Vincenzo Bellini

Synopsis

It was on today’s date in 1835, that the great Romantic opera composer Vincenzo Bellini died at a country home near Paris. He was only 34 years old, but had achieved great fame in his brief lifetime.

The long, elegant melodic lines Bellini spun out in his greatest operas were imitated by many composers, and proved to be a major influence on the solo piano works of his contemporary, Frederic Chopin.

Bellini’s first successful opera was “Il Pirata” or “The Pirate” from 1827, and just three years later, he could truthfully report, “My style is now heard in the most important theatres in the world… and with the greatest enthusiasm.” He settled in Paris, where he was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur. It was there that his final opera, “I Puritani di Scozia” or “The Puritans of Scotland,” premiered early in 1835.

If Bellini’s real life had followed the Romantic story-lines of his operas, he would have been a dispossessed outcast who dies for love. In fact, Bellini was financially successful and moved in the highest social circles. Rather than die for love, it seems he was planning to marry for money at the time he fell ill, a victim of chronic gastro-enteritis.

At his requiem mass, four of the leading composers of his day, Paer, Cherubini, Carafa and Rossini, each held a corner of the coffin shroud. He was buried in Paris, but in 1876 his remains were moved to the cathedral of Catania, the Italian town where he was born.

Music Played in Today's Program

Vincenzo Bellini (1801 – 1835) Sinfonia, fr Il Pirata German Opera Orchestra, Berlin; Marcello Viotti, cond. Berlin Classics 11152

On This Day

Births

• 1899 - American composer William Levi Dawson, in Anniston, Ala.;

• 1920 - Armenian composer Alexander Arutiunian, in Yerevan; His Trumpet Concerto, composed in 1950, is his best-known work;

• 1926 - American composer and jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, in Hamlet, N.C.;

• 1928 - American pianist and composer Robert Helps, in Passaic, New Jersey;

Deaths

• 1835 - Italian opera composer Vincenzo Bellini, age 33, in Puteaux (near Paris);

• 2006 - British composer Sir Malcolm Arnold, age 84, in Norfolk county, eastern England;

Premieres

• 1777 - Gluck: opera, "Armide," at the Académie Royale in Paris;

• 1913 - Charles Wakefield Cadman: Piano Trio in D, at a private home in Denver; The first public performance took place the following month in Minneapolis;

• 1958 - Stravinsky: "Threni," at San Rocco in Venice, by the North German Radio Orchestra of Hamburg (who had commissioned the work), conducted by the composer;

• 1962 - Copland: "Connotations" for Orchestra, at Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) during the opening season of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein; This concert, televised by CBS, also included the "Gloria" from Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" and the first movement ("Veni, creator spiritus") from Mahler's Symphony No.8;

• 1965 - Diamond: "Elegies" for Flute, English Horn, and Strings, by Murray Panitz (flute), Louis Rosenblatt (English horn), and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting;

• 1990 - James MacMillan: "Sowetan Spring" for winds, at the Glasgow Hospitality Inn by the winds of the Royal Scottish Orchestra, John Paynter conducting.