of the
orchestra in the theatre at Parma, and organist
'
of the court chapel there, from 1852 to 1873,
and director ofthe Parma Conservatorio in 1864-
1873. In 1873 he became conductor at the
Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa, until 1879 ; he
died at Parma, March 30, 1886. His operas
were: 'Elena di Taranto' (Parma, 1852),
'
Giovanni Gisoala (Parma, 1855), ' Nicol6 de'
Lapi' (Ancona, 1865), 'La contessa d'Altemberg'
(Borgo San Donnino, 1872), and 'Maria Sanz'
(Bergamo, 1895).
'
A symphony, Saul,' won a
prize in Paris in 1878, and Eossi wrote besides
three masses, an oratorio, and a requiem.
(10) Cesaee, born at Mantua in 1864, has
won success as a composer in tnany branches of
art, his opera 'Nadeja' having been received
with much favour at Prague in 1903 (Eiemann's
Lexikon, etc.) M.
EOSSINI, GioACCHiNO Antonio, was born
Feb. 29, 1792, at Pesaro, and was the only
child of Giuseppe Eossini of Lugo. The position
of his parents was of the humblest ; his father
was town-trumpeter (trombadore) and inspector
of slaughter-houses, and his mother a baker's
daughter, but their life was a happy one, and
the irrepressible good -humour of the towntrumpeter
was celebrated among his friends.
In the political struggles of 1796 the elder
Eossini declared himself for the French, and
for republican government, and was naturally
sent to gaol. His wife, thus deprived of her
means of subsistence, was driven to turn her
voice to account. She went with her little
Gioacchino to Bologna, and there made her
debut as ' prima donna buffa ' with such success
as to procure her engagements in various theatres
of the Eomagna during the Carnival. Meantime
the trombadore had regained his liberty
and was engaged as horn-player in the bands
of the theatres in which his wife sang ; the
child remaining at Bologna, in the charge of an
honest pork butcher. In such surroundings
it is not wonderful that Gioaochino's learning
was confined to reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Music he acquired from a certain Prinetti of
Novara, who gave him harpsichord lessons for
three years ; but the lessons must have been
peculiar, for Prinetti was accustomed to play
the scale with two fingers only, combined his
music-teaching with the sale of liquors, and
had the convenient habit of sleeping as he stood.
Such a character was a ready butt for the son of
a joker like Giuseppe Eossini ; and so incorrigible
was Gioaochino's love of mimicking his
master that at length he was taken from Prinetti,
and apprenticed to a smith.
Ashamed of this result he resolved to amend
and apply. In Angelo Tesei he fortunately
found a clever master, able to make singing and
practical harmony interesting to his pupil ; in a
fewmonths helearned to read, to accompany, and
to sing well enough to take solos in church at
the modest price of three pauls'per service. He
was thus able, at the age of ten, to assist
his
parents, who, owing to a sudden change in his
mother's voice, were again in misfortune. In
his desire to help them he seized every opportunity
of singing in public, and eagerly accepted
an offer to appear at the theatre of the Commune
as Adolfo in Paer's 'Camilla.' This was his
first and only step in the career of a dramatic
singer, but it must have been often difficult to
resist taking it up again, when he saw singers
receiving a thousand ducats for appearing in
operas which he both composed and conducted
for fifty.
Thus at the age of thirteen Eossini was a
sufficiently good singer to be well received at the
theatre ;
he also played the horn by his father's