Inno delle Nazioni

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Verdi in middle years

Inno delle nazioni ( Hymn of the Nations, Hymn of the Peoples ) is a secular cantata by Giuseppe Verdi , composed in 1862 , which calls for peace and fraternization of peoples. The composition based on a text by Arrigo Boito was created on the occasion of the London World's Fair in 1862 . The premiere took place on May 24, 1862 in the Royal Opera House in London under the direction of Luigi Arditi . The performance of the work is 13 minutes.

Emergence

A royal commission to organize the 1862 World's Fair, which took place in London at the time of Queen Victoria , had a composer from Germany ( Giacomo Meyerbeer ), France ( Daniel-François-Esprit Auber ), Great Britain ( William Sterndale Bennett ) and the newly formed Kingdom of Italy commissioned to write a festive composition. Initially, Gioachino Rossini was intended to represent Italy, but after he refused, Verdi was chosen. By this time Verdi had just finished composing his opera La forza del destino ( The Power of Fate ).

In 1861, after several failed attempts at unification and liberation , Italy had largely made itself independent and declared a kingdom. Only Latium, as the rest of the Papal States , had not yet joined. In this spirit of optimism, Verdi met the twenty-year-old poet and composer Arrigo Boito, who wrote the text of the cantata as an appeal to peace and international understanding. In contrast to Boito's text, however, the composition does not close with an “ Ode to Art ”, but with God Save the Queen .

Despite the official commission and the availability of the composition, which Verdi had completed between February 24 and March 31, 1862 in Paris, Verdi's cantata was not premiered together with the concert overtures by Meyerbeer and Auber and Bennett's Ode, but in an additional concert in the Royal Opera House, where the soprano Therese Tietjens sang the solo part instead of the intended tenor . Possibly one reason for the postponement was the consideration for Napoléon III. because Verdi had used the republican Marseillaise in the composition instead of the official imperial anthem , even if only orchestral.

Instrumentation and musical form

Title page of the first edition of the score

The following scoring is planned for the cantata: bard ( tenor ), mixed choir, 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, cimbasso , timpani, bass drum , additional percussion, 2 Harps, strings.

After a short orchestral prelude, the introductory chorus Gloria pei cieli altissimi follows . In the following solo, Spettacolo sublime! the bard goes into a historical review of the misery of past wars, praises the current peace and calls for friendship between peoples ( fratellanza ). Following the subsequent prayer Signor, che sulla terra , repeated by the choir, the bard greets England Salve, Inghilterra and France ( O Francia ), with the orchestra playing the British anthem God Save the Queen and the Marseillaise . This is followed by a hymn to Italy O Italia, o Italia, o patria mia , quoting Fratelli d'Italia . The composition closes with God Save the Queen , followed by elements of counterpoint , with Verdi first bringing God Save the Queen , the Marseillaise and Fratelli d'Italia one after the other, and then " layering them in a rudimentary form of polyphony". After the repetition of God save the Queen , the composition closes with the words “ Gloria ”.

The prelude and the introductory chorus already anticipate Verdi's opera Aida , composed in 1870 . The fortissimo motif in the opening choir of “ Gloria i venturi populi ” bears an unmistakable resemblance to the triumphal scene in the second act of Aida. For the Verdi researcher Budden the piece is on the one hand a “brilliant idea”, but he sees the “only value” of the work “in its function as a preliminary exercise for the finale of the second Aida act”.

Memorable performances

In July 1943, in the middle of World War II , Arturo Toscanini, forced to emigrate by the Italian fascists , conducted the anthem of the nations in a Verdi concert in the USA, which he converted politically. So he added the hymn of the Soviet Union sung by the choir at the time , Die Internationale , and The Star-Spangled Banner , both in their own instrumentation, to include the four main allies in the war against Hitler's Germany. Toscanini also changed the text of the cantata by expanding “ O Italia, o patria mia ” to “ O Italia, o patria mia tradita ” (O Italy, my betrayed fatherland).

Tenor Jan Peerce performs the hymn in the Oscar-nominated short documentary film Hymn of the Nations .

Recordings

literature

Editions (sheet music)

  • Autograph: British Library , London
  • Piano reduction: Cramer, Beale & Wood, London, No. 8027
  • Score: Ricordi Milan No. 34275.

Secondary literature

  • Anselm Gerhard : Smaller compositions published during his lifetime , in: Anselm Gerhard, Uwe Schweikert (HG), Verdi Handbuch , Metzler Kassel, Bärenreiter Stuttgart and Weimar 2001, ISBN 3-476-01768-0 , and ISBN 3-7618-2017-8 .
  • Julian Budden: Verdi life and work , revised edition, Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-15-010469-6 , pp. 324–326.
  • (Without indication of responsibility): Supplement to the CD, recording under Toscanini, with explanations and Italian / English text of the hymn.

Web links

Commons : Inno delle nazioni  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Anselm Gerhard, in: Verdi Handbuch , Stuttgart, Weimar 2001, p. 513.
  2. ^ Gerhard, Schweikert: Verdi Handbuch , Stuttgart, Weimar 2001, time table p. 611.
  3. ↑ a b c Anselm Gerhard, in: Verdi Handbuch, Stuttgart and Weimar 2001, p. 512.
  4. ^ Budden: Verdi Leben und Werk , Reclam Stuttgart 2000, p. 326.
  5. ↑ Date after the CD was attached, TV recording in December 1943. In the Verdi Handbook, p. 513, Gerhard mentions May 25, 1944.
  6. ↑ Supplement to the Toscanini recording p. 12, as well as Gerhard, in: Verdi Handbuch , Stuttgart, Weimar 2001, p. 513.