Klarinet Archive - Posting 000090.txt from 2004/05
From: "Gene Nibbelin" <gnibbelin@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Rossini Variations
Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 22:59:07 -0400
Jim -
Just think, if it weren't for Rossini we would never have had the "Lone
Ranger". Hi-Ho Gioacchino, awaaaaay, and pass the spaghetti.
Gene N.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Lytthans [mailto:lytthans@-----.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 10:31 PM
To: Klarinet Digest (Mail)
Cc: James Lytthans
Subject: [kl] Rossini Variations
Here is an interesting bit of program notes on the Rossini from the Memphis
SO web site:
ROSSINI: Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra
While "lazy" would hardly seem an appropriate word to apply to a man
who produced nearly forty operas in less than twenty years, Grouching
Rossini was one of the most incorrigibly lazy musicians who ever lived.
Stories of his legendary indolence abounded during his lifetime. One of the
most famous finds him composing in bed (where he typically remained for most
of the day). He reaches for his coffee or one of the ever-present petits
fours, and the sheet of manuscript he is working on falls to the floor.
Rather than get out of bed to retrieve it, he simply takes another piece of
paper and begins to compose something else.
It was Rossini's Homeric lethargy coupled with an phenomenal natural
facility which accounts for his strange position in musical history -- as
the genius who produced The Barber of Seville, William Tell, and a handful
of imperishable overtures, and the slovenly hack who churned out reams of
third-rate material simply because to do better would have required too much
effort. After the critically acclaimed William Tell failed to find a
popular following in 1829, the wealthy 37-year-old composer retired from the
operatic stage and devoted his remaining thirty-nine years to a life of
serious leisure. Apart from the Stabat Mater, the Petite Messe solennelle
and numerous vocal and piano miniatures, he produced nothing of
significance.
The early Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet and
Orchestra, composed in 1808 when Rossini was only eighteen, is among the
most charming of his non-vocal works. Written, in all probability, for a
man Giuseppe Verdi considered one of the greatest performers of the age, the
fabulous Milan virtuoso Ernesto Cavallini, the Introduction, Theme and
Variations is one of the more technically diabolical works ever conceived
for the instrument.
The brief Introduction, which begins with a pair of chords reminiscent
of the opening of the Barber of Seville Overture, leads to the gracious
Theme, a sinuous aria without words that the young composer might have
almost borrowed from a Mozart opera. (In later life, Rossini did become one
of most resourceful of all musical thieves, whose only real rivals in that
area were the equally light-fingered Igor Stravinsky and George Frederic
Handel.)
The alternately tender, lyrical, insinuating, mock-serious Variations
which follow are in effect a bel canto Mad Scene for the soloist, a
harrowing ten minutes of flashing, tuneful, endearingly empty-headed
virtuoso display which ends with a bravura flourish.
---------
Jim Lytthans
Anaheim, CA
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