People In Music History

Rossini, Gioacchino [Antonio] (1792-1868)  Italian composer, born at Pesaro.
His operas appeared in various Italian cities; he visited England in 1823-1824,
and after 1829 lived partly in Paris, where he died. Successful in opera from
1810, although The Barber of Seville (1816) was at first a failure. Other
operas include The Silken Ladder, Tancred, The Italian Girl in Algiers, Otello,
Cinderella, The Thieving Magpie, Armida, Moses, Semiramis, Count Ory, William
Tell (1829, in French, after which success he lived for nearly 40 more years
but wrote no more operas). Other works include Stabat Mater and a few other
church works; a few songs and duets (among them the collection Soirees
Musicales) and piano pieces, etc. Exploiter of the orchestral crescendo, and
noted in his day for "noisy" effects.