Otto Gumprecht. Musikalische Charakterbilder. Leipzig, 1860, 8vo.
Fd. Hiller. Plaudereien mit Rossini. Inserted (with date 1856) in Hiller's 'Aus dem Tonleben unserer Zeit' (Leipzig, 1868); translated into French by Ch. Schwartz in 'La France musicale,' 1865; and into English by Miss M. E. von Glehn in 'Once a Week,' 1870.
A. Struth. Rossini, sein Leben, seine Werke und Charakterztige. Leipzig.
La Mara. Musikalische Studienköpfe. Leipzig, 1874–76, 2 vols. 12mo. See vol. ii.
IV. English.
Hogarth. Memoirs of the Musical Drama. London, 1838, 2 vols. 8vo.
H. S. Edwards. Rossini's Life. London, 1860, 8vo; portrait. History of the Opera, Ib. 1862, 2 vols. 8vo. Rossini and his School, 1881.
Portraits of Rossini are frequent at all periods of his life. Marochetti's statue, in which he is represented sitting, was erected in his native town in 1864. There is a good bust by Bartolini of Florence. In the 'foyer' of the Opera in the Rue Le Peletier, Paris (now destroyed), there was a medallion of Rossini by Chevalier; a duplicate of this is in the possession of the editor of the 'Ménestrel.' The front of the new opera house has a bronze-gilt bust by M. Evrard. A good early engraving of him is that from an oil-painting by Mayer of Vienna (1820). Of later ones may be mentioned that by Thévenin after Ary Scheffer (1843): still later, a full length drawn and engraved by Masson, and a photograph by Erwig, engraved as frontispiece to the PF. score of Semiramis (Heugel). Among the lithographs the best is that of Grévedon; and of caricatures the only one deserving mention is that by Dantan.
ROTA, or ROTTA (Fr. Rote; Germ. Rotte). Not, as might be supposed from its name, a species of vielle or hurdy-gurdy, but a species of psaltery or dulcimer, or primitive zither, employed in the middle ages in church music. It was played with the hand, guitar-fashion, and had seven strings mounted in a solid wooden frame. [App. p.776 "Line 4 of article, omit the words or dulcimer or primitive zither. The instrument is partly analogous to the Welsh Crwth, and would appear to be derived from the ancient lyre. The word Rota is also employed to denote a round or canon, as in the well-known instance of Sumer is icumen in."]
ROUGET DE LISLE, Claude Joseph, author of the Marseillaise, born at Montaigu, Lons-le-Saulnier, May 10, 1760. He entered the School of Royal Engineers ('Ecole royale du génie') at Mezières in 1782, and left it two years later with the rank of 'aspirant-lieutenant.' Early in 1789 he was made second lieutenant, and quartered at Joux, near Besançon. At Besançon, a few days after the taking of the Bastille (July 14, 1789), he wrote his first patriotic song to the tune of a favourite air. In 1790 he rose to be first lieutenant, and was moved to Strassburg, where he soon became very popular in the triple capacity of poet, violin-player, and singer. His hymn, 'à la Liberté' composed by Ignace Pleyel, was sung at Strassburg at the fete of Sept. 25, 1791. While there he wrote three pieces for the theatre, one of which, 'Bayard en Bresse,' was produced at Paris Feb. 21, 1791, but without success. In April 1792 he wrote the Marseillaise, of which an account has been given elsewhere. [See vol. ii. p. 219.] As the son of royalist parents, and himself belonging to the constitutional party, Rouget de Lisle refused to take the oath to the constitution abolishing the crown; he was therefore stripped of his military rank, denounced, and imprisoned, only to escape after the fall of Robespierre. After this he re-entered the army, and made the campaign of La Vendée under General Hoche; was wounded, and at length, under the Consulate, returned to private life at Montaigu, where he remained in the depth of solitude and of poverty till the second Restoration. His brother then sold the little family property, and Rouget was driven to Paris; and there would have starved but for a small pension granted by Louis XVIII. and continued by Louis Philippe, and for the care of his friends Béranger, David d'Angers, and especially M. and Mad. Voiart, in whose house at Choisy-le-Roi he died, June 27, 1836.
Besides the works already mentioned, he published in 1797 a volume of 'Essais en vers et en prose' (Paris, F. Didot, an V de la République) dedicated to Méhul, and now extremely rare; so also is his 'Cinquante chants Français' (1825, 4to.), with PF. accompaniment. One of these songs, 'Roland à Roncevaux,' was written in 1792, and its refrain—
Mourir pour la patrie,
C'est le sort le plus beau, le plus digne d'envie—
was borrowed by the authors of the 'Chant des Girondins,' which was set to music by Varney, and played a distinguished part in the Revolution of 1848. [See Varney.] [App. p.766 "omit the reference to Varney."] The 'Cinquante chants' is his most important work, but we must not omit to mention two others, 'Macbeth,' a lyrical tragedy (1827, 8vo), and 'Relation du désastre de Quiberon,' in vol. ii. of the 'Mémoires de tous.'
There exists a fine medallion of Rouget by David d'Angers, which is engraved in a pamphlet by his nephew, entitled 'La vérite sur la paternité de la Marseillaise' (Paris, 1865). Statues will probably be erected to him at Lons-le-Saulnier, and at Choisy le Roi. See the volume of M. Le Roy de Ste.Croix (Strassburg, 1880).
ROUND. I. 'A species of canon in the unison, so-called because the performers begin the melody at regular rhythmical periods, and return from its conclusion to its commencement, so that it continually passes round and round from one to another of [1]them.' Rounds and Catches, the most characteristic forms of English music, differ from canons in only being sung at the unison or octave, and also in being rhythmical in form. Originating at a period of which we have but few musical records, these compositions have been written and sung in England with unvarying popularity until the present day. The earliest extant example of a round is the well-known 'Sumer is i-cumen in,' as to the date of which there has been much discussion, although it is certainly not later than the middle
- ↑ "The Rounds, Catches, and Canons of England; a Collection of Specimens of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries adapted to Modern Use. The Words revised, adapted, or re-written by the Rev. J. Powell Metcalfe. The Music selected and revised, and An Introductory Essay on the Rise and Progress of the Round Catch and Canon: also Biographical Notices of the Composers, written by Edward F. Rimbault, LL.D.,' from which work much of the information contained in the above article has been derived.
