Bellini's Melodic-Musical Tradition

Vincenzo Bellini (Catania 1801 –Puteaux, Paris, 1835) was a specialist in melodrama, composer for the opera house. Abandoning the early experiments that had approached him to sacred and instrumental music, starting from 1825 he approaches the genre of melodrama. Following the Rossini tradition, he bends it to dramatic needs and initiates an experiment that leads him to rework past experiences over time for use in different contexts. The work Beatrice of tent closes the Italian phase of Bellini's production with his move to Paris. Here in contact with great European composers, his language comes to full maturity. With the opera The Puritans, Bellini explains the meaning of his poetics, totally addressed to the heart and to the expression of passions. This was the reason that led him to abandon all poetic and musical artifice in favor of his most intimate thought: "poetry and music, to have an effect, require naturalness and nothing more". This concept characterized the greatest masterpieces of mature age.