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VERDI, GIUSEPPE FORTUNINO FRANCESCO (...
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See also:VERDI, GIUSEPPE FORTUNINO See also:FRANCESCO (1813-1901) , See also:Italian composer, was See also:born on the loth of See also:October 1813 at Le Roncole, a poor See also:village near the See also:city of Busseto. His parents kept a little See also:inn, combined with a See also:kind of village See also:shop. Verdi received some instruction from the village organist, but his musical See also:education really began with his entrance into the See also:house of business of See also:Antonio Barezzi, a See also:merchant of Busseto. Barezzi was a thorough musician, and under his auspices Verdi was speedily introduced to such musical society as Busseto could boast. He studied under Giovanni Provesi, who was See also:maestro di cappella of the See also:cathedral and conductor of the municipal See also:orchestra, for which Verdi wrote many See also:marches and other instrumental pieces. These compositions are now the See also:principal treasures of the library of Busseto. Among them is Verdi's first See also:symphony, which was written at the See also:age of fifteen and performed in 1828. In 1832 Verdi went to See also:Milan to See also:complete his studies. He was rejected by the authorities of the Conservatorio, but remained in Milan as a See also:pupil of Vincenzo Lavigna, with whom he worked until the See also:death of Provesi in 1833 recalled him to Busseto. A clerical intrigue prevented him from succeeding his old See also:master as cathedral organist, but he was appointed conductor of the municipal orchestra, and organist of the See also: Un Giorno di Regno was a complete failure, and Verdi, stung by disappointment, made up his mind to write no more for the See also:stage. He kept his word for a See also:year, but was then persuaded by Merelli, the impresario of La Scala, to look at a libretto by Solera. The poem took his See also:fancy, in a See also:short See also:time the See also:music was written, and in 1842 the See also:production of Nabucodonosor placed Verdi in the front See also:rank of living Italian composers. The success of Nabucodonosor was surpassed by that of its two successors, I Lombardi (1843) and Ernani (1844), the latter of which was the first of Verdi's operas to find its way to See also:England. With Ernani Verdi became the most popular composer in See also:Europe, and the incessant demands made upon him reacted upon his See also:style. For several years after the production of Ernani he wrote nothing which has survived to our time—nothing which deserved to survive. In See also:Macbeth (1847) there are passages of some See also:power, and passages too which indicate an approaching transition to a less conventional method of expression. In Luisa See also:Miller (1849) also there is a noticeable increase of refinement in style, which contrasts favourably with the melodramatic vulgarity of his earlier manner. It was unfortunate that I Masnadieri, which was written for the See also:English stage and produced under Lumley's management at Her See also:Majesty's See also:Theatre in 1847, should have been one of the worst of the many See also:bad See also:works which Verdi composed at this See also:period of his career. Not the presence of the composer, who travelled to England to conduct the first performance, nor the See also:genius of Jenny See also:Lind, who sang the See also:part of the heroine, could redeem it from failure. In 1851 Verdi won one of the greatest triumphs of his career with Rigoletto, a See also:triumph which was fully sustained by the production two years later of Il Trovatore and La Traviata. In these works Verdi reached the culminating point of what may be called his second manner. His development had been steady though See also:gradual, and it is only necessary to compare the treatment of See also:voice and orchestra in Rigoletto with that in Ernani to realize how quickly his See also:talent had See also:developed during these seven years. The popularity of Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata was enormous, and consolidated Verdi's fame outside the frontiers of See also:Italy. In 1855 he received a See also:commission to write an opera for the See also:Paris Opera, to be produced during the Universal See also:Exhibition. He wrote See also:Les Veepres Siciliennes, a work which though temporarily successful has not retained its popularity. It contains some See also:fine music, but suffers from the composer's perhaps unconscious See also:attempt to adopt the grandiose manner of See also:French opera. Of the works written during the next ten years only Un Ballo in Maschera (1859) has maintained a fitful hold upon public See also:attention. La Forza del Destino (1862) and See also:Don See also:Carlos, the latter of which was written for the Paris Exhibition of 1867, have the faults incident to works written during a period of transition. At this point in his career Verdi was preparing to emancipate himself from the fetters of conventionality which had hitherto hindered his development. In these two works there are indications of an aspiration towards a freer method of expression, which harmonize See also:ill with the more conventional style of the composer's earlier years. In Aida, an opera upon an See also:Egyptian subject, written in response to an invitation from See also:Ismail See also:Pasha, and produced at See also:Cairo in 1871, Verdi entered upon the third period of his career. In this work he See also:broke definitely with the operatic tradition which he had inherited from See also:Donizetti, in favour of a method of utterance, which, though perhaps affected in some degree by the See also:influence of See also:Wagner, still retains the See also:main characteristics of Italian music. In Aida the treatment of the orchestra is throughout masterly, and shows a richness of resource which those who knew only Verdi's earlier works scarcely suspected him of possessing; nevertheless, the human voice was still the centre of Verdi's See also:system. Verdi kept thoroughly abreast of See also:modern musical development, but his See also:artistic sense prevented him from falling into the excesses of the See also:German school. In the See also:Requiem, which was written in 1874 to commemorate the death of See also:Manzoni, Verdi applied his newly found system to sacred music. His Requiem was bitterly assailed by pedants and purists, partly on the ground of its See also:defiance of obsolete rules of musical See also:grammar and partly because of its theatrical treatment of sacred subjects, but by saner and more sympathetic critics, of whom See also:Brahms was not the least enthusiastic, it has been accepted as a work of genius. There are passages in it with which See also:Protestant feeling can scarcely sympathize, but its passionate intensity and dramatic force, and the extraordinary musical beauty with which it abounds, amply atone for what to some may seem errors of See also:taste. In 1881 a revised version of See also:Simon Boccanegra, an earlier work which had not been successful, was produced at Milan. The libretto had been in part rewritten by Arrigo See also:Boito, and Verdi wrote a See also:great See also:deal of new music for the revival, which was eminently successful. After this it was generally supposed that Verdi, who had reached an advanced age, had finally relinquished See also:composition, but after a See also:lapse of some years it became known that he was at work upon a new opera, and in 1887 Otello was produced at Milan. The libretto, a masterly condensation of See also:Shakespeare's Othello, was the work of Boito. Otello recalls Aida in the See also:general outlines of its structure, but voices and orchestra are treated with greater freedom than in the earlier work, and there is a conspicuous See also:absence of set airs. In so far as regards the essential qualities of the music, Otello is an immense advance upon anything Verdi had previously written. It has a dramatic force and a power of characterization for which it would be vain to look in his earlier work, and which are all the more remarkable as appearing for the first time in this high degree of development in a work written in extreme old age. All that has been said of Otello may be repeated of Falstaff, which was produced in 1893, when the composer was in his eightieth year, with the addition that the later work contains, besides the dramatic power and musical skill of the earlier work, a fund of delicate and fanciful See also:humour which recalls the gayest See also:mood of See also:Mozart. The libretto of Falstaff, which is the work of Boito, is an See also:adaptation of The Merry Wives of See also:Windsor, with the addition of a few passages from See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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