On Feb 18, 2006, at 4:08 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
On 18.02.2006 Michael Cook wrote:
Rossini had written an overture for "Barbiere" composed of Spanish
themes, but at the last minute decided that it wasn't good enough.
Really? Now this gets really interesting. Does this "original"
Barbiere oversture survive? Does anyone know how to get it? Is it
published?
This would be the absolute ideal piece for a programme I am
investigating, so if anyone can help, please...
In inquired about this on an opera list I frequent. Everyone agrees
that it's lost, but a few comments you might find interesting, from
posters I consider knowledgeable and reliable:
==
It is not clear what happened to it so far as I know. One article some
years ago in a music journal claimed that the "Spanish" overture was
lost somewhere between Bologna and Rome and because Rossini was already
running late with his music he simply substituted a ready made
overture.
However, I have also read accounts that he was dissatisfied with the
original Overture and destroyed it.
I would have thought that if it was known to exist somewhere it would
have been performed by now.
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
==
I can't quote chapter and verse for this as I don't have the book to
hand,
but I'm pretty certain Richard Osborne, in his biography of Rossini,
cites a
letter from the composer to a friend still in Rome following the
"Barbiere"
debacle begging him to retrieve the score parts for the "overture with
Spanish themes" which Rossini had presumably written at the last minute,
didn't have a copy of, and wanted to preserve for future performances.
He
didn't get it, and it's now considered lost ( a great shame, as the
tightly
dramatic, sonata-form, mainly minor-key "Aureliano/Elisabetta" overture
sits
very oddly indeed in front of a comedy. Somebody should use the
otherwise
unperformed "La Pietra del Paragone" prelude instead.)
SJT
===
The "Pietra del Paragone" overture has already been recycled into
Tancredi.
OTOH, no less than Giuseppe Verdi composed an overture for Rossini's
Barbiere.
th.
===
"Giuseppe Verdi composed an overture for Rossini's Barbiere."
Does it survive ? I can't find any reference to a recording, and you'd
think
there'd be at least one, just for curiosity's sake...
SJT
===
I find this interesting. Rossini had a good source of Spanish themes
in the tenor Manuel Garcia, who was also a composer. Later, he had
Spanish music at home when he married Spanish soprano Isabel Angela
Colbran. Colbran was also a composer.
There is a genuinely Spanish overture to "Barbiere", composed ca. 1819
by Ramon Carnicer, a friend and contemporary of Rossini's. I have
never heard it.
There is little music of Spanish flavor in "Barbiere". Accounts of
Garcia's attempt at grafting some into the work on opening night speak
of disastrous results.
Valfer
===
Me again:
I'm still waiting to hear the answer about Verdi's supposed overture
for Barbiere. I'm guessing "th" is making some sort of oblique
reference to one of Verdi's known overtures having once been associated
with Rossini's opera. If it were something else, surely I'd have heard
of it.
But perhaps the Carnicer piece is something that you'd be interested in
looking for. Google turns up a bit more information -- in particular
at <http://www.trito.es/news.php?id=130>, the site of the publisher
Tritó.
mdl
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