The Great Composers, German, French, and Italian
- ISBN-10
- 1230034455
- ISBN-13
- 9781230034454
- Pages
- 118
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-09
- Publisher
- Rarebooksclub.com
- Author
- George Titus Ferris
Description
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... than any others, though they were contemporaries as well as successors. Giovanni Paisiello, born in 1741, was educated, like many other great musicians, at the Conservatory of San Onofrio. During his early life he produced a great number of pieces for the Italian theatres, and in 1776 accepted the invitation of Catherine to become the court composer at St. Petersburgh, where he remained nine years, and produced several of his best operas, chief among them, "Il Barbiere di Seviglia" (a different version of Beaumarchais's celebrated comedy from that afterwards used by Rossini). The empress was devotedly attached to him, and showed her esteem in many signal ways. On one occasion, while Paisiello was accompanying her in a song, she observed that he shuddered with the bitter cold. On this Catherine took off' her splendid ermine cloak, decorated with clasps of brilliants, and threw it over her tutor's shoulders. In a quarrel which Paisiello had with Marshal Beloseloky, the temporary favourite of the Russian Messalina, her favour was shown in a still more striking way. The marshal had given the musician a blow, on which Paisiello, a very large, athletic man, drubbed the Russian general most unmercifully. The latter demanded the immediate dismissal of the composer for having insulted a dignitary of the empire. Catherine's reply was similar to the one made by Francis the First of France in a parallel case about Leonardo da Vinci--"I neither can nor will attend to your request; you forgot your dignity when you gave an unoffending man and a great artist a blow. Are you surprised that he should have forgotten it too? As for rank, it is in my power to make fifty marshals, but not one Paisiello." Some years after his return to...
