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Gioachino Rossini

Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.

Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of twelve and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823, he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During this period he produced his most popular works, including the comic operas L'italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia (known in English as The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola, which brought to a peak the opera buffa tradition he inherited from masters such as Domenico Cimarosa and Giovanni Paisiello. He also composed opera seria works such as Tancredi, Otello and Semiramide. All of these attracted admiration for their innovation in melody, harmonic and instrumental colour, and dramatic form. In 1824 he was contracted by the Opéra in Paris, for which he produced an opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X, Il viaggio a Reims (later cannibalised for his first opera in French, Le comte Ory), revisions of two of his Italian operas, Le siège de Corinthe and Moïse, and in 1829 his last opera, Guillaume Tell.

Rossini's withdrawal from opera for the last 40 years of his life has never been fully explained; contributory factors may have been ill-health, the wealth his success had brought him, and the rise of spectacular grand opera under composers such as Giacomo Meyerbeer. From the early 1830s to 1855, when he left Paris and was based in Bologna, Rossini wrote relatively little. On his return to Paris in 1855 he became renowned for his musical salons on Saturdays, regularly attended by musicians and the artistic and fashionable circles of Paris, for which he wrote the entertaining pieces Péchés de vieillesse. Guests included Franz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Giuseppe Verdi, Meyerbeer, and Joseph Joachim. Rossini's last major composition was his Petite messe solennelle (1863).

Early life
Rossini was born on 29 February in 1792 in Pesaro, a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy that was then part of the Papal States. He was the only child of Giuseppe Rossini, a trumpeter and horn player, and his wife Anna, née Guidarini, a seamstress by trade, daughter of a baker. Giuseppe Rossini was charming but impetuous and feckless; the burden of supporting the family and raising the child fell mainly on Anna, with some help from her mother and mother-in-law. Stendhal, who published a colourful biography of Rossini in 1824, wrote:

"Rossini's portion from his father, was the true native heirship of an Italian: a little music, a little religion, and a volume of Ariosto. The rest of his education was consigned to the legitimate school of southern youth, the society of his mother, the young singing girls of the company, those prima donnas in embryo, and the gossips of every village through which they passed. This was aided and refined by the musical barber and news-loving coffee-house keeper of the Papal village." Giuseppe was imprisoned at least twice: first in 1790 for insubordination to local authorities in a dispute about his employment as town trumpeter; and in 1799 and 1800 for republican activism and support of the troops of Napoleon against the Pope's Austrian backers. In 1798, when Rossini was aged six, his mother began a career as a professional singer in comic opera, and for a little over a decade was a considerable success in cities including Trieste and Bologna, before her untrained voice began to fail.

In 1802 the family moved to Lugo, near Ravenna, where Rossini received a good basic education in Italian, Latin and arithmetic as well as music. He studied the horn with his father and other music with a priest, Giuseppe Malerbe, whose extensive library contained works by Haydn and Mozart, both little known in Italy at the time, but inspirational to the young Rossini. He was a quick learner, and by the age of twelve, he had composed a set of six sonatas for four stringed instruments, which were performed under the aegis of a rich patron in 1804. Two years later he was admitted to the recently opened Liceo Musicale, Bologna, initially studying singing, cello and piano, and joining the composition class soon afterwards. He wrote some substantial works while a student, including a mass and a cantata, and after two years he was invited to continue his studies. He declined the offer: the strict academic regime of the Liceo had given him a solid compositional technique, but as his biographer Richard Osborne puts it, "his instinct to continue his education in the real world finally asserted itself".

While still at the Liceo, Rossini had performed in public as a singer and worked in theatres as a répétiteur and keyboard soloist. In 1810 at the request of the popular tenor Domenico Mombelli he wrote his first operatic score, a two-act operatic dramma serio, Demetrio e Polibio, to a libretto by Mombelli's wife. It was publicly staged in 1812, after the composer's first successes. Rossini and his parents concluded that his future lay in composing operas. The main operatic centre in northeastern Italy was Venice; under the tutelage of the composer Giovanni Morandi, a family friend, Rossini moved there in late 1810, when he was eighteen.

First operas: 1810–1815
Rossini's first opera to be staged was La cambiale di matrimonio, a one-act comedy, given at the small Teatro San Moisè in November 1810. The piece was a great success, and Rossini received what then seemed to him a considerable sum: "forty scudi – an amount I had never seen brought together". He later described the San Moisè as an ideal theatre for a young composer learning his craft – "everything tended to facilitate the début of a novice composer": it had no chorus, and a small company of principals; its main repertoire consisted of one-act comic operas (farse), staged with modest scenery and minimal rehearsal. Rossini followed the success of his first piece with three more farse for the house: L'inganno felice (1812), La scala di seta (1812), and Il signor Bruschino (1813).

Rossini maintained his links with Bologna, where in 1811 he had a success directing Haydn's The Seasons, and a failure with his first full-length opera, L'equivoco stravagante. He also worked for opera houses in Ferrara and Rome. In mid-1812 he received a commission from La Scala, Milan, where his two-act comedy La pietra del paragone ran for fifty-three performances, a considerable run for the time, which brought him not only financial benefits, but exemption from military service and the title of maestro di cartello – a composer whose name on advertising posters guaranteed a full house. The following year his first opera seria, Tancredi, did well at La Fenice in Venice, and even better at Ferrara, with a rewritten, tragic ending. The success of Tancredi made Rossini's name known internationally; productions of the opera followed in London (1820) and New York (1825). Within weeks of Tancredi, Rossini had another box-office success with his comedy L'italiana in Algeri, composed in great haste and premiered in May 1813.

1814 was a less remarkable year for the rising composer, neither Il turco in Italia or Sigismondo pleasing the Milanese or Venetian public, respectively. 1815 marked an important stage in Rossini's career. In May he moved to Naples, to take up the post of director of music for the royal theatres. These included the Teatro di San Carlo, the city's leading opera house; its manager Domenico Barbaia was to be an important influence on the composer's career there.

Naples and Il barbiere: 1815–1820
The musical establishment of Naples was not immediately welcoming to Rossini, who was seen as an intruder into its cherished operatic traditions. The city had once been the operatic capital of Europe; the memory of Cimarosa was revered and Paisiello was still living, but there were no local composers of any stature to follow them, and Rossini quickly won the public and critics round. Rossini's first work for the San Carlo, Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra was a dramma per musica in two acts, in which he reused substantial sections of his earlier works, unfamiliar to the local public. The Rossini scholars Philip Gossett and Patricia Brauner write, "It is as if Rossini wished to present himself to the Neapolitan public by offering a selection of the best music from operas unlikely to be revived in Naples." The new opera was received with tremendous enthusiasm, as was the Neapolitan premiere of L'italiana in Algeri, and Rossini's position in Naples was assured.

For the first time, Rossini was able to write regularly for a resident company of first-rate singers and a fine orchestra, with adequate rehearsals, and schedules that made it unnecessary to compose in a rush to meet deadlines. Between 1815 and 1822 he composed eighteen more operas: nine for Naples and nine for opera houses in other cities. In 1816, for the Teatro Argentina in Rome, he composed the opera that was to become his best-known: Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville). There was already a popular opera of that title by Paisiello, and Rossini's version was originally given the same title as its hero, Almaviva. Despite an unsuccessful opening night, with mishaps on stage and many pro-Paisiello and anti-Rossini audience members, the opera quickly became a success, and by the time of its first revival, in Bologna a few months later, it was billed by its present Italian title and it rapidly eclipsed Paisiello's setting. Rossini's operas for the Teatro San Carlo were substantial, mainly serious pieces. His Otello (1816) provoked Lord Byron to write, "They have been crucifying Othello into an opera: music good, but lugubrious – but as for the words!" Nonetheless, the piece proved generally popular and held the stage in frequent revivals until it was overshadowed by Verdi's version, seven decades later. Among his other works for the house were Mosè in Egitto, based on the biblical story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt (1818), and La donna del lago, from Sir Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake (1819). For La Scala he wrote the opera semiseria La gazza ladra (1817), and for Rome his version of the Cinderella story, La Cenerentola (1817). In 1817 came the first performance of one of his operas (L'Italiana) at the Theâtre-Italien in Paris; its success led to others of his operas being staged there, and eventually to his contract in Paris from 1824 to 1830.

Rossini kept his personal life as private as possible, but he was known for his susceptibility to singers in the companies he worked with. Among his lovers in his early years were Ester Mombelli (Domenico's daughter) and Maria Marcolini of the Bologna company. By far the most important of these relationships – both personal and professional – was with Isabella Colbran, prima donna of the Teatro San Carlo (and former mistress of Barbaia). Rossini had heard her sing in Bologna in 1807, and when he moved to Naples he wrote a succession of important roles for her in opere serie.

Vienna and London: 1820–1824
By the early 1820s, Rossini was beginning to tire of Naples. The failure of his operatic tragedy Ermione the previous year convinced him that he and the Neapolitan audiences had had enough of each other. An insurrection in Naples against the monarchy, though quickly crushed, unsettled Rossini; when Barbaia signed a contract to take the company to Vienna, Rossini was glad to join them, but did not reveal to Barbaia that he had no intention of returning to Naples afterwards. He travelled with Colbran, in March 1822, breaking their journey at Bologna, where they were married in the presence of his parents in a small church in Castenaso a few miles from the city. The bride was thirty-seven, the groom thirty.

In Vienna, Rossini received a hero's welcome; his biographers describe it as "unprecedentedly feverish enthusiasm", "Rossini fever", and "near hysteria". The authoritarian chancellor of the Austrian Empire, Metternich, liked Rossini's music, and thought it free of all potential revolutionary or republican associations. He was therefore happy to permit the San Carlo company to perform the composer's operas. In a three-month season they played six of them, to audiences so enthusiastic that Beethoven's assistant, Anton Schindler, described it as "an idolatrous orgy".

While in Vienna Rossini heard Beethoven's Eroica symphony, and was so moved that he determined to meet the reclusive composer. He finally managed to do so, and later described the encounter to many people, including Eduard Hanslick and Richard Wagner. He recalled that although conversation was hampered by Beethoven's deafness and Rossini's ignorance of German, Beethoven made it plain that he thought Rossini's talents were not for serious opera, and that "above all" he should "do more Barbiere" (Barbers).

After the Vienna season Rossini returned to Castenaso to work with his librettist, Gaetano Rossi, on Semiramide, commissioned by La Fenice. It was premiered in February 1823, his last work for the Italian theatre. Colbran starred, but it was clear to everyone that her voice was in serious decline, and Semiramide ended her career in Italy. The work survived that one major disadvantage, and entered the international operatic repertory, remaining popular throughout the 19th century; in Richard Osborne's words, it brought "[Rossini's] Italian career to a spectacular close."

In November 1823 Rossini and Colbran set off for London, where a lucrative contract had been offered. They stopped for four weeks en route in Paris. Although he was not as feverishly acclaimed by the Parisians as he had been in Vienna, he nevertheless had an exceptionally welcoming reception from the musical establishment and the public. When he attended a performance of Il barbiere at the Théâtre-Italien he was applauded, dragged onto the stage, and serenaded by the musicians. A banquet was given for him and his wife, attended by leading French composers and artists, and he found the cultural climate of Paris congenial.

At the end of the year Rossini arrived in London, where he was received and made much of by the king, George IV, although the composer was by now unimpressed by royalty and aristocracy. Rossini and Colbran had signed contracts for an opera season at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket. Her vocal shortcomings were a serious liability, and she reluctantly retired from performing. Public opinion was not improved by Rossini's failure to provide a new opera, as promised. The impresario, Vincenzo Benelli, defaulted on his contract with the composer, but this was not known to the London press and public, who blamed Rossini.

In a 2003 biography of the composer, Gaia Servadio comments that Rossini and England were not made for each other. He was prostrated by the Channel crossing and was unlikely to be enthused by the English weather or English cooking. Although his stay in London was financially rewarding – the British press reported disapprovingly that he had earned over £30,000 – he was happy to sign a contract at the French embassy in London to return to Paris, where he had felt much more at home.

Paris and final operas: 1824–1829
Rossini's new, and highly remunerative, contract with the French government was negotiated under Louis XVIII, who died in September 1824, soon after Rossini's arrival in Paris. It had been agreed that the composer would produce one grand opera for the Académie Royale de Musique and either an opera buffa or an opera semiseria for the Théâtre-Italien. He was also to help run the latter theatre and revise one of his earlier works for revival there. The death of the king and the accession of Charles X changed Rossini's plans, and his first new work for Paris was Il viaggio a Reims, an operatic entertainment given in June 1825 to celebrate Charles's coronation. It was Rossini's last opera with an Italian libretto. He permitted only four performances of the piece, intending to reuse the best of the music in a less ephemeral opera. About half the score of Le comte Ory (1828) is from the earlier work.

Colbran's enforced retirement put a strain on the Rossinis' marriage, leaving her unoccupied while he continued to be the centre of musical attention and constantly in demand. She consoled herself with what Servadio describes as "a new pleasure in shopping"; for Rossini, Paris offered continual gourmet delights, as his increasingly rotund shape began to reflect.

The first of the four operas Rossini wrote to French librettos were Le siège de Corinthe (1826) and Moïse et Pharaon (1827). Both were substantial reworkings of pieces written for Naples: Maometto II and Mosè in Egitto. Rossini took great care before beginning work on the first, learning to speak French and familiarising himself with traditional French operatic ways of declaiming the language. As well as dropping some of the original music that was in an ornate style unfashionable in Paris, Rossini accommodated local preferences by adding dances, hymn-like numbers and a greater role for the chorus.

Rossini's mother, Anna, died in 1827; he had been devoted to her, and he felt her loss deeply. She and Colbran had never got on well, and Servadio suggests that after Anna died Rossini came to resent the surviving woman in his life.

In 1828 Rossini wrote Le comte Ory, his only French-language comic opera. His determination to reuse music from Il viaggio a Reims caused problems for his librettists, who had to adapt their original plot and write French words to fit existing Italian numbers, but the opera was a success, and was seen in London within six months of the Paris premiere, and in New York in 1831. The following year Rossini wrote his long-awaited French grand opera, Guillaume Tell, based on Friedrich Schiller's 1804 play which drew on the William Tell legend.

Early retirement: 1830–1855
Guillaume Tell was well received. The orchestra and singers gathered outside Rossini's house after the premiere and performed the rousing finale to the second act in his honour. The newspaper Le Globe commented that a new era of music had begun. Gaetano Donizetti remarked that the first and last acts of the opera were written by Rossini, but the middle act was written by God. The work was an undoubted success, without being a smash hit; the public took some time in getting to grips with it, and some singers found it too demanding. It nonetheless was produced abroad within months of the premiere, and there was no suspicion that it would be the composer's last opera.

Jointly with Semiramide, Guillaume Tell is Rossini's longest opera, at three hours and forty-five minutes, and the effort of composing it left him exhausted. Although within a year he was planning an operatic treatment of the Faust story, events and ill health overtook him. After the opening of Guillaume Tell the Rossinis had left Paris and were staying in Castenaso. Within a year events in Paris had Rossini hurrying back. Charles X was overthrown in a revolution in July 1830, and the new administration, headed by Louis Philippe I, announced radical cutbacks in government spending. Among the cuts was Rossini's lifetime annuity, won after hard negotiation with the previous regime. Attempting to restore the annuity was one of Rossini's reasons for returning. The other was to be with his new mistress, Olympe Pélissier. He left Colbran in Castenaso; she never returned to Paris and they never lived together again.

The reasons for Rossini's withdrawal from opera have been continually discussed during and since his lifetime. Some have supposed that aged thirty-seven and in variable health, having negotiated a sizeable annuity from the French government, and having written thirty-nine operas, he simply planned to retire and kept to that plan. In a 1934 study of the composer, the critic Francis Toye coined the phrase "The Great Renunciation", and called Rossini's retirement a "phenomenon unique in the history of music and difficult to parallel in the whole history of art": "Is there any other artist who thus deliberately, in the very prime of life, renounced that form of artistic production which had made him famous throughout the civilized world?" The poet Heine compared Rossini's retirement with Shakespeare's withdrawal from writing: two geniuses recognising when they had accomplished the unsurpassable and not seeking to follow it. Others, then and later, suggested that Rossini had retired because of pique at the successes of Giacomo Meyerbeer and Fromental Halévy in the genre of grand opéra. Modern Rossini scholarship has generally discounted such theories, maintaining that Rossini had no intention of renouncing operatic composition, and that circumstances rather than personal choice made Guillaume Tell his last opera. Gossett and Richard Osborne suggest that illness may have been a major factor in Rossini's retirement. From about this time, Rossini had intermittent bad health, both physical and mental. He had contracted gonorrhoea in earlier years, which later led to painful side-effects, from urethritis to arthritis; he suffered from bouts of debilitating depression, which commentators have linked to several possible causes: cyclothymia, or bipolar disorder, or reaction to his mother's death.

For the next twenty-five years following Guillaume Tell Rossini composed little, although Gossett comments that his comparatively few compositions from the 1830s and 1840s show no falling off in musical inspiration. They include the Soirées musicales (1830–1835: a set of twelve songs for solo or duet voices and piano) and his Stabat Mater (begun in 1831 and completed in 1841). After winning his fight with the government over his annuity in 1835 Rossini left Paris and settled in Bologna. His return to Paris in 1843 for medical treatment by Jean Civiale sparked hopes that he might produce a new grand opera – it was rumoured that Eugène Scribe was preparing a libretto for him about Joan of Arc. The Opéra was moved to present a French version of Otello in 1844 which also included material from some of the composer's earlier operas. It is unclear to what extent – if at all – Rossini was involved with this production, which was in the event poorly received. More controversial was the pasticcio opera of Robert Bruce (1846), in which Rossini, by then returned to Bologna, closely cooperated by selecting music from his past operas which had not yet been performed in Paris, notably La donna del lago. The Opéra sought to present Robert as a new Rossini opera. But although Othello could at least claim to be genuine, canonic Rossini, the historian Mark Everist notes that detractors argued that Robert was simply "fake goods, and from a bygone era at that"; he cites Théophile Gautier regretting that "the lack of unity could have been masked by a superior performance; unfortunately the tradition of Rossini's music was lost at the Opéra a long time ago."

The period after 1835 saw Rossini's formal separation from his wife, who remained at Castenaso (1837), and the death of his father at the age of eighty (1839). In 1845 Colbran became seriously ill, and in September Rossini travelled to visit her; a month later she died. The following year Rossini and Pélissier were married in Bologna. The events of the Year of Revolution in 1848 led Rossini to move away from the Bologna area, where he felt threatened by insurrection, and to make Florence his base, which it remained until 1855.

By the early 1850s Rossini's mental and physical health had deteriorated to the point where his wife and friends feared for his sanity or his life. By the middle of the decade, it was clear that he needed to return to Paris for the most advanced medical care then available. In April 1855 the Rossinis set off for their final journey from Italy to France. Rossini returned to Paris aged sixty-three and made it his home for the rest of his life.

Sins of old age: 1855–1868
Gossett observes that although an account of Rossini's life between 1830 and 1855 makes depressing reading, it is "no exaggeration to say that, in Paris, Rossini returned to life". He recovered his health and joie de vivre. Once settled in Paris he maintained two homes: a flat in the rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, a smart central area, and a neo-classical villa built for him in Passy, a commune now absorbed into the city, but then semi-rural. He and his wife established a salon that became internationally famous. The first of their Saturday evening gatherings – the samedi soirs – was held in December 1858, and the last, two months before he died in 1868.

Rossini began composing again. His music from his final decade was not generally intended for public performance, and he did not usually put dates of composition on the manuscripts. Consequently, musicologists have found it difficult to give definite dates for his late works, but the first, or among the first, was the song cycle Musique anodine, dedicated to his wife and presented to her in April 1857. For their weekly salons he produced more than 150 pieces, including songs, solo piano pieces, and chamber works for many different combinations of instruments. He referred to them as his Péchés de vieillesse – "sins of old age". The salons were held both at Beau Séjour – the Passy villa – and, in the winter, at the Paris flat. Such gatherings were a regular feature of Parisian life – the writer James Penrose has observed that the well-connected could easily attend different salons almost every night of the week – but the Rossinis' samedi soirs quickly became the most sought after: "an invitation was the city's highest social prize." The music, carefully chosen by Rossini, was not only his own but included works by Pergolesi, Haydn and Mozart and modern pieces by some of his guests. Among the composers who attended the salons, and sometimes performed, were Auber, Gounod, Liszt, Rubinstein, Meyerbeer, and Verdi. Rossini liked to call himself a fourth-class pianist, but the many famous pianists who attended the samedi soirs were dazzled by his playing. Violinists such as Pablo Sarasate and Joseph Joachim and the leading singers of the day were regular guests. In 1860, Wagner visited Rossini via an introduction from Rossini's friend Edmond Michotte who some forty-five years later wrote his account of the genial conversation between the two composers.

One of Rossini's few late works intended to be given in public was his Petite messe solennelle, first performed in 1864. In the same year Rossini was made a grand officer of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon III.

After a short illness, and an unsuccessful operation to treat colorectal cancer, Rossini died at Passy on 13 November 1868 at the age of seventy-six. He left Olympe a life interest in his estate, which after her death, ten years later, passed to the Commune of Pesaro for the establishment of a Liceo Musicale, and funded a home for retired opera singers in Paris. After a funeral service attended by more than four thousand people at the church of Sainte-Trinité, Paris, Rossini's body was interred at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. In 1887 his remains were moved to the basilica of Santa Croce, Florence.

"The Code Rossini"
The writer Julian Budden, noting the formulas adopted early on by Rossini in his career and consistently followed by him thereafter as regards overtures, arias, structures and ensembles, has called them "the Code Rossini" in a reference to the Code Napoléon, the legal system established by the French Emperor. Rossini's overall style may indeed have been influenced more directly by the French: the historian John Rosselli suggests that French rule in Italy at the start of the 19th century meant that "music had taken on new military qualities of attack, noise and speed – to be heard in Rossini." Rossini's approach to opera was inevitably tempered by changing tastes and audience demands. The formal "classicist" libretti of Metastasio which had underpinned late 18th century opera seria were replaced by subjects more to the taste of the age of Romanticism, with stories demanding stronger characterisation and quicker action; a jobbing composer needed to meet these demands or fail. Rossini's strategies met this reality. A formulaic approach was logistically indispensable for Rossini's career, at least at the start: in the seven years 1812–1819, he wrote 27 operas, often at extremely short notice. For La Cenerentola (1817), for example, he had just over three weeks to write the music before the première.

Such pressures led to a further significant element of Rossini's compositional procedures, not included in Budden's "Code", namely, recycling. The composer often transferred a successful overture to subsequent operas: thus the overture to La pietra del paragone was later used for the opera seria Tancredi (1813), and (in the other direction) the overture to Aureliano in Palmira (1813) ended as (and is today known as) the overture to the comedy Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville). He also liberally re-employed arias and other sequences in later works. Spike Hughes notes that of the twenty-six numbers of Eduardo e Cristina, produced in Venice in 1817, nineteen were lifted from previous works. "The audience ... were remarkably good-humoured ... and asked slyly why the libretto had been changed since the last performance". Rossini expressed his disgust when the publisher Giovanni Ricordi issued a complete edition of his works in the 1850s: "The same pieces will be found several times, for I thought I had the right to remove from my fiascos those pieces which seemed best, to rescue them from shipwreck ... A fiasco seemed to be good and dead, and now look they've resuscitated them all!"

Overtures
Philip Gossett notes that Rossini "was from the outset a consummate composer of overtures". His basic formula for these remained constant throughout his career: Gossett characterises them as "sonata movements without development sections, usually preceded by a slow introduction" with "clear melodies, exuberant rhythms [and] simple harmonic structure" and a crescendo climax. Richard Taruskin also notes that the second theme is always announced in a woodwind solo, whose "catchiness" "etch[es] a distinct profile in the aural memory", and that the richness and inventiveness of his handling of the orchestra, even in these early works, marks the start of "[t]he great nineteenth-century flowering of orchestration."

Arias
Rossini's handling of arias (and duets) in cavatina style marked a development from the eighteenth-century commonplace of recitative and aria. In the words of Rosselli, in Rossini's hands, "the aria became an engine for releasing emotion". Rossini's typical aria structure involved a lyrical introduction ("cantabile") and a more intensive, brilliant, conclusion ("cabaletta"). This model could be adapted in various ways so as to forward the plot (as opposed to the typical eighteenth-century handling which resulted in the action coming to a halt as the requisite repeats of the da capo aria were undertaken). For example, they could be punctuated by comments from other characters (a convention known as "pertichini"), or the chorus could intervene between the cantabile and the cabaletta so as to fire up the soloist. If such developments were not necessarily Rossini's own invention, he nevertheless made them his own by his expert handling of them. A landmark in this context is the cavatina "Di tanti palpiti" from Tancredi, which both Taruskin and Gossett (amongst others) single out as transformative, "the most famous aria Rossini ever wrote", with a "melody that seems to capture the melodic beauty and innocence characteristic of Italian opera." Both writers point out the typical Rossinian touch of avoiding an "expected" cadence in the aria by a sudden shift from the home key of F to that of A flat (see example); Taruskin notes the implicit pun, as the words talk of returning, but the music moves in a new direction. The influence was lasting; Gossett notes how the Rossinian cabaletta style continued to inform Italian opera as late as Giuseppe Verdi's Aida (1871).

Structure
Such structural integration of the forms of vocal music with the dramatic development of the opera meant a sea-change from the Metastasian primacy of the aria; in Rossini's works, solo arias progressively take up a smaller proportion of the operas, in favour of duets (also typically in cantabile-caballetta format) and ensembles.

During the late 18th century, creators of opera buffa had increasingly developed dramatic integration of the finales of each act. Finales began to "spread backwards", taking an ever larger proportion of the act, taking the structure of a musically continuous chain, accompanied throughout by orchestra, of a series of sections, each with its own characteristics of speed and style, mounting to a clamorous and vigorous final scene. In his comic operas Rossini brought this technique to its peak and extended its range far beyond his predecessors. Of the finale to the first act of L'italiana in Algeri, Taruskin writes that "[r]unning through almost a hundred pages of vocal score in record time, it is the most concentrated single dose of Rossini that there is."

Of greater consequence for the history of opera was Rossini's ability to progress this technique in the genre of opera seria. Gossett in a very detailed analysis of the first-act finale of Tancredi identifies several elements in Rossini's practice. These include the contrast of "kinetic" action sequences, often characterised by orchestral motifs, with "static" expressions of emotion, the final "static" section in the form of a caballetta, with all the characters joining in the final cadences. Gossett claims that it is "from the time of Tancredi that the caballetta ... becomes the obligatory closing section of each musical unit in the operas of Rossini and his contemporaries."

Early works
With extremely few exceptions, all Rossini's compositions before the Péchés de vieillesse of his retirement involve the human voice. His very first surviving work (apart from a single song) is however a set of string sonatas for two violins, cello and double-bass, written at the age of 12 when he had barely begun instruction in composition. Tuneful and engaging, they indicate how remote the talented child was from the influence of the advances in musical form evolved by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven; the accent is on cantabile melody, colour, variation and virtuosity rather than transformational development. These qualities are also evident in Rossini's early operas, especially his farse (one-act farces), rather than his more formal opere serie. Gossett notes that these early works were written at a time when "[t]he deposited mantles of Cimarosa and Paisiello were unfilled" – these were Rossini's first, and increasingly appreciated, steps in trying them on. The Teatro San Moisè in Venice, where his farse was first performed, and the La Scala Theatre of Milan which premiered his two-act opera La pietra del paragone (1812), were seeking works in that tradition; Gossett notes that in these operas "Rossini's musical personality began to take shape ... many elements emerge that remain throughout his career" including "[a] love of sheer sound, of sharp and effective rhythms". The unusual effect employed in the overture of Il signor Bruschino, (1813) deploying violin bows tapping rhythms on music stands, is an example of such witty originality.

Italy, 1813–1823

The great success in Venice of the premieres of both Tancredi and the comic opera L'italiana in Algeri within a few weeks of each other (6 February 1813 and 22 May 1813 respectively) set the seal on Rossini's reputation as the rising opera composer of his generation. From the end of 1813 to mid-1814 he was in Milan creating two new operas for La Scala, Aureliano in Palmira and Il Turco in Italia. Arsace in Aureliano was sung by the castrato Giambattista Velluti; this was the last opera role Rossini wrote for a castrato singer as the norm became to use contralto voices – another sign of change in operatic taste. Rumour had it that Rossini was displeased by Velluti's ornamentation of his music; but in fact throughout his Italian period, up to Semiramide (1823), Rossini's written vocal lines become increasingly florid, and this is more appropriately credited to the composer's own changing style.

Rossini's work in Naples contributed to this stylistic development. The city, which was the cradle of the operas of Cimarosa and Paisiello, had been slow to acknowledge the composer from Pesaro, but Domenico Barbaia invited him in 1815 on a seven-year contract to manage his theatres and compose operas. For the first time, Rossini was able to work over a long period with a company of musicians and singers, including amongst the latter Isabella Colbran, Andrea Nozzari, Giovanni David and others, who as Gossett notes "all specialized in florid singing" and "whose vocal talents left an indelible and not wholly positive mark on Rossini's style". Rossini's first operas for Naples, Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra and La gazzetta were both largely recycled from earlier works, but Otello (1816) is marked not only by its virtuoso vocal lines but by its masterfully integrated last act, with its drama underlined by melody, orchestration and tonal colour; here, in Gossett's opinion "Rossini came of age as a dramatic artist." He further comments:

"The growth of Rossini's style from Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra to Zelmira and, ultimately, Semiramide, is a direct consequence of th[e] continuity [he experienced in Naples]. Not only did Rossini compose some of his finest operas for Naples, but these operas profoundly affected operatic composition in Italy and made possible the developments that were to lead to Verdi."

By now, Rossini's career was arousing interest across Europe. Others came to Italy to study the revival of Italian opera and used its lessons to advance themselves; amongst these was the Berlin-born Giacomo Meyerbeer who arrived in Italy in 1816, a year after Rossini's establishment at Naples, and lived and worked there until following him to Paris in 1825; he used one of Rossini's librettists, Gaetano Rossi, for five of his seven Italian operas, which were produced at Turin, Venice and Milan. In a letter to his brother of September 1818, he includes a detailed critique of Otello from the point of view of a non-Italian informed observer. He is scathing about the self-borrowings in the first two acts, but concedes that the third act "so firmly established Rossini's reputation in Venice that even a thousand follies could not rob him of it. But this act is divinely beautiful, and what is so strange is that [its] beauties ... are blatantly un-Rossinian: outstanding, even passionate recitatives, mysterious accompaniments, lots of local colour."

Rossini's contract did not prevent him from undertaking other commissions, and before Otello, Il barbiere di Siviglia, a grand culmination of the opera buffa tradition, had been premiered in Rome (February 1816). Richard Osborne catalogues its excellencies:

"Beyond the physical impact of ... Figaro's 'Largo al factotum', there is Rossini's ear for vocal and instrumental timbres of a peculiar astringency and brilliance, his quick-witted word-setting, and his mastery of large musical forms with their often brilliant and explosive internal variations. Add to that what Verdi called the opera's 'abundance of true musical ideas', and the reasons for the work's longer-term emergence as Rossini's most popular opera buffa are not hard to find."

Apart from La Cenerentola (Rome, 1817), and the "pen-and-ink sketch" farsa Adina (1818, not performed until 1826), Rossini's other works during his contract with Naples were all in the opera seria tradition. Amongst the most notable of these, all containing virtuoso singing roles, were Mosè in Egitto (1818), La donna del lago (1819), Maometto II (1820) all staged in Naples, and Semiramide, his last opera written for Italy, staged at La Fenice in Venice in 1823. The three versions of the opera semiseria Matilde di Shabran were written in 1821/1822. Both Mosè and Maometto II were later to undergo significant reconstruction in Paris (see below).

France, 1824–1829

Already in 1818, Meyerbeer had heard rumours that Rossini was seeking a lucrative appointment at the Paris Opera – "Should [his proposals] be accepted, he will go to the French capital, and we will perhaps experience curious things." Some six years were to pass before this prophecy came true.

In 1824 Rossini, under a contract with the French government, became director of the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, where he introduced Meyerbeer's opera Il crociato in Egitto, and for which he wrote Il viaggio a Reims to celebrate the coronation of Charles X (1825). This was his last opera to an Italian libretto, and was later cannibalised to create his first French opera, Le comte Ory (1828). A new contract in 1826 meant he could concentrate on productions at the Opéra and to this end he substantially revised Maometto II as Le siège de Corinthe (1826) and Mosé as Moïse et Pharaon (1827). Meeting French taste, the works are extended (each by one act), the vocal lines in the revisions are less florid and the dramatic structure is enhanced, with the proportion of arias reduced. One of the most striking additions was the chorus at the end of Act III of Moïse, with a crescendo repetition of a diatonic ascending bass line, rising first by a minor third, then by a major third, at each appearance, and a descending chromatic top line, which roused the excitement of audiences.

Rossini's government contract required him to create at least one new "grand opėra", and Rossini settled on the story of William Tell, working closely with the librettist Étienne de Jouy. The story in particular enabled him to indulge "an underlying interest in the related genres of folk music, pastoral and the picturesque". This becomes clear from the overture, which is explicitly programmatic in describing weather, scenery and action, and presents a version of the Ranz des Vaches, the Swiss cowherd's call, which "undergoes a number of transformations during the opera" and gives it in Richard Osborne's opinion "something of the character of a leitmotif". In the opinion of the music historian Benjamin Walton, Rossini "saturate[s] the work with local colour to such a degree that there is room for little else." Thus, the role of the soloists is significantly reduced compared to other Rossini operas, the hero not even having an aria of his own, whilst the chorus of the Swiss people is consistently in the musical and dramatic foregrounds.

Guillaume Tell premiered in August 1829. Rossini also provided for the Opéra a shorter, three-act version, which incorporated the pas redoublé (quick march) final section of the overture in its finale; it was first performed in 1831 and became the basis of the Opéra's future productions. Tell was very successful from the start and was frequently revived – in 1868 the composer was present at its 500th performance at the Opéra. The Globe had reported enthusiastically at its opening that "a new epoch has opened not only for French opera, but for dramatic music elsewhere". This was an era, it transpired, in which Rossini was not to participate.

Withdrawal, 1830–1868

Rossini's contract required him to provide five new works for the Opéra over 10 years. After the première of Tell he was already considering some opera subjects, including Goethe's Faust, but the only significant works he completed before abandoning Paris in 1836 were the Stabat Mater, written for a private commission in 1831 (later completed and published in 1841), and the collection of salon vocal music Soirées musicales published in 1835. Living in Bologna, he occupied himself teaching singing at the Liceo Musicale, and also created a pasticcio of Tell, Rodolfo di Sterlinga, for the benefit of the singer Nicola Ivanoff, for which Giuseppe Verdi provided some new arias. Continuing demand in Paris resulted in the production of a "new" French version of Otello in 1844 (with which Rossini was not involved) and a "new" opera Robert Bruce for which Rossini cooperated with Louis Niedermeyer and others to recast music for La donna del lago and others of his works which were little-known in Paris to fit a new libretto. The success of both of these was qualified, to say the least.

Not until Rossini returned to Paris in 1855 were there signs of a revival of his musical spirits. A stream of pieces, for voices, choir, piano, and chamber ensembles, written for his soirées, the Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of old age) were issued in thirteen volumes from 1857 to 1868; of these, volumes 4 to 8 comprise "56 semi-comical piano pieces .... dedicated to pianists of the fourth class, to which I have the honour of belonging." These include a mock funeral march, Marche et reminiscences pour mon dernier voyage (March and reminiscences for my last journey). Gossett writes of the Péchés "Their historical position remains to be assessed but it seems likely that their effect, direct or indirect, on composers like Camille Saint-Saëns and Erik Satie was significant."

The most substantial work of Rossini's last decade, the Petite messe solennelle (1863), was written for small forces (originally voices, two pianos and harmonium), and therefore unsuited to concert hall performance; and as it included women's voices it was unacceptable for church performances at the time. For these reasons, Richard Osborne suggests, the piece has been somewhat overlooked among Rossini's compositions. It is neither especially petite (little) nor entirely solennelle (solemn), but is notable for its grace, counterpoint and melody. At the end of the manuscript, the composer wrote:

"Dear God, here it is finished, this poor little Mass. Is it sacred music I have written, or damned music? I was born for opera buffa, as you know well. A little technique, a little heart, that's all. Be blessed then, and grant me Paradise."

Influence and legacy

The popularity of Rossini's melodies led many contemporary virtuosi to create piano transcriptions or fantasies based on them. Examples include Sigismond Thalberg's fantasy on themes from Moïse, the sets of variations on "Non più mesta" from La Cenerentola by Henri Herz, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Hünten, Anton Diabelli and Friedrich Burgmüller, and Liszt's transcriptions of the William Tell overture (1838) and the Soirées musicales.

The continuing popularity of his comic operas (and the decline in staging his opere serie), the overthrow of the singing and staging styles of his period, and the emerging concept of the composer as a "creative artist" rather than a craftsman, diminished and distorted Rossini's place in music history even though the forms of Italian opera continued up to the period of verismo to be indebted to his innovations. Rossini's status amongst his contemporary Italian composers is indicated by the Messa per Rossini, a project initiated by Verdi within a few days of Rossini's death, which he and a dozen other composers created in collaboration.

If Rossini's principal legacy to Italian opera was in vocal forms and dramatic structure for serious opera, his legacy to French opera was to provide a bridge from opera buffa to the development of opéra comique (and thence, via Jacques Offenbach's opéras bouffes to the genre of operetta). Opéras comiques showing a debt to Rossini's style include François-Adrien Boieldieu's La dame blanche (1825) and Daniel Auber's Fra Diavolo (1830), as well as works by Ferdinand Hérold, Adolphe Adam and Fromental Halévy. Critical of Rossini's style was Hector Berlioz, who wrote of his "melodic cynicism, his contempt for dramatic and good sense, his endless repetition of a single form of cadence, his eternal puerile crescendo and his brutal bass drum".

It was perhaps inevitable that the formidable reputation which Rossini had built in his lifetime would fade thereafter. In 1886, less than twenty years after the composer's death, Bernard Shaw wrote: "The once universal Rossini, whose Semiramide appeared to our greener grandfathers a Ninevesque wonder, came at last to be no longer looked upon as a serious musician." In an 1877 review of Il barbiere, he noted that Adelina Patti sang as an encore in the lesson scene "Home, Sweet Home" but that "the opera proved so intolerably wearisome that some of her audience had already displayed their appreciation of the sentiment of the ballad in the most practical way."

In the early 20th century Rossini received tributes from both Ottorino Respighi, who had orchestrated excerpts from the Péchés de viellesse both in his ballet la boutique fantasque (1918) and in his 1925 suite Rossiniana, and from Benjamin Britten, who adapted music by Rossini for two suites, Soirées musicales (Op. 9) in 1937 and Matinées musicales (Op. 24) in 1941. Richard Osborne singles out the three-volume biography of Rossini by Giuseppe Radiciotti (1927–1929) as an important turning point towards positive appreciation, which may also have been assisted by the trend of neoclassicism in music. A firm re-evaluation of Rossini's significance began only later in the 20th century in the light of study, and the creation of critical editions, of his works. A prime mover in these developments was the "Fondazione G. Rossini" which was created by the city of Pesaro in 1940 using the funds which had been left to the city by the composer. Since 1980 the "Fondazione" has supported the annual Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro.

In the 21st century, the Rossini repertoire of opera houses around the world remains dominated by Il barbiere, La Cenerentola being the second most popular. Several other operas are regularly produced, including Le comte Ory, La donna del lago, La gazza ladra, Guillaume Tell, L'italiana in Algeri, La scala di seta, Il turco in Italia and Il viaggio a Reims. Other Rossini pieces in the current international repertory, given from time to time, include Adina, Armida, Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra, Ermione, Mosé in Egitto and Tancredi. The Rossini in Wildbad festival specialises in producing the rarer works. The Operabase performance-listing website records 2,319 performances of 532 productions of Rossini operas in 255 venues across the world in the three years 2017–2019. All of Rossini's operas have been recorded.

title: Gioachino Rossini


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Gibberish

Gibberish, also known as jibber-jabber or gobbledygook, is speech that is (or appears to be) nonsense: ranging across speech sounds that are not actual words, pseudowords, language games and specialized jargon that seems nonsensical to outsiders.

"Gibberish" is also used as an imprecation to denigrate or tar ideas or opinions the user disagrees with or finds irksome, a rough equivalent of "nonsense", "folderol", "balderdash", or "claptrap". The implication is that the criticized expression or proposition lacks substance or congruence, as opposed to being a differing view.

The related word jibber-jabber refers to rapid talk that is difficult to understand.

Etymology
The etymology of gibberish is uncertain. The term was first seen in English in the early 16th century. It is generally thought to be an onomatopoeia imitative of speech, similar to the words jabber (to talk rapidly) and gibber (to speak inarticulately).

It may originate from the word jib, which is the Angloromani variant of the Romani language word meaning "language" or "tongue". To non-speakers, the Anglo-Romany dialect could sound like English mixed with nonsense words, and if those seemingly nonsensical words are referred to as jib then the term gibberish could be derived as a descriptor for nonsensical speech.

Samuel Johnson, in A Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, wrote that the word gibberish "is probably derived from the chymical cant, and originally implied the jargon of Geber and his tribe." The theory was that gibberish came from the name of a famous 8th century Muslim alchemist, Jābir ibn Hayyān, whose name was Latinized as Geber. Thus, gibberish was a reference to the incomprehensible technical jargon and allegorical coded language used by Jabir and other alchemists. After 1818, editors of Johnson's Dictionary rejected that origin theory.

A discredited alternative theory asserts that it is derived from the Irish word gob or gab ("mouth") or from the Irish phrase Geab ar ais ("back talk, backward chat"). The latter Irish etymology was suggested by Daniel Cassidy, whose work has been criticised by linguists and scholars. The terms geab and geabaire are certainly Irish words, but the phrase geab ar ais does not exist, and the word gibberish exists as a loan-word in Irish as gibiris.

The term gobbledygook was coined by Maury Maverick, a former congressman from Texas and former mayor of San Antonio. When Maverick was chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation during World War II, he sent a memorandum that said: "Be short and use plain English. ... Stay off gobbledygook language." Maverick defined gobbledygook as "talk or writing which is long, pompous, vague, involved, usually with Latinized words." The allusion was to a turkey, "always gobbledygobbling and strutting with ridiculous pomposity."

Gobbledygook
The term "gobbledygook" has a long history of use in politics to deride deliberately obscure statements and complicated but ineffective explanations. The following are a few examples:

 * Richard Nixon's Oval Office tape from June 14, 1971, showed H. R. Haldeman describing a situation to Nixon as "... a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: You can't trust the government; you can't believe what they say."

 * President Ronald Reagan explained tax law revisions in an address to the nation with the word, May 28, 1985, saying that "most didn’t improve the system; they made it more like Washington itself: Complicated, unfair, cluttered with gobbledygook and loopholes, designed for those with the power and influence to hire high-priced legal and tax advisers."

 * Supreme Court of the United States justice John Roberts dismissed quantitative sociological reasoning as "gobbledygook" in 2017, when arguing against using any mathematical test for gerrymandering.

 * Michael Shanks, former chairman to the National Consumer Council of Great Britain, characterized professional gobbledygook as sloppy jargon intended to confuse nonspecialists: "'Gobbledygook' may indicate a failure to think clearly, a contempt for one's clients, or more probably a mixture of both. A system that can't or won't communicate is not a safe basis for a democracy."

In acting
Using gibberish whilst acting can be used as an improvisation exercise in theatre arts education.

In song
The Italian musical artist Adriano Celentano wrote and performed the song "Prisencolinensinainciusol" in gibberish as an intentional mimic of the sound of English to those who are not fluent in the language.

Other terms and usage
The terms officialese or bureaucratese refer to language used by officials or authorities. Legalese is a closely related concept, referring to language used by lawyers, legislators, and others involved with the law. The language used in these fields may contain complex sentences and specialized jargon or buzzwords, making it difficult for those outside the field to understand. Speakers or writers of officialese or legalese may recognize that it is confusing or even meaningless to outsiders, but view its use as appropriate within their organization or group.

Bafflegab is a synonym, a slang term referring to confusing or a generally unintelligible use of jargon.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Gibberish


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Gnaeus Julius Agricola

Gnaeus Julius Agricola (13 June 40 – 23 August 93) was a Roman general and politician responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Britain. Born to a political family of senatorial rank, Agricola began his military career as a military tribune under governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. In his subsequent career, he served in a variety of political positions in Rome. In 64, he was appointed quaestor in Asia province. Two years later, he was appointed Plebeian Tribune, and in 68, he was made praetor. During the Year of the Four Emperors in 69, he supported Vespasian, general of the Syrian army, in his bid for the throne.

When Vespasian became emperor, Agricola was made a patrician and appointed governor of Gallia Aquitania. In 77, he was made consul and governor of Britannia. As governor, he completed the conquest of what is today Wales and northern England, and led his army to the far north of Scotland, establishing forts across much of the lowlands. In 85, Agricola was recalled from Britain after an unusually lengthy service by Emperor Domitian. After his return, he retired from military and public life and died in 93. Most of what is known about Agricola and his governorship was written in the De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, a primary source, written by Tacitus, Agricola's son-in-law, and detailed archaeological evidence from northern Britain.

Early life
Agricola was born in the colonia of Forum Julii, Gallia Narbonensis (now Fréjus, France). Agricola's parents were from noted political families of senatorial rank in Roman Gaul. Both of his grandfathers served as imperial governors. His father, Lucius Julius Graecinus, was a praetor and had become a member of the Roman Senate in the year of Agricola's birth. Graecinus had become distinguished by his interest in philosophy. Between August 40 and January 41, the emperor Caligula ordered his death, because he refused to prosecute the emperor's second cousin Marcus Junius Silanus.

His mother was Julia Procilla. The Roman historian Tacitus describes her as "a lady of singular virtue" who had a fond affection for her son. Agricola was educated in Massilia (Marseille), and showed what was considered an unhealthy interest in philosophy.

Political career
He began his career in Roman public life as a military tribune, and served in Britain under Gaius Suetonius Paulinus from 58 to 62. He was probably attached to the Legio II Augusta, but was chosen to serve on Suetonius's staff and thus almost certainly participated in the suppression of Boudica's uprising in 61.

Returning from Britain to Rome in 62, he married Domitia Decidiana, a woman of noble birth. Their first child was a son. Agricola was appointed as quaestor in 64, which he served in the province of Asia under the corrupt proconsul Lucius Salvius Otho Titianus. While he was there, his daughter, Julia Agricola, was born, but his son died shortly afterwards. He was tribune of the plebs in 66 and praetor in June 68, during which time he was ordered by the Governor of Spain Galba to take an inventory of the temple treasures.

During that time, the emperor Nero was declared a public enemy by the Senate and committed suicide, and the period of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors began. Galba succeeded Nero, but was murdered in early 69 by Otho, who took the throne. Agricola's mother was murdered on her estate in Liguria by Otho's marauding fleet. Hearing of Vespasian's bid for the empire, Agricola immediately gave him his support. Otho meanwhile committed suicide after being defeated by Vitellius.

After Vespasian had established himself as emperor, Agricola was appointed to the command of the Legio XX Valeria Victrix, stationed in Britain, in place of Marcus Roscius Coelius, who had stirred up a mutiny against the governor, Marcus Vettius Bolanus. Britain had revolted during the year of civil war, and Bolanus was a mild governor. Agricola reimposed discipline on the legion and helped to consolidate Roman rule. In 71, Bolanus was replaced by a more aggressive governor, Quintus Petillius Cerialis, and Agricola was able to display his talents as a commander in campaigns against the Brigantes in northern England.

When his command ended in 73, Agricola was enrolled as a patrician and appointed to govern Gallia Aquitania. There he stayed for almost three years. In 76 or 77, he was recalled to Rome and appointed suffect consul, and betrothed his daughter to Tacitus. The following year, Tacitus and Julia married; Agricola was appointed to the College of Pontiffs, and returned to Britain for a third time, as its governor (Legatus Augusti pro praetore).

Governor of Britain
Arriving in midsummer of 77, Agricola discovered that the Ordovices of north Wales had virtually destroyed the Roman cavalry stationed in their territory. He immediately moved against them and defeated them. His campaign then moved onto Anglesey where he subjugated the entire island. Almost two decades earlier, Governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus had attempted the same but Roman forces had to withdraw in 60CE because of the outbreak of the Boudican rebellion.

Agricola also expanded Roman rule north into Caledonia (modern Scotland). In the summer of 79, he pushed his armies to the estuary of the river Taus, usually interpreted as the Firth of Tay, virtually unchallenged, and established some forts. Though their location is left unspecified, the close dating of the fort at Elginhaugh in Midlothian makes it a possible candidate. He established himself as a good administrator by reforming the widely corrupt corn levy as well as through his military successes. He introduced Romanising measures, encouraging communities to build towns on the Roman model and gave a Roman education to sons of native nobility; albeit, as Tacitus notes, for the cynical reason of pacifying the aggressive tribes in Britannia for the servitude of Rome.

Hibernia
In 81, Agricola "crossed in the first ship" and defeated peoples unknown to the Romans until then. Tacitus, in Chapter 24 of Agricola, does not tell us what body of water he crossed. Modern scholarship favours either the Firth of Clyde or Firth of Forth. Tacitus also mentions Hibernia, so southwest Scotland is perhaps to be preferred. The text of the Agricola has been amended here to record the Romans "crossing into trackless wastes", referring to the wilds of the Galloway peninsula. Agricola fortified the coast facing Ireland, and Tacitus recalls that his father-in-law often claimed the island could be conquered with a single legion and auxiliaries. He had given refuge to an exiled Irish king whom he hoped he might use as the excuse for conquest. This conquest never happened, but some historians believe the crossing referred to was in fact a small-scale exploratory or punitive expedition to Ireland, though no Roman camps have been identified to confirm such a suggestion.

Irish legend provides a striking parallel. Tuathal Teachtmhar, a legendary High King, is said to have been exiled from Ireland as a boy, and to have returned from Britain at the head of an army to claim the throne. The traditional date of his return is between 76 and 80, and archaeology has found Roman or Romano-British artefacts in several sites associated with Tuathal.

The invasion of Caledonia (Scotland)
The following year, Agricola raised a fleet and encircled the tribes beyond the Forth, and the Caledonians rose in great numbers against him. They attacked the camp of the Legio IX Hispana at night, but Agricola sent in his cavalry and they were put to flight. The Romans responded by pushing further north. Another son was born to Agricola this year, but died before his first birthday.

In the summer of 83, Agricola faced the massed armies of the Caledonians, led by Calgacus, at the Battle of Mons Graupius. Tacitus estimates their numbers at more than 30,000. Agricola put his auxiliaries in the front line, keeping the legions in reserve, and relied on close-quarters fighting to make the Caledonians' unpointed slashing swords useless as they were unable to swing them properly or utilise thrusting attacks. Even though the Caledonians were put to rout and therefore lost this battle, two thirds of their army managed to escape and hide in the Highlands or the "trackless wilds" as Tacitus calls them. Battle casualties were estimated by Tacitus to be about 10,000 on the Caledonian side and 360 on the Roman side.

A number of authors have reckoned the battle to have occurred in the Grampian Mounth within sight of the North Sea. In particular, Roy, Surenne, Watt, Hogan and others have advanced notions that the site of the battle may have been Kempstone Hill, Megray Hill or other knolls near the Raedykes Roman camp; these points of high ground are proximate to the Elsick Mounth, an ancient trackway used by Romans and Caledonians for military manoeuvres. However, following the discovery of the Roman camp at Durno in 1975, most scholars now believe that the battle took place on the ground around Bennachie in Aberdeenshire.

Satisfied with his victory, Agricola extracted hostages from the Caledonian tribes. He may have marched his army to the northern coast of Britain, as evidenced by the probable discovery of a Roman fort at Cawdor (near Inverness).

He also instructed the prefect of the fleet to sail around the north coast, confirming (allegedly for the first time) that Britain was in fact an island.

Findings
In 2019, GUARD Archaeology team led by Iraia Arabaolaza uncovered a marching camp dating to the 1st century AD in Ayr, used by Roman legions during the invasion of Roman General Agricola. According to Arabaolaza, the fire pits were split 30 meters apart into two parallel lines. The findings also included clay-domed ovens and 26 fire pits dated to between 77- 86 AD and 90 AD loaded with burnt material and charcoal contents. Archaeologists suggested that this site had been chosen as a strategic location for the Roman conquest of Ayrshire.

Later years
Agricola was recalled from Britain in 85, after an unusually long tenure as governor. Tacitus claims Domitian ordered his recall because Agricola's successes outshone the emperor's own modest victories in Germany. He re-entered Rome unobtrusively, reporting as ordered to the palace at night.

The relationship between Agricola and the emperor is unclear; on the one hand, Agricola was awarded triumphal decorations and a statue (the highest military honours apart from an actual triumph); on the other, Agricola never again held a civil or military post, in spite of his experience and renown. He was offered the governorship of the province of Africa, but declined it, whether due to ill health or (as Tacitus claims) the machinations of Domitian.

In 93, Agricola died on his family estates in Gallia Narbonensis aged fifty-three. Rumours circulated attributing the death to a poison administered by the emperor Domitian, but no positive evidence for this was ever produced.

title: Gnaeus Julius Agricola


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Guanosine

Guanosine (symbol G or Guo) is a purine nucleoside comprising guanine attached to a ribose (ribofuranose) ring via a β-N9-glycosidic bond. Guanosine can be phosphorylated to become guanosine monophosphate (GMP), cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP), guanosine diphosphate (GDP), and guanosine triphosphate (GTP). These forms play important roles in various biochemical processes such as synthesis of nucleic acids and proteins, photosynthesis, muscle contraction, and intracellular signal transduction (cGMP). When guanine is attached by its N9 nitrogen to the C1 carbon of a deoxyribose ring it is known as deoxyguanosine.

Physical and chemical properties
Guanosine is a white, crystalline powder with no odor and mild saline taste. It is very soluble in acetic acid, slightly soluble in water, insoluble in ethanol, diethyl ether, benzene and chloroform.

Functions
Guanosine is required for an RNA splicing reaction in mRNA, when a "self-splicing" intron removes itself from the mRNA message by cutting at both ends, re-ligating, and leaving just the exons on either side to be translated into protein.

Uses
The antiviral drug acyclovir, often used in herpes treatment, and the anti-HIV drug abacavir, are structurally similar to guanosine. Guanosine was also used to make regadenoson.

title: Guanosine


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Gödel's ontological proof

Gödel's ontological proof is a formal argument by the mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) for the existence of God. The argument is in a line of development that goes back to Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109). St. Anselm's ontological argument, in its most succinct form, is as follows: "God, by definition, is that for which no greater can be conceived. God exists in the understanding. If God exists in the understanding, we could imagine Him to be greater by existing in reality. Therefore, God must exist." A more elaborate version was given by Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716); this is the version that Gödel studied and attempted to clarify with his ontological argument.

Gödel left a fourteen-point outline of his philosophical beliefs in his papers. Points relevant to the ontological proof include:
 * 4. There are other worlds and rational beings of a different and higher kind.
 * 5. The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived.
 * 13. There is a scientific (exact) philosophy and theology, which deals with concepts of the highest abstractness; and this is also most highly fruitful for science.
 * 14. Religions are, for the most part, bad—but religion is not.

History
The first version of the ontological proof in Gödel's papers is dated "around 1941". Gödel is not known to have told anyone about his work on the proof until 1970, when he thought he was dying. In February, he allowed Dana Scott to copy out a version of the proof, which circulated privately. In August 1970, Gödel told Oskar Morgenstern that he was "satisfied" with the proof, but Morgenstern recorded in his diary entry for 29 August 1970, that Gödel would not publish because he was afraid that others might think "that he actually believes in God, whereas he is only engaged in a logical investigation (that is, in showing that such a proof with classical assumptions (completeness, etc.) correspondingly axiomatized, is possible)." Gödel died January 14, 1978. Another version, slightly different from Scott's, was found in his papers. It was finally published, together with Scott's version, in 1987.

In letters to his mother, who was not a churchgoer and had raised Kurt and his brother as freethinkers, Gödel argued at length for a belief in an afterlife. He did the same in an interview with a skeptical Hao Wang, who said: "I expressed my doubts as G spoke [...] Gödel smiled as he replied to my questions, obviously aware that his answers were not convincing me." Wang reports that Gödel's wife, Adele, two days after Gödel's death, told Wang that "Gödel, although he did not go to church, was religious and read the Bible in bed every Sunday morning." In an unmailed answer to a questionnaire, Gödel described his religion as "baptized Lutheran (but not member of any religious congregation). My belief is theistic, not pantheistic, following Leibniz rather than Spinoza."

Outline
The proof uses modal logic, which distinguishes between necessary truths and contingent truths. In the most common semantics for modal logic, many "possible worlds" are considered. A truth is necessary if it is true in all possible worlds. By contrast, if a statement happens to be true in our world, but is false in another world, then it is a contingent truth. A statement that is true in some world (not necessarily our own) is called a possible truth.

Furthermore, the proof uses higher-order (modal) logic because the definition of God employs an explicit quantification over properties.

First, Gödel axiomatizes the notion of a "positive property": for each property φ, either φ or its negation ¬φ must be positive, but not both (axiom 2). If a positive property φ implies a property ψ in each possible world, then ψ is positive, too (axiom 1). Gödel then argues that each positive property is "possibly exemplified", i.e. applies at least to some object in some world (theorem 1). Defining an object to be Godlike if it has all positive properties (definition 1), and requiring that property to be positive itself (axiom 3), Gödel shows that in some possible world a Godlike object exists (theorem 2), called "God" in the following. Gödel proceeds to prove that a Godlike object exists in every possible world.

To this end, he defines essences: if x is an object in some world, then a property φ is said to be an essence of x if φ(x) is true in that world and if φ necessarily entails all other properties that x has in that world (definition 2). Requiring positive properties being positive in every possible world (axiom 4), Gödel can show that Godlikeness is an essence of a Godlike object (theorem 3). Now, x is said to exist necessarily if, for every essence φ of x, there is an element y with property φ in every possible world (definition 3). Axiom 5 requires necessary existence to be a positive property.

Hence, it must follow from Godlikeness. Moreover, Godlikeness is an essence of God, since it entails all positive properties, and any non-positive property is the negation of some positive property, so God cannot have any non-positive properties. Since necessary existence is also a positive property (axiom 5), it must be a property of every Godlike object, as every Godlike object has all the positive properties (definition 1). Since any Godlike object is necessarily existent, it follows that any Godlike object in one world is a Godlike object in all worlds, by the definition of necessary existence. Given the existence of a Godlike object in one world, proven above, we may conclude that there is a Godlike object in every possible world, as required (theorem 4). Besides axiom 1-5 and definition 1-3, a few other axioms from modal logic were tacitly used in the proof.

From these hypotheses, it is also possible to prove that there is only one God in each world by Leibniz's law, the identity of indiscernibles: two or more objects are identical (the same) if they have all their properties in common, and so, there would only be one object in each world that possesses property G. Gödel did not attempt to do so however, as he purposely limited his proof to the issue of existence, rather than uniqueness.

Symbolic notation
$$ \begin{array}{rl}

\text{Ax. 1.} & \left(P(\varphi) \;\wedge\; \Box \; \forall x (\varphi(x) \Rightarrow \psi(x))\right) \;\Rightarrow\; P(\psi) \\

\text{Ax. 2.} & P(\neg \varphi) \;\Leftrightarrow\; \neg P(\varphi) \\

\text{Th. 1.} & P(\varphi) \;\Rightarrow\; \Diamond \; \exists x \; \varphi(x) \\

\text{Df. 1.} & G(x) \;\Leftrightarrow\; \forall \varphi (P(\varphi) \Rightarrow \varphi(x)) \\

\text{Ax. 3.} & P(G) \\

\text{Th. 2.} & \Diamond \; \exists x \; G(x) \\

\text{Df. 2.} & \varphi \text{ ess } x \;\Leftrightarrow\; \varphi(x) \wedge \forall \psi \left(\psi(x) \Rightarrow \Box \; \forall y (\varphi(y) \Rightarrow \psi(y))\right) \\

\text{Ax. 4.} & P(\varphi) \;\Rightarrow\; \Box \; P(\varphi) \\

\text{Th. 3.} & G(x) \;\Rightarrow\; G \text{ ess } x \\ \text{Df. 3.} & E(x) \;\Leftrightarrow\; \forall \varphi (\varphi \text{ ess } x \Rightarrow \Box \; \exists y \; \varphi(y)) \\ \text{Ax. 5.} & P(E) \\ \text{Th. 4.} & \Box \; \exists x \; G(x) \end{array} $$

Criticism
Most criticism of Gödel's proof is aimed at its axioms: as with any proof in any logical system, if the axioms the proof depends on are doubted, then the conclusions can be doubted. It is particularly applicable to Gödel's proof – because it rests on five axioms, some of which are considered questionable. A proof does not necessitate that the conclusion be correct, but rather that by accepting the axioms, the conclusion follows logically.

Many philosophers have called the axioms into question. The first layer of criticism is simply that there are no arguments presented that give reasons why the axioms are true. A second layer is that these particular axioms lead to unwelcome conclusions. This line of thought was argued by Jordan Howard Sobel, showing that if the axioms are accepted, they lead to a "modal collapse" where every statement that is true is necessarily true, i.e. the sets of necessary, of contingent, and of possible truths all coincide (provided there are accessible worlds at all). According to Robert Koons, Sobel suggested in a 2005 conference paper that Gödel might have welcomed modal collapse.

There are suggested amendments to the proof, presented by C. Anthony Anderson, but argued to be refutable by Anderson and Michael Gettings. Sobel's proof of modal collapse has been questioned by Koons, but a counter-defence by Sobel has been given.

Gödel's proof has also been questioned by Graham Oppy, asking whether many other almost-gods would also be "proven" through Gödel's axioms. This counter-argument has been questioned by Gettings, who agrees that the axioms might be questioned, but disagrees that Oppy's particular counter-example can be shown from Gödel's axioms.

Religious scholar Fr. Robert J. Spitzer accepted Gödel's proof, calling it "an improvement over the Anselmian Ontological Argument (which does not work)."

There are, however, many more criticisms, most of them focusing on the question of whether these axioms must be rejected to avoid odd conclusions. The broader criticism is that even if the axioms cannot be shown to be false, that does not mean that they are true. Hilbert's famous remark about interchangeability of the primitives' names applies to those in Gödel's ontological axioms ("positive", "god-like", "essence") as well as to those in Hilbert's geometry axioms ("point", "line", "plane"). According to André Fuhrmann (2005) it remains to show that the dazzling notion prescribed by traditions and often believed to be essentially mysterious satisfies Gödel's axioms. This is not a mathematical, but a theological task. It is this task which decides which religion's god has been proven to exist.

Computationally verified versions
Christoph Benzmüller and Bruno Woltzenlogel-Paleo formalized Gödel's proof to a level that is suitable for automated theorem proving or at least computational verification via proof assistants. The effort made headlines in German newspapers. According to the authors of this effort, they were inspired by Melvin Fitting's book.

In 2014, they computationally verified Gödel's proof (in the above version). They also proved that this version's axioms are consistent, but imply modal collapse, thus confirming Sobel's 1987 argument. In the same paper, they suspected Gödel's original version of the axioms to be inconsistent, as they failed to prove their consistency.

In 2016, they gave an automated proof that the original version implies $$\Diamond\Box\bot$$, i.e., is inconsistent in every modal logic with a reflexive or symmetric accessibility relation. Moreover, they gave an argument that this version is inconsistent in every logic at all, but failed to duplicate it by automated provers. However, they were able to verify Melvin Fitting's reformulation of the argument and guarantee its consistency.

In literature
A humorous variant of Gödel's ontological proof is mentioned in Quentin Canterel's novel The Jolly Coroner. The proof is also mentioned in the TV series Hand of God.

Jeffrey Kegler's 2007 novel The God Proof depicts the (fictional) rediscovery of Gödel's lost notebook about the ontological proof.

title: Gödel's ontological proof


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List of gymnasts

Gymnasts are people who participate in the sport of gymnastics. This sport contains disciplines that include, but are not limited to: • acrobatic gymnastics

• aerobic gymnastics

• artistic gymnastics

• rhythmic gymnastics

• trampoline gymnastics

• tumbling This list is of those who are considered to be notable in their chosen discipline.

See gymnasium (ancient Greece) for the origin of the word gymnast from gymnastikos.

Artistic gymnasts

 * List of women's artistic gymnasts
 * List of men's artistic gymnasts

title: List of gymnasts


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Genetic programming

In artificial intelligence, genetic programming (GP) is a technique of evolving programs, starting from a population of unfit (usually random) programs, fit for a particular task by applying operations analogous to natural genetic processes to the population of programs.

The operations are: selection of the fittest programs for reproduction (crossover), replication and/or mutation according to a predefined fitness measure, usually proficiency at the desired task. The crossover operation involves swapping specified parts of selected pairs (parents) to produce new and different offspring that become part of the new generation of programs. Some programs not selected for reproduction are copied from the current generation to the new generation. Mutation involves substitution of some random part of a program with some other random part of a program. Then the selection and other operations are recursively applied to the new generation of programs.

Typically, members of each new generation are on average more fit than the members of the previous generation, and the best-of-generation program is often better than the best-of-generation programs from previous generations. Termination of the evolution usually occurs when some individual program reaches a predefined proficiency or fitness level.

It may and often does happen that a particular run of the algorithm results in premature convergence to some local maximum which is not a globally optimal or even good solution. Multiple runs (dozens to hundreds) are usually necessary to produce a very good result. It may also be necessary to have a large starting population size and variability of the individuals to avoid pathologies.

History
The first record of the proposal to evolve programs is probably that of Alan Turing in 1950. There was a gap of 25 years before the publication of John Holland's 'Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems' laid out the theoretical and empirical foundations of the science. In 1981, Richard Forsyth demonstrated the successful evolution of small programs, represented as trees, to perform classification of crime scene evidence for the UK Home Office.

Although the idea of evolving programs, initially in the computer language Lisp, was current amongst John Holland’s students, it was not until they organised the first Genetic Algorithms (GA) conference in Pittsburgh that Nichael Cramer published evolved programs in two specially designed languages, which included the first statement of modern "tree-based" Genetic Programming (that is, procedural languages organized in tree-based structures and operated on by suitably defined GA-operators). In 1988, John Koza (also a PhD student of John Holland) patented his invention of a GA for program evolution. This was followed by publication in the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence IJCAI-89.

Koza followed this with 205 publications on “Genetic Programming” (GP), name coined by David Goldberg, also a PhD student of John Holland. However, it is the series of 4 books by Koza, starting in 1992 with accompanying videos, that really established GP. Subsequently, there was an enormous expansion of the number of publications with the Genetic Programming Bibliography, surpassing 10,000 entries. In 2010, Koza listed 77 results where Genetic Programming was human competitive.

In 1996, Koza started the annual Genetic Programming conference which was followed in 1998 by the annual EuroGP conference, and the first book in a GP series edited by Koza. 1998 also saw the first GP textbook. GP continued to flourish, leading to the first specialist GP journal and three years later (2003) the annual Genetic Programming Theory and Practice (GPTP) workshop was established by Rick Riolo. Genetic Programming papers continue to be published at a diversity of conferences and associated journals. Today there are nineteen GP books including several for students.

Foundational work in GP
Early work that set the stage for current genetic programming research topics and applications is diverse, and includes software synthesis and repair, predictive modeling, data mining, financial modeling, soft sensors, design, and image processing. Applications in some areas, such as design, often make use of intermediate representations, such as Fred Gruau’s cellular encoding. Industrial uptake has been significant in several areas including finance, the chemical industry, bioinformatics and the steel industry.

Program representation

GP evolves computer programs, traditionally represented in memory as tree structures. Trees can be easily evaluated in a recursive manner. Every internal node has an operator function and every terminal node has an operand, making mathematical expressions easy to evolve and evaluate. Thus traditionally GP favors the use of programming languages that naturally embody tree structures (for example, Lisp; other functional programming languages are also suitable).

Non-tree representations have been suggested and successfully implemented, such as linear genetic programming which perhaps suits the more traditional imperative languages. The commercial GP software Discipulus uses automatic induction of binary machine code ("AIM") to achieve better performance. μGP uses directed multigraphs to generate programs that fully exploit the syntax of a given assembly language. Multi expression programming uses Three-address code for encoding solutions. Other program representations on which significant research and development have been conducted include programs for stack-based virtual machines, and sequences of integers that are mapped to arbitrary programming languages via grammars. Cartesian genetic programming is another form of GP, which uses a graph representation instead of the usual tree based representation to encode computer programs.

Most representations have structurally noneffective code (introns). Such non-coding genes may seem to be useless because they have no effect on the performance of any one individual. However, they alter the probabilities of generating different offspring under the variation operators, and thus alter the individual's variational properties. Experiments seem to show faster convergence when using program representations that allow such non-coding genes, compared to program representations that do not have any non-coding genes. Instantiations may have both trees with introns and those without; the latter are called canonical trees. Special canonical crossover operators are introduced that maintain the canonical structure of parents in their children.

Selection
Selection is a process whereby certain individuals are selected from the current generation that would serve as parents for the next generation. The individuals are selected probabilistically such that the better performing individuals have a higher chance of getting selected. The most commonly used selection method in GP is tournament selection, although other methods such as fitness proportionate selection, lexicase selection, and others have been demonstrated to perform better for many GP problems.

Elitism, which involves seeding the next generation with the best individual (or best n individuals) from the current generation, is a technique sometimes employed to avoid regression.

Crossover
In Genetic Programming two fit individuals are chosen from the population to be parents for one or two children. In tree genetic programming, these parents are represented as inverted lisp like trees, with their root nodes at the top. In subtree crossover in each parent a subtree is randomly chosen. (Highlighted with yellow in the animation.) In the root donating parent (in the animation on the left) the chosen subtree is removed and replaced with a copy of the randomly chosen subtree from the other parent, to give a new child tree.

Sometimes two child crossover is used, in which case the removed subtree (in the animation on the left) is not simply deleted but is copied to a copy of the second parent (here on the right) replacing (in the copy) its randomly chosen subtree. Thus this type of subtree crossover takes two fit trees and generates two child trees.

Replication
Some individuals selected according to fitness criteria do not participate in crossover, but are copied into the next generation, akin to asexual reproduction in the natural world. They may be further subject to mutation.

Mutation
There are many types of mutation in genetic programming. They start from a fit syntactically correct parent and aim to randomly create a syntactically correct child. In the animation a subtree is randomly chosen (highlighted by yellow). It is removed and replaced by a randomly generated subtree.

Other mutation operators select a leaf (external node) of the tree and replace it with a randomly chosen leaf. Another mutation is to select at random a function (internal node) and replace it with another function with the same arity (number of inputs). Hoist mutation randomly chooses a subtree and replaces it with a subtree within itself. Thus hoist mutation is guaranteed to make the child smaller. Leaf and same arity function replacement ensure the child is the same size as the parent. Whereas subtree mutation (in the animation) may, depending upon the function and terminal sets, have a bias to either increase or decrease the tree size. Other subtree based mutations try to carefully control the size of the replacement subtree and thus the size of the child tree.

Similarly there are many types of linear genetic programming mutation, each of which tries to ensure the mutated child is still syntactically correct.

Applications
GP has been successfully used as an automatic programming tool, a machine learning tool and an automatic problem-solving engine. GP is especially useful in the domains where the exact form of the solution is not known in advance or an approximate solution is acceptable (possibly because finding the exact solution is very difficult). Some of the applications of GP are curve fitting, data modeling, symbolic regression, feature selection, classification, etc. John R. Koza mentions 76 instances where Genetic Programming has been able to produce results that are competitive with human-produced results (called Human-competitive results). Since 2004, the annual Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) holds Human Competitive Awards (called Humies) competition, where cash awards are presented to human-competitive results produced by any form of genetic and evolutionary computation. GP has won many awards in this competition over the years.

Meta-genetic programming
Meta-genetic programming is the proposed meta-learning technique of evolving a genetic programming system using genetic programming itself. It suggests that chromosomes, crossover, and mutation were themselves evolved, therefore like their real life counterparts should be allowed to change on their own rather than being determined by a human programmer. Meta-GP was formally proposed by Jürgen Schmidhuber in 1987. Doug Lenat's Eurisko is an earlier effort that may be the same technique. It is a recursive but terminating algorithm, allowing it to avoid infinite recursion. In the "autoconstructive evolution" approach to meta-genetic programming, the methods for the production and variation of offspring are encoded within the evolving programs themselves, and programs are executed to produce new programs to be added to the population.

Critics of this idea often say this approach is overly broad in scope. However, it might be possible to constrain the fitness criterion onto a general class of results, and so obtain an evolved GP that would more efficiently produce results for sub-classes. This might take the form of a meta evolved GP for producing human walking algorithms which is then used to evolve human running, jumping, etc. The fitness criterion applied to the meta GP would simply be one of efficiency.

title: Genetic programming