La Vie De Rossini, Tome I

Stendhal wrote this book fresh off the experience of hearing Rossini's operas in Italy, and the passion still crackles on every page. What begins as skeptical resistance to the composer who was 'all sauce, all spice' transforms into something closer to religious conversion: Stendhal becomes an evangelist for Rossini's genius, tracing the composer's rise from the salons of Bologna to the triumphant premieres that made him the most famous musician in Europe. But this is far more than fan mail. Stendhal uses Rossini's life as a lens to examine everything that mattered to him: the soul of Italian opera, the texture of life in Milan and Rome during the Napoleonic aftermath, and the question of what it means to be truly moved by art. The famous 'Courier' interview and the musical examples scattered throughout reveal a Stendhal not yet known as the novelist of 'The Red and the Black' but already master of passionate, precise prose. For anyone curious about the birth of modern music criticism, or the particular ferocity of Romantic enthusiasm, this remains a dazzling time capsule.