I began the present book in the hope of writing a "life and works" that would both tell the story of Rossini's life and critically analyze his achievement. But I have had to abandon all description and analysis of scores not essential to the biography itself. Rossini lived seventy-six years and composed thirty-nine operas, two large nonoperatic works, and hundreds of small pieces. To have combined exegesis of the music with narration of his life story would have been to produce a book of monstrous size. The present volume is therefore, rather, a "life and times." - Introduction.