Constantine Orbelian conducts the Moscow Chamber Orchestra in a selection of Rossini’s most exciting overtures.

The disc includes some of Rossini’s most famous overtures including William Tell and the Barber of Seville coupled with less well-known works.

Constantine Orbelian and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra are building a highly successful discography on Chandos – this is their fifth release. Their most recent disc featured Soviet Trumpet Concertos (CHAN 9668).


Rossini was born to opera. Both parents were musicians, his mother a soprano and his father a trumpeter and horn player. Despite a peripatetic boyhood, during which he acquired an intimate acquaintance with musical theatre on both sides of the curtain, Rossini received a well-rounded musical education. He became an accomplished harpsichordist and accompanist, a precocious horn player and a singer of conspicuous talent.

Rossini’s career as an opera composer dates from 1810, when he was only eighteen years old, with La cambiale di matrimonio (The Matrimonial Market) although his musical personality was already formed. Apparently born with a sense of instrumental colour, he delighted as much in the orchestra as the human voice. Add to this his melodic gift and rhythmic zest, it is little wonder that his overtures have become part of the mainstream orchestral repertoire.

To a considerable extent Rossini wrote to a formula, which partially explains his prodigious output and the sheer speed with which he wrote. The standard Rossini overture is cast in a simplified sonata form, generally dispensing with a central development section, and often preceded by slow introduction. The instrumentation, too, tends to fall into a fixed pattern: a memorable, long-spun melody for oboe, cor anglais or French horn in the Introduction, strings for the First Group proper and winds for the Second. Almost inevitably we find in the Second Group that long, steady build of sound which earned Rossini the not entirely affectionate nickname ‘Monsieur Crescendo’.

‘Constantine Orbelian and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra accompany with sensitivity and passion and give a splendid account…’
‘I suspect the players relished the chance to let their hair down as much as I relished listening to them, and even if you have several other Rossini collections on your shelf, I think you’ll like this one.’
‘…the orchestra offers expressive and colourful support.’

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