ExclusiveRossini: The Italian Girl in Algiers

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Gioachino Antonio Rossini: The Italian Girl in Algiers. This beautiful piece was played by US Army Band. It has Creative Commons license (Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal) and is provided through www.musopen.org.

L'italiana in Algeri (The Italian in Algiers) is a two-act operatic dramma giocoso by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text, set by Luigi Mosca. It was first performed at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on 22 May 1813. The music is characteristic of Rossini's style, remarkable for its fusion of sustained, manic energy with elegant, pristine melodies.

Rossini's early retirement from opera has been debated both during and after his lifetime. Some have suggested that, at the age of thirty-seven, in variable health, having negotiated a substantial pension from the French government and having written thirty-nine operas, he simply planned to retire and stuck to his plan. In a 1934 study of the composer, the critic Francis Toye coined the phrase "The Great Renunciation" and called Rossini's retirement "a phenomenon unique in the history of music and difficult to parallel in the whole history of art":

"Is there any other artist who, in the prime of his life, so deliberately renounced the form of artistic production that had made him famous throughout the civilised world?"

Listening to this piece, would you retire early if you were its composer? Let us know in the comments!

The video was shot by Christian Schlegel and edited by Wenjing Ma.



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