Introduzione Tema e Variazioni

From a letter addressed to Rossini, written in Florence on 29/3/1852 by the violinist Ferdinando Giorgetti, we know that the composer “with real modesty said that: it is something done for pleasure and to satisfy the insistence of a friend of seven decades ago “. This composition, today known with the title of Introduction Theme and Variations, was therefore written by Rossini in 1819 during his Neapolitan stay, reusing previous operatic melodies: the introductory andante is based on the air “my lost peace” from the second act of the work “Moses in Egypt”, while the variations are developed on the theme of the cavatina “Oh how many tears” from the first act of the opera “the woman of the lake”; in the final tail is then developed and expanded the statement present in the final of the same cavatina.