- Giuseppe Verdi (letter to Antonio Somma, 1854)
If others say, "He should have done thus and thus," I answer, "That may well be so, but what I have done is the best I can do."
- Verdi (quoted in Bonavia, Verdi, (1930))
It is quite enough for the musical world to have put up with my music for such a long time! I will never condemn it to read my prose.
- Verdi (on refusing to write his memoirs, letter 1895)
Verdi... has wonderful bursts of passion. His passion is brutal, it is true, but that is better than having no passion at all. His music exasperates sometimes, but it never bores.
- Georges Bizet (1838-1875) (letter, 1859)
These coarse and brutal Verdi commonplaces, raucous and clamorous choruses, these screaming unisons, these iron-clad, hard melodies, in which we have the most original and individual part of Verdi - how happy
one is to forget it!
- a New York newspaper, 21 February 1874
Today is the 199th anniversary of the birth of the foremost composer of Italian opera, Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), near Busseto. Verdi received his first music lessons from the town organist but was denied entrance to the Milan Conservatory for "lack of talent." Largely self-taught thereafter, he began composing operas in 1836, scoring his first big success with Nabucco at La Scala in 1841. From then on, his fame grew rapidly, propelled by such operatic favorites as Rigoletto (1851), Il Trovatore (1853), La Traviata (1853), La Forza del Destino (1862), Aida (1871), Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893), as well as his magnificent Requiem (1874). While Verdi's technical mastery and subtlety of characterization continued to develop throughout his career, his musical style - direct, noble, and intense - remained consistent from beginning to end. He left much of his fortune to found a home for aging musicians in Milan, which still exists. Tens of thousands thronged the streets of that city for his funeral in 1901 - spontaneously singing his "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" from Nabucco, which had become the unofficial anthem of the Italian Resorgimento years before.* Upon his death, fellow opera composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) observed,
"With him the purest and most luminous glory of Italy was extinguished."
* N.B. During Italy's struggle for independence from Austria, the Papal States, and the Bourbons, patriots would scrawl on city walls the graffito, "Viva VERDI!" - really a covert acronym for "Vittorio Emmanuele, Re d'Italia" - the ruler of Savoy who later became the first king of a unified Italy.
One of the most celebrated Verdi excerpts, the "Anvil Chorus" from Il Trovatore:
A photo of Verdi, ca. 1890:
Taken from Ed's Quotation of the Day, only available via email. If you'd like to be added to his list, leave your email address in the comments.
Verdi... has wonderful bursts of passion. His passion is brutal, it is true, but that is better than having no passion at all. His music exasperates sometimes, but it never bores.
- Georges Bizet (1838-1875) (letter, 1859)
These coarse and brutal Verdi commonplaces, raucous and clamorous choruses, these screaming unisons, these iron-clad, hard melodies, in which we have the most original and individual part of Verdi - how happy
one is to forget it!
- a New York newspaper, 21 February 1874
Today is the 199th anniversary of the birth of the foremost composer of Italian opera, Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), near Busseto. Verdi received his first music lessons from the town organist but was denied entrance to the Milan Conservatory for "lack of talent." Largely self-taught thereafter, he began composing operas in 1836, scoring his first big success with Nabucco at La Scala in 1841. From then on, his fame grew rapidly, propelled by such operatic favorites as Rigoletto (1851), Il Trovatore (1853), La Traviata (1853), La Forza del Destino (1862), Aida (1871), Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893), as well as his magnificent Requiem (1874). While Verdi's technical mastery and subtlety of characterization continued to develop throughout his career, his musical style - direct, noble, and intense - remained consistent from beginning to end. He left much of his fortune to found a home for aging musicians in Milan, which still exists. Tens of thousands thronged the streets of that city for his funeral in 1901 - spontaneously singing his "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" from Nabucco, which had become the unofficial anthem of the Italian Resorgimento years before.* Upon his death, fellow opera composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) observed,
"With him the purest and most luminous glory of Italy was extinguished."
* N.B. During Italy's struggle for independence from Austria, the Papal States, and the Bourbons, patriots would scrawl on city walls the graffito, "Viva VERDI!" - really a covert acronym for "Vittorio Emmanuele, Re d'Italia" - the ruler of Savoy who later became the first king of a unified Italy.
One of the most celebrated Verdi excerpts, the "Anvil Chorus" from Il Trovatore:
A photo of Verdi, ca. 1890:
Taken from Ed's Quotation of the Day, only available via email. If you'd like to be added to his list, leave your email address in the comments.
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