Rossini: Complete Overtures Vol 1 (Magpie/ Semiramide/ Otello) (Prague Philharmonic Choir/ Prague Sinfonia Orchestra/ Christian Benda) (Naxos: 8.570933)
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Rossini wrote some of music's most masterful and lovable operas. His gift for comic and tragic forms was matched by a relish for characterisation, qualities that are always evident in his overtures.
La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) is perhaps the most famous, one of the world's most popular concert openers. But in
Otello he reveals his more complex turns of phrase and in
Le siège de Corinthe the writing is dramatic and colourful. The overture for
Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra was used again a year later by Rossini for
Il barbiere di Siviglia. This is the first of four discs of the complete Rossini
Overtures.
Christian Benda is descended from a long line of musicians. He is chief conductor and artistic director of the
Prague Sinfonia Orchestra with which he has recorded numerous standard classical works, as well as Schubert's and Rossini's complete overtures.