Gioachino Rossini

Born in Pesaro in 1792 to a trumpeter father and singer mother, Rossini was composing by twelve and had his first opera staged in Venice at eighteen. Between 1810 and 1823 he churned out 34 works for Italian houses - a pace that meant recycling overtures and borrowing from himself - producing L'italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia, and La Cenerentola, comedies that pushed the buffa tradition past Mozart, alongside serious pieces like Otello and Semiramide. In 1824 Paris contracted him; he delivered Il viaggio a Reims for a coronation, reworked two Italian operas, and in 1829 premiered Guillaume Tell - his last. He was thirty-seven. For the next forty years he composed almost nothing: poor health, wealth, the rise of Meyerbeer's grand opera, maybe all three. He left Paris for Bologna in the 1830s, returned in 1855, and became famous instead for Saturday salons where Liszt and Verdi dropped by and he served up his Péchés de vieillesse - sins of old age, lightweight and charming. His final major work was the Petite messe solennelle in 1863. He died in Paris five years later, the retreat still unexplained.