During his lifetime Rossini occupied an unrivalled position in the Italian musical world.

The son of a horn-player and a mother who made a career for herself in opera, as a boy Rossini had direct experience of operatic performance, both in the orchestra pit and on stage.

He is considered to be the last and greatest composer of comic opera in the buffo style, but is more important as a composer of opera seria.

From his first relative success in 1810, his operas were performed in all the Italian operatic centres.

In 1824 Rossini settled in Paris where he wrote his final opera, "Guillaume Tell", which was staged there in 1829.

The revolution of 1830 put an end to French royal commissions for the theatre and Rossini returned to Italy. Although he continued to enjoy considerable esteem, both in Paris and in his native Italy, he stopped composing, partly due to bad health.

Of Rossini's three dozen or so operas, Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) is probably the best known, a treatment of the first play of the Figaro trilogy by Beaumarchais on which Mozart had drawn thirty years before in Vienna.

- MIDI FILE - from "Il barbiere di Siviglia": Overture (7'12'')

Other well known comic operas by Rossini include La Scala di Seta (The Silken Ladder), Il Signor Bruschino, L'Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers), Il Turco in Italia (The Turk in Italy), La Cenerentola (Cinderella) and La Gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie).

- MIDI FILE - from "La gazza ladra": Overture (8'17'')

More serious subjects were tackled in Otello, Semiramide, Mose in Egitto (Moses in Egypt) and the French Guillaume Tell (William Tell), based on the play by Schiller.

- MIDI FILE - from "Guillaume Tell": Overture (1'24'')

The overtures to many of these operas are a recurrent element in the repertoire of the concert-hall.

Church music by Rossini includes the Petite Messe Solennelle, originally for twelve solo voices, two pianos and harmonium, but rescored four years later, in 1867, with orchestral accompaniment.

Rossini's Stabat Mater was written in 1841 in its final version.

Instrumental compositions by Rossini include his early String Sonatas, designed for two violins, cello and double bass and thought to have been written when the composer was twelve.

The String Sonatas show a precocious command of Italian operatic style, here translated into instrumental terms.