David Rosen (musicologist)

For other people named David Rosen, see David Rosen.
David Rosen
OccupationMusicologist

David Rosen (born September 21, 1938, in San Francisco[1]) is an expert in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Italian opera. He is noted for having discovered the complete score of Messa per Rossini, presumed lost, in the archives of the Italian music publishing house G. Ricordi & Co in 1986.

He was responsible for the critical edition of Verdi's Messa da Requiem[2] and the Cambridge Music Handbook on the Requiem.[3] He also discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale a passage in Verdi's manuscript score for Don Carlos which had had to be cut in order to ensure that the opera's premiere would finish before midnight. This led to a further discovery of more music which had also been discarded.[4]

Rosen has also pursued an interest in understanding the original staging of late romantic opera, publishing a seminal work on the staging of Un ballo in maschera.[5] He is an emeritus professor of musicology in the Department of Music at Cornell University. He has worked also with the Centro studi Giacomo Puccini and the Fondo Leoncavallo.

  1. ^ Rosen, David in Sadie, Stanley, ed. (1992). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-522186-2., vol. 4, p.42.
  2. ^ Messa da Requiem for the Anniversary of the Death of Manzoni, 22 May 1874, by Giuseppe Verdi, University of Chicago Press
  3. ^ Verdi: Requiem, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
  4. ^ Budden, Julian (1981). The Operas of Verdi, Volume 3. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-30740-8., p. 25.
  5. ^ Un Ballo in Maschera di Giuseppe Verdi, Ricordi