Margaret Mikulska wrote:

>Disclaimer: I do like Rossini, I really do.

Oh me too - just last night I was listening to Hasn Schmidt-Isserstedt's
1930s William Tell Overture.  A refreshingly direct performance, free
of all connotations of Hi-ho Silver away!

I'm no opera fan, but I think that Rossini's overtures are masterpieces
- miniature tone poems.  And there's nothing quite like the Rossini
Crescendo to set the pulse racing - if the conductor gets it right.
There is IMHO nothing worse in Rossini that what one might (and indeed
I have, in print) call premature acceleration.

I'll also go along with whoever said the Rossini SM is great fun to
perform.  I've played it, not sung, but yes it was great fun.

Deryk Barker <[log in to unmask]>