Giuseppe Verdi

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Giuseppe Verdi in 1876.

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (IPA: [dʒuˈzɛpːe ˈverdi] in Italian; October 9 or 10, 1813 – January 27, 1901) was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of Italian opera in the 19th century. His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, some of his themes have long since taken root in popular culture - such as "La donna è mobile" from Rigoletto, "Va, pensiero" (The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco, and "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" (The Drinking Song) from La traviata. Although his work was sometimes criticized for using a generally diatonic rather than a chromatic musical idiom, and having a tendency toward melodrama, Verdi’s masterworks dominate the standard repertoire a century and a half after their composition.

Biography

Verdi was born in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto, then in the Département Taro which was a part of the French Empire after the annexation of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza. The baptismal register, on 11 October, lists him as being "born yesterday", but since days were often considered to begin at sunset, this could have meant either 9 or 10 October. The next day he was baptized in the Roman Catholic church in Latin as Joseph Fortuninus Franciscus. The day after that (Tuesday), Carlo Giuseppe Verdi (Verdi's father) took his new born the three miles to Busseto to register him. The baby was recorded as Joseph Fortunin Francois; the clerk wrote in French. "So it happened that for the civil and temporal world Verdi was born a Frenchman[1]." When he was still a child, Verdi's parents moved from Piacenza to Busseto, where the future composer's education was greatly facilitated by visits to the large library belonging to the local Jesuit school. Also in Busseto, Verdi received his first lessons in composition.

Giuseppe Verdi in Vanity Fair (1879)

Verdi went to Milan when he was twenty to continue his studies and he took private lessons in counterpoint while attending operatic performances , as well as concerts of, specifically, German music. Milan's beaumonde association convinced him that he should pursue a career as a theatre composer.

Returning to Busseto, he became town music master and, with the support of Antonio Barezzi, a local merchant and music lover who had long supported Verdi's musical ambitions in Milan, Verdi gave his first public performance at Barezzi’s home in 1830. Because he loved Verdi’s music, Barezzi invited Verdi to be his daughter Margherita's music teacher and the two soon fell deeply in love. They were married in 1836 and Margherita gave birth to two children, both of whom died in infancy, followed by Margherita in 1840. Verdi adored his wife and children, and he was devastated when they all died in the prime of youth.

Initial recognition

The production of his first opera, Oberto, by Milan's La Scala, achieved a degree of success, after which Bartolomeo Merelli, an impresario with La Scala, offered Verdi a contract for two more works.

It was while he worked on his second opera, Un giorno di regno, that Verdi's wife and children died. The opera was a flop, and he fell into despair vowing to give up musical composition forever. However, Merelli persuaded him to write Nabucco in 1842 and its opening performance made Verdi famous. Legend has it that it was the words of the famous Va pensiero chorus of the Hebrew slaves that inspired Verdi to write music again.

A large number of operas followed in the decade after 1843, a period which Verdi was to describe as his "galley years". These included his I Lombardi in 1843 and Ernani in 1844.

For some, the most original and important opera that Verdi wrote is Macbeth in 1847. For the first time, Verdi attempted an opera without a love story, breaking a basic convention in 19th Century Italian opera.

In 1847, I Lombardi, revised and renamed Jerusalem, was produced by the Paris Opera and, due to a number of Parisian conventions that had to be honored (including extensive ballets), became Verdi's first work in the French Grand opera style.

Middle years

File:Peppina.jpg
Giuseppina (Peppina) Strepponi.

At the age of thirty-eight, Verdi began an affair with Giuseppina Strepponi, a soprano in the twilight of her career. Their cohabitation before marriage was regarded as scandalous in some of the places they lived, but Verdi and Giuseppina married on 29 August 1859 at Collonges-sous-Salève, near Geneva[2]. While living in Busseto with Strepponi, Verdi bought an estate two miles from the town in 1848. Initially, his parents lived there,

Twilight and Death

Verdi's statue in the Piazza G. Verdi, Busseto

During the following years Verdi worked on revising some of his earlier scores, most notably new versions of Don Carlos, La forza del destino, and Simon Boccanegra.

Otello, based on William Shakespeare's play, with a libretto written by the younger composer of Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito, premiered in Milan in 1887. Its music is "continuous" and cannot easily be divided into separate "numbers" to be performed in concert. Some feel that although masterfully orchestrated, it lacks the melodic lustre so characteristic of Verdi's earlier, great, operas, {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) while many critics consider it Verdi's greatest tragic opera, containing some of his most beautiful, expressive music and some of his richest characterizations. In addition, it lacks a prelude, something Verdi listeners are not accustomed to. Arturo Toscanini performed as cellist in the Orchestra at the world premiere and began his friendship with Verdi (a composer he revered as highly as Beethoven).

Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, whose libretto was also by Boito, was based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and Victor Hugo's subsequent translation. It was an international success and is one of the supreme comic operas which shows Verdi's genius as a contrapuntist.

In 1894, Verdi composed a short ballet for a French production of Otello, his last purely orchestral composition. Years later, Arturo Toscanini recorded the music for RCA Victor with the NBC Symphony Orchestra which complements the 1947 Toscanini performance of the complete opera.

In 1897, Verdi completed his last composition, a setting of the traditional Latin text Stabat Mater. This was the last of four sacred works that Verdi composed, Quattro Pezzi Sacri, which are often performed together or separately. The first performance of the four works was on April 7, 1898, at the Grande Opéra, Paris. The four works are: Ave Maria for mixed chorus; Stabat Mater for mixed chorus and orchestra; Laudi alla Vergine Maria for female chorus; and Te Deum for double chorus and orchestra. While staying at a hotel in Milan, Verdi had a stroke on January 21, 1901. He grew gradually more feeble and died six days later, on January 27 1901. Arturo Toscanini conducted the vast forces of combined orchestras and choirs comprised of musicians from throughout Italy, at the State Funeral for Verdi in Milan, following the composers death in 1901. To date, It remains the largest public assembly of any event, in the history of Italy.

Verdi's role in the Risorgimento

Music historians have long perpetuated a myth about the famous Va, pensiero chorus sung in the third act of Nabucco. The myth reports that, when the Va, pensiero chorus was sung in Milan, then belonging to the large part of Italy under Austrian domination, the audience, responding with nationalistic fervor to the exiled slaves' lament for their lost homeland, demanded an encore of the piece. As encores were expressly forbidden by the government at the time, such a gesture would have been extremely significant. However, recent scholarship puts this to rest. Although the audience did indeed demand an encore, it was not for Va, pensiero but rather for the hymn Immenso Jehova, sung by the Hebrew slaves to thank God for saving His people. In light of these new revelations, Verdi's position as the musical figurehead of the Risorgimento has been correspondingly downplayed.[3] On the other hand, during rehearsals, workmen in the theater stopped what they were doing during "Va, pensiero" and applauded at the conclusion of this haunting melody.

The myth of Verdi as Risorgimento's composer also reports that the slogan "Viva VERDI" was used throughout Italy to secretly call for Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), referring to Victor Emmanuel II, then king of Sardinia.

The Chorus of the Hebrews (the English title for Va, pensiero) has another appearance in Verdi folklore. Prior to his body being driven from the cemetery to the official memorial service and its final resting place at the Casa di Riposo, Arturo Toscanini conducted a chorus of 820 singers in "Va, pensiero". At the Casa, the Miserere from Il trovatore was sung.[4]

Style

Verdi's predecessors who influenced his music were Rossini, Bellini, Giacomo Meyerbeer and, most notably, Gaetano Donizetti and Saverio Mercadante. With the possible exception of Otello and Aida, he was free of Wagner's influence. Although respectful of Gounod, Verdi was careful not to learn anything from the Frenchman whom many of Verdi's contemporaries regarded as the greatest living composer. Some strains in Aida suggest at least a superficial familiarity with the works of the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka, whom Franz Liszt, after his tour of the Russian Empire as a pianist, popularized in Western Europe.

Throughout his career, Verdi rarely utilised the high C in his tenor arias, citing the fact that the opportunity to sing that particular note in front of an audience distracts the performer before and after the note appears. However, he did provide high Cs to Duprez in Jérusalem and to Tamberlick in the original version of La forza del destino. The high C often heard in the aria Di quella pira does not appear in Verdi's score.

Although his orchestration is often masterful, Verdi relied heavily on his melodic gift as the ultimate instrument of musical expression. In fact, in many of his passages, and especially in his arias, the harmony is ascetic, with the entire orchestra occasionally sounding as if it were one large accompanying instrument - a giant-sized guitar playing chords. Some critics maintain he paid insufficient attention to the technical aspect of composition, lacking as he did schooling and refinement. Verdi himself once said, "Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned." He hastened to add, however, "I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music."

However, it would be incorrect to assume that Verdi underestimated the expressive power of the orchestra or failed to use it to its full capacity where necessary. Moreover, orchestral and contrapuntal innovation is characteristic of his style: for instance, the strings producing a rapid ascending scale in Monterone's scene in Rigoletto accentuate the drama, and, in the same opera, the chorus humming six closely grouped notes backstage portrays, very effectively, the brief ominous wails of the approaching tempest. Verdi's innovations are so distinctive that other composers do not use them; they remain, to this day, some of Verdi's signatures.

Verdi was one of the first composers who insisted on patiently seeking out plots to suit his particular talents. Working closely with his librettists and well aware that dramatic expression was his forte, he made certain that the initial work upon which the libretto was based was stripped of all "unnecessary" detail and "superfluous" participants, and only characters brimming with passion and scenes rich in drama remained.

Many of his operas, especially the later ones from 1851 onwards are a staple of the standard repertoire. No composer of Italian opera has managed to match Verdi's popularity, perhaps with the exception of Giacomo Puccini.

Verdi's operas

See also List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi

Media

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Eponyms

Trivia

Verdi's name literally translates as "Joseph Green" in English. Musical comedian Victor Borge often referred to the famous composer as "Joe Green" in his act, saying that "Giuseppe Verdi" was merely his "stage name".

The same joke-translation is mentioned in Evil Under the Sun (1982 film) by Patrick Redfern (played by Nicholas Clay to Hercule Poirot Peter Ustinov, a prank which inadvertedly gives Poirot the answer to the murder.

References

  1. ^ Martin, 3
  2. ^ Phillips-Matz, pp.394-95
  3. ^ Casini, Claudio, Verdi, Milan: Rusconi, 1982
  4. ^ Phillips-Matz, p.765

See also

Julian Budden author of a 3 volume work on the composer

Further reading

  • Budden, J. (1973). The Operas of Verdi, Volume I (3rd ed ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816261-8. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  • Budden, J. (1973). The Operas of Verdi, Volume II (3rd ed ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816262-6. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  • Budden, J. (1973). The Operas of Verdi, Volume III (3rd ed ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816263-4. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  • Kamien, R. (1997). Music: an appreciation - student brief (3rd ed ed.). McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-07-036521-0. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  • Gal, H. (1975). Brahms, Wagner, Verdi: drei meister, drei welten. Fischer. ISBN 3-10-024302-1.
  • Martin, G. (1963). Verdi: His Music, Life and Times (1st ed ed.). Dodd, Mead & Company. ISBN 2001456720. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  • Parker, Roger (2001). "Giuseppe Verdi". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press.
  • Parker, Roger (1992): Verdi, Giuseppe in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
  • Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane (1993). Verdi: A Biography (1st ed ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-313204-4. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  • Michels, Ulrich (1992). dtv-Atlas zur Musik: Band Zwei (7th ed ed.). Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag in association with Bärenreiter Verlag. ISBN 3-423-03023-2. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)

On Verdi's life in and around Busseto

  • Associazione Amici di Verdi (ed.), Con Verdi nella sua terra, Busseto, 1997, (in English)
  • Maestrelli, Maurizio, Guida alla Villa e al Parco (in Italian), publication of Villa Verdi, 2001
  • Mordacci, Alessandra, An Itinerary of the History and Art in the Places of Verdi, Busseto: Busseto Tourist Office, 2001 (in English)
  • Villa Verdi': the Visit and Villa Verdi: The Park; the Villa; the Room (pamphlets in English), publications of the Villa Verdi

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Giuseppe Verdi.


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