Gioachino Rossini
Italian opera at this time needed a new composer to bring more life into it. Five of his first nine operas were written for the Teatro S Moise in Venice. Other theatres soon asked him to write operas. In 1812 he wrote La pietra del paragone for the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. It was a great success. Many of these early operas were comic operas (opera buffa). Sometimes he had to produce so many new operas that he kept reusing some of the music he had already written in another opera. Nevertheless, they include a lot of fine music, and Rossini was developing his musical personality. His overtures have a fine sense of orchestral colour. He often started with a slow section and then went into fast music with a crescendo. Because he did this a lot it is often called a “Rossini crescendo” or “Rossini rocket”.