Today’s Google doodle celebrates Gioachino Rossini, the great Italian composer who was born on February 29, 1792, that is exactly two hundred and twenty years ago today. By the way, a characteristic mannerism in Rossini’s orchestral scoring is a long, steady building of sound over an ostinato figure, creating “tempests in teapots by beginning in a whisper and rising to a flashing, glittering storm,” which earned him the nickname of “Signor Crescendo” (Faddis, H., 2003, “Program Notes for the Overture to La scala di seta,” quoted in the Wikipedia entry for Gioachino Rossini). So what? you might ask. Well, this reminds me of the way sometimes the media work—take the case of Rick Santorum (this time the honor of the Signor Crescendo Award goes to Richard Cohen...).
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