Verdi's timeless music

by Gwen Herat

The classical masterpieces that I read and played long ago, never intrigued me. In fact, I found Giuseppe Verdi boring and his music very complicated, much beyond my reach to comprehend.

The moment I got the opportunity to lay him off from my syllabus, I relaxed. After avoiding his music most of my life, suddenly I started listening to him more closely after my contact with his works when for the first time I heard him being played by one of my favourite conductors, Vladimir Jurowski as I watched him conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra a few years ago at Southbank, London.

It appeared as though I had been introduced to Verdi for the first time. I found magic in his music. There was a wisp of wind in every note. Like the wind rearing and on its wings the sounds were carried. I was mesmerised for a moment and wondered how I had missed the glory of his scores, each and every one.

Once Verdi gripped me, there was no turning around. Verdi the wizard; Verdi the high achiever that none dared to match him in his time. His captivating music held people and critics spellbound.

He was on to opera most of the time which led him to be the glorious and popular composer among the rest. Even today he stands out. There is an innate understanding in the human voice when his operas are sung with their technical brilliance combined with colour and originality.

One essential is the temperament in the language of musical expression that he evolved his scores. There is truth and artistic validity in Verdi that I never discovered until lately for which I am so guilty.

Perfection

He was able to write a perfect fugue though not being a academic nor had he been to a music school, without any music in his household but he studied and re-read, re-arranged his work until they reached perfection.

That was the reason of his success; he was the master of himself but he was influenced by Rossini and Bellini in his early work.

Being an introvert, his work is found to be characterised with many penetrating and beautiful compositions in arias, soft gentle and abreast of many of his contemporaries.

No doubt a moody master of his art, he had the art to assimilate his mind-thinking power to come up with pure Italian testament and the ability to give the world such gigantic and spectacular works such as AIDA and Requiem, and Four Sacred Pieces.

Verdi was commissioned by the Viceroy of Egypt, Khedive to write a new score for the Opera House in Cairo.

He was in such high stature that he was able to request 20,000 dollars which was an enormous amount in those days for a single score. There was not as much as a murmer and his wondrous Aida was the result but he had to re-arrange some parts of it before being premiered on Christmas Eve of 1871.

It was an international event. Following the Italian premiere, the Victory's reaction was high and he called Verdi to say that it was beyond belief.

Masterpiece

There had never been music like this before’ was the usual expression. This was followed by yet another masterpiece, the Requiem which he dedicated to the Italian poet and his best friend Manzoni. He was devastated at the death of Manzoni so much so that he retired to the country and did not write nor perform for 13 years.

He did a few adaptations later on such as Shakespeare's Othello into a fascinating opera and rest upon an Indian summer. Verdi was 79 when he completed his final opera Falstaff.

Born in Duchy of Parma on October 9, 1813, he died in Milan on January 27, 1901. The greatest of all Italian opera composers, was the son of a village inn-keeper. He commenced his musical career as an organist when still a child and his father sent him to Busseto for formal music studies but Verdi remained a stubborn self-taught composer and proud about it. He married the daughter of his patron, Margherita Barezzi but tragedy came their way. Their two infant children died and in 1840 his young wife, Margherita too died.

For a short time he ceased writing music with frustration overtaking him. In the following eight years, he picked up his young shattered career to become the great Verdi the world was to know.

In 1897 he died of pneumonia after losing his will to live. In Christmas he visited his adopted daughter in Milan and died there after a sudden heart attack. A quarter million people followed his funeral cortège on the way to his final resting place.

Essential works

Nabucco (1842): Set in the 6th century BC, in Jerusalam and Babylon, Verdi was not conscious of the parallels between the enslaved Hebrews of his opera and no one could question his authority on the plight of his fellowmen.

And all this took place under Austrian oppression. Yet, the chorus of the Hebrew Slaves was adopted as the national anthem for independence and Verdi became the symbol of the resistance. Todate, no one dare challenge the authenticity of Nabucco as Verdi triumphed on this score.

Un Ballo in Maschera 1859: Based on the attempted assassination of Napoleon in Paris put the Naples authorities into a fix with the opera which depicted regicide.

The original title of the score was Gustavus based on the real murder of the Swedish monarch at a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792. under the circumstances.

Verdi decided and agreed to change the location to Boston, Massachusetts. Verdi decided and agreed to change the location to Boston, Massachusetts and changed the title to A Masked Ball.

Aida (1871): In his second period of work, he used every element of his art from sublime large scale chorusses and poignant arias mixed with spectacle pageantry and dance to make the final magnificant work of his to remain immortal in the world scene of music. With this Verdi was acclaimed as one of the greatest musical dramatists.

Requiem (1874): The greatest in church vestments and spiritual moments best sung in tenor, is combined with intensity and stirring intrigue.

This is only a bit in Verdi's life and to think I never thought much of his music until I heard Vladimir Jurowski conduct some.