County of statue: Independent City f St. Louis
Location of bust: Grand Music Pavilion, Tower Grove Park, St. Louis
Artist: Unknown, sculptor
Original Artist: Howard S. Kretschmar, 1845-1933, sculptor (copy after)
Architect:
George Ingham Barnett, 1815-1898
Proper Description: Bust of Rossini featuring a gilded inscription. Bust rests on a pedestal consisting of a limestone capital atop a polished Missouri red granite column on a limestone base ~ Smithsonian American Art Museum
Remarks: "This bust is a replacement of the original marble bust that was commissioned by Henry Shaw and made in 1882 by Howard S. Kretschmar (see IAS 76001110). Shaw funded the original at a cost of $725. This replacement bust sits on the original pedestal, which was designed by George Ingham Barnett." ~ Smithsonian American Art Museum
If you would like to see a time line of Rossini and listen to the Overture from William Tell, directed by Riccardo Muti, then click on the link and travel back to that time in yesteryear.
"Gioachino Antonio Rossini (Italian: [d?oa'ki?no an't??njo ros'si?ni]; 29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces
"Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro, a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy which was then part of the Papal States. His father, Giuseppe, was a horn player and inspector of slaughterhouses. His mother, Anna, was a singer and a baker's daughter. Rossini's parents began his musical training early, and by the age of six he was playing the triangle in his father's musical group.
"He was eventually taken from Prinetti and apprenticed to a blacksmith. In Angelo Tesei, he found a congenial music master, and learned to sight-read, play accompaniments on the piano and sing well enough to take solo parts in the church when he was ten years of age. Important products of this period are six sonate a quattro, or string sonatas, composed in three days, unusually scored for two violins, cello and double bass. The original scores, dating from 1804, when the composer was twelve, were found in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Often transcribed for string orchestra, these sonatas reveal the young composer's affinity for Haydn and Mozart, already showing signs of operatic tendencies, punctuated by frequent rhythmic changes and dominated by clear, songlike melodies.
"Rossini's most famous opera was produced on 20 February 1816, at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. The libretto, a version of Pierre Beaumarchais' stage play Le Barbier de Séville, was newly written by Cesare Sterbini and not the same as that already used by Giovanni Paisiello in his own Barbiere, an opera which had enjoyed European popularity for more than a quarter of a century. Much is made of how quickly Rossini's opera was written, scholarship generally agreeing upon two or three weeks. Later in life, Rossini claimed to have written the opera in only twelve days. It was a colossal failure when it premiered as Almaviva; Paisiello's admirers were extremely indignant, sabotaging the production by whistling and shouting during the entire first act. However, not long after the second performance, the opera became so successful that the fame of Paisiello's opera was transferred to Rossini's, to which the title The Barber of Seville passed as an inalienable heritage.
"Later in 1822, a 30-year-old Rossini succeeded in meeting Ludwig van Beethoven, who was then aged 51, deaf, cantankerous and in failing health. Communicating in writing, Beethoven noted: "Ah, Rossini. So you're the composer of The Barber of Seville. I congratulate you. It will be played as long as Italian opera exists. Never try to write anything else but opera buffa; any other style would do violence to your nature." ~ Entire text at Wikipedia