1801–1835
Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835) was an Italian composer of the early Romantic era, born in Catania. He wrote mostly operas and stands among the central figures of the bel canto period; Norma and I puritani are counted as his masterpieces. Players enjoy his long, graceful melodies, and the site has his sheet music, including the overture to Norma.
Vincenzo Bellini was born on 3 November 1801 in Catania, Sicily. He was the eldest of seven children in a very musical household: his father, Rosario, and his grandfather were both organists and music teachers. The grandfather had studied in Naples and, from 1767, worked in Catania as an organist and teacher.
Stories survive that as a toddler of eighteen months he sang an aria and that he composed his first pieces at six. Biographers treat them differently: one regards some of these accounts as myths and remarks that Bellini never became a truly well-educated man, while another doubts that he was a prodigy at all. It is also recorded that he never became a good pianist.
After 1816 Bellini lived with his grandfather, who gave him his first music lessons, and he soon began to compose. His early works include nine settings for Good Friday, eight of them to texts by Metastasio. By 1818 he had also written several orchestral pieces and two Mass settings, one in D major and one in G major; both survive.
Further study meant moving to Naples, which the family could not afford. Patrons in Catania came to the rescue: in May 1819 the city authorities unanimously granted the young man a four-year stipend. In July he left with letters of introduction and went on to spend the next eight years in Naples.
He studied at the conservatory in Naples, where life was not easy: pupils lived in the building under a strict regime, and the working day ran from morning Mass until ten at night. He applied past the usual age, with ten compositions as his calling card; they displayed talent, although his technique needed repair. Teaching leaned on Neapolitan-school masters, along with Haydn's and Mozart's orchestral pieces.
Bellini's teachers included Giovanni Furno, with whom he worked on harmony and accompaniment, and Giacomo Tritto, who taught him counterpoint but struck the pupil as old-fashioned. The school's artistic director was Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli; he seems to have recognised Bellini's potential and treated him like a son. Bellini was in his class in the 1822/23 school year and concentrated on symphonic and church music.
It was here that Bellini befriended Francesco Florimo; they corresponded for the rest of Bellini's life, and Florimo became his first biographer. His fellow students included future opera composers, while Mercadante was by then already a graduate student. His progress was steady: in January 1820 he passed his theory examinations and earned an annual scholarship, and by January 1824 he had become primo maestrino, which meant helping to teach younger pupils and having a room of his own.
Bellini's first opera, Adelson e Salvini, began as an assignment from the conservatory: in late summer 1824 his status as primo maestrino required him to compose an opera for the institution's small theatre. It was performed on the conservatory stage in 1825 by an all-male cast of fellow students. The pupils liked it so much that it was given every Sunday for a year.
His next opera, Bianca e Fernando, was written on a commission linked to the Teatro di San Carlo for promising students. The title had to change, since it echoed the crown prince's name, which was barred from a royal stage. The opera was staged at San Carlo in 1826 and was very successful; the king even broke the custom of not applauding in the presence of royalty, and Donizetti was in the audience.
Then Domenico Barbaja offered him a commission for La Scala in Milan. In 1827 Bellini wrote Il pirata for it; the opera was a huge success and secured his standing. From 1827 to 1833 he lived mostly in Milan, held no official post and lived only on income from his compositions, for which he could ask more than the usual fees.
In Milan Bellini met the librettist Felice Romani, who suggested the story for Il pirata. A long partnership began: Romani supplied the texts for the six operas that came next. After Il pirata the composer gained international fame: the opera was staged with success in Vienna and Naples in 1828, and when it was revived in Milan in 1829 it ran for 24 consecutive performances.
The next opera, La straniera, was an even greater success. It was followed by Zaira, which failed in Parma in 1829, but success then returned: in 1830 I Capuleti e i Montecchi was staged at La Fenice in Venice.
In 1831 La sonnambula was staged in Milan. The same year saw Norma: critics had reproached Bellini for over-simple orchestration and for vocal numbers that were not developed enough, and under the influence of this criticism, as the story goes, he began to work more carefully on his pieces. Norma caused a sensation, especially with Malibran in the title role.
Beatrice di Tenda (1833) was less successful.
After Rossini left opera in 1829, Bellini became the most sought-after composer in Italy, yet in 1831 he followed Rossini to Paris, regarded as the cultural capital of Europe. He settled near Rossini, who helped him get established in the new country. After the move he acquired a new circle of admirers and acquaintances, Chopin among them.
The only opera Bellini produced in France was I puritani, in many respects the most ambitious of all his works. He wrote it largely in Puteaux, in a small villa lent by an English colonel, Lewis, who admired his music. It was premiered in Paris in 1835; by the composer's own account the audience was wild with delight, and the success capped his international career.
Bellini often complained to friends about his poor health, but his death at the villa in Puteaux on 23 September 1835 came as a surprise. On the eve of his illness the poet Heine, meeting him at a dinner, predicted that he had not long to live. The suddenness of the death even gave rise to talk of poisoning.
His loss was mourned in many articles and obituaries, and Rossini, who had been his patron, described the funeral in one of his letters. Bellini was first buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, but in 1876 his remains were moved to Sicily, to the cathedral of Catania. Monuments to him stand in Bellini squares in both Naples and Catania; in Catania the Teatro Massimo bears his name, and a museum in one of the city's palaces holds part of his manuscripts.
Bellini's legacy rests on his operas. Of the operas he completed, only Zaira failed to find success, and the rest travelled to most European stages. As a young man, before 1825, he also produced close to twenty sacred pieces and seven symphonies. His songs survive, along with a concerto for oboe and strings and a capriccio and a polonaise for piano.
The mature operas are known for virtuoso work on the vocal parts and for elegant melodies, free in rhythm and broad in phrase, like the celebrated cavatina Casta diva from Norma. In I puritani Bellini innovatively used continuous drama, in which recitatives flow into songlike episodes. Contemporaries liked that his operas were not overloaded with vocal ornament.
His early works show a fascination with old music, particularly sacred music. Quite a few of his operas, among them Norma, I puritani, La sonnambula, Il pirata and I Capuleti e i Montecchi, remain regular repertoire in the leading theatres of the world. Verdi held that nobody matched the sweep of his melodies; Wagner, who handed out praise sparingly, admired how closely music and text were joined in his work; Berlioz was cooler.
A one-act opera written in 1832 is considered lost; it seems to have been performed only once, in a private house. Later, in 1833, he composed Beatrice di Tenda, which had less success. Norma and I puritani, meanwhile, are named among the composer's masterpieces, and in the number of performances of his operas each year during the bel canto era only Rossini and Donizetti rank above him.
Chopin and Liszt thought highly of his music and felt his influence. Tchaikovsky recalled weeping as a child at the feelings Bellini's melodies stirred in him.
For most of his career Bellini worked with the librettist Felice Romani and the singers G. B. Rubini and G. Pasta, and he corresponded with the musicologist Florimo. Romani wrote the libretti for the six operas that followed Il pirata.
Bellini worked with the words in front of him, to see how far the text inspired him. For the final aria of La straniera the librettist rewrote the text four times before the composer was satisfied. Today most musicologists assess Bellini positively, although some question the quality of his work.
The site carries Bellini's sheet music. A way into his music is the edition titled bell gm, for solo piano. The overture to Norma is represented by two versions, titled Norma Overture 4hands and PMLP15092-Bellini Norma Overture 2hands. There is also Norma Vocal Score, the opera's vocal score for voice and piano. All of these editions are at an upper-intermediate level.