Scan 21
Musical Courier 1902-01-01: Vol 44 Iss 1136, 1902
28 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 22. See the scan on archive.org.
1they certainly follow the lead and exaggerate it. Neither choruses, orchestras or conductors should applaud the soloists or the performances. The audience is the only arbiter of that question.
3THE most stirring event in the year that has just passed—1901—was the death of Verdi, January 27. It was a tiny, insignificant star that arose in the musical skies at Milan, November, 1839. Giuseppe Verdi, a poor young man from the village of Le Roncole, near Buseto, in the duchy of Parma, heard his first opera sung that year. It was called "Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio," and its composer was twenty-six years old. A simple transposition of numerals brings this Italian to the year 1893 and glory; for then his "Falstaff" was sung for the first time, and also in Milan. In the half century and more Verdi had traversed the years with triumphant steps; or, rather were his movements more in the nature of some mighty sea whose ground swell never ceases. There were storms and prosperous weather, and often the genius of the musician found itself becalmed in sluggish Sargossan wastes. His failures outnumber his successes; but successes like "Rigoletto," "Il Trovatore," "La Traviata," "Aida," "Otello" and "Falstaff" outweigh many failures.
5It was one of life's most delicious ironies that to the future composer of "Aida" admission to the Milan Conservatory should have been refused. The name of the director who discovered the lack of talent in the modest young country fellow will be amber-inclosed by the deathless historian. Verdi's recording angel must have suppressed a grave smile when he wrote the name of Francesco Basil, director of music at the Milan Conservatorio; yet the lesson proved an excellent one for the applicant. Encouraged by the plaudits of the wisely ignorant, he had attacked the enemy first in the city of opera. Forthwith he went back to Busseto and studied, studied and composed. These formative years, when he wrote marches, masses, songs and overtures, even a symphony, gave him manual dexterity and also developed his tremendous powers of concentration.
7Verdi's first opera was an explosion from the overcharged reservoirs of youth. A year later—in 1840—after severe domestic affliction, his "Un Giorno di Regno" was produced. It was a failure. How could it be otherwise? For the man had just lost his wife and two children—and the opera was comic! "Nabucco," in 1842, had better luck, and "I Lombardi" a year afterward set pealing the fame-bells straight across the peninsula. Then followed in almost fabulous succession—surely Verdi had much of Balzac's fecundity!—"Ernani," in 1844; "I Due Foscari," 1844; "Giovanni d'Arco," 1845; "Alzira," 1845; "Attila," 1846," and in 1847 we reach "Macbeth." There are some who are pleased to see in this unequal work sprouting signs of Verdi's "second manner." Attempts here are made by the composer to escape the old-fashioned recitatives and the tyranny of the cavatina-cabaletto. The waves of his music now ran high, ran low. "Macbeth" was followed by dusty pot boilers like "I Masnadieri," 1847; "Il Corsara," 1848; "La Battaglia di Legnano," 1849; "Luisa Miller," 1849, and "Stiffelio," 1850. In 1851 "Rigoletto" appeared, and all doubts of the overwhelming genius of the man scurried to obscurity. "Rigoletto" rather than "Macbeth" contains the seeds of the incomparable harvest reaped in the later music. Its declamatory dialogue puts it apart from Verdi's earlier music. Hampered from the outset by lame librettos, Verdi found herein for his tragic gifts stuff to mold. The men of criticism and lovers of consistent musical evolution sigh and shake their heads over "Il Trovatore," 1853. It was a distinct relapse from the tense dramatic force of "Rigoletto," and the book was exasperating. Yet because of its lovely melodies and its thrilling tower scene, "Il Trovatore" has lasted until the twentieth century, and bids fair to outlive many beloved modern operas.
9"Traviata," 1853, showed Verdi an adept in musical psychology, and while the "Sicilian Vespers," 1855: "Simon Boccanegra," 1857; "Aroldo," 1857; "Un Ballo in Maschera," 1859; "La Forza del Destino," 1862; "Don Carlos," 1867, are all instructive steps in the developing process of the composer; it was "Aida," 1871, which revealed his self-mastery, his conquering of the vast emotional and spiritual territory of his genius. The cry of "Wagner" was at once raised, but Meyerbeer and Gounod were also factors in the amazing changes of style. After the flaming splendors of "Aida" came the tragic gloom of "Otello," 1887, and here the Italian Verdi may be fairly matched with the German Wagner. Ever a character painter, even in his minor efforts, the subtle delineation of soul, the dissection of motives, place Verdi among the great intellectual musicians of all time. It was an Italian after all who first understood Shakespeare musically. Aided by a kindred artistic spirit, Arrigo Boito, Verdi passed quickly across Othello's passion gamut, Iago's sinister negations, Ophelia's exquisite misery, to the sunnier spaces of Windsor, its cool taverns, its green woods and the magic mysteries of its moonlit nights. "Falstaff" was born in 1893, and a miracle accomplished, for from an octogenarian came forth all the joy of life, the arch pranks, the brilliant laughter, imprisoned since the deaths of Mozart and Rossini. Verdi's "Falstaff" is a direct descendant from "The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Barber of Seville," or, to cast further back, from Cimarosa, Piccini, Jomelli, and the rest of that gay band which set Italy smiling centuries ago.
11Wagner had a hand in this metamorphosis. Verdi's orchestra grew more independent, sonorous, richer in color. The play's the thing now for him, and the orchestra follows on panting feet the curves of the comedy. It flows furiously, like a stream of quicksilver, tossing up repartee, arguments, facts, and amplifying, developing and strengthening the text. Melody? Why the opera is one long, merry tune, jocund, blithe, sweet, and the shades of Shakespeare's men and women pass before us, roaring, troubled, singing in dulcet tones or racked by jealousy. Falstaff is forever penned behind the bars of this immortal music. There is classic purity in expression, variety, color freshness, earnestness, wit, learning—witness the wonderful fugued finale—insouciance, quaint drolleries. And the emotional tempo is as the arrow shot from the bow of a classic featured archer, one whose arrows have been steeped in the burning hues of romanticism. Indeed, a divine comedy is this "Falstaff."
13Verdi composed a string quartet in E minor, and in 1874 the Manzoni Requiem. After the death of Rossini in 1868, Verdi conceived the project of honoring the composer's memory by a composite requiem mass. He invited thirteen of his principal musical contemporaries to contribute a number. His own movement, the last, was the "Libera Me," solo for piano and chorus, with a fugue at the close. Whether the popular superstition worked unfavorably no one may say, but the other twelve numbers did not hang together, and so the scheme went by the board.
15When the death occurred of Alessandro Manzoni, the poet and novelist, Verdi again took up the idea and composed in 1873 the Requiem as it now stands. It was first performed at Milan in the Church of San Marco, May 22, 1874. The overwhelming success of the music secured it a hearing in Paris. Verdi conducted several Milan performances, and the Bach Choir brought it out in London in 1892, though not with much acclaim. Verdi transplanted the original "Libera Me" as a finale to the new composition.
17The Manzoni Requiem has been called too theatrical, too sensuous for church music. Written after "Aida" it is touched with some of that opera's exotic coloring. It flames with dramatic fire, and the wrath of God is made to descend upon us with relentless chromatic harmonies in the tremendous "Dies Irae." There are many haunting melodies, melodies bathed in a sensuous atmosphere. The proper place for the Requiem is the theatre; the man of the South must needs sorrow dramatically, must adorn the funeral draperies with the purple phrase. Berlioz, a meridional in the exuberance of his rhetoric, planted his reverberating musical artillery under the very skies; and in the Requiem of Johannes Brahms may be found the sobriety of the Teuton, one whose expression of woe is both reticent and grave. Verdi's Requiem is a picture of the wide heaven and earth, with an avenging Deity ready to hurl avenging thunderbolts at an ungrateful people. It is thrilling and it is also operatic. Yet nothing could more invite to tranquility of soul than the "Requiem Aeternam" and the "Agnus Dei."
19Verdi has also written vocal romances, an "Ave Maria" with string accompaniment in 1880, and in 1898 four sacred pieces, including a "Stabat Mater." There are unverified rumors on the themes of "Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Richard III." and "Ugilino," but the aged composer always denied that he would give "Falstaff" a successor.
21After all the centre of this extraordinary man's musical circumference is the human voice. No composer, excepting Rossini, ever so deified the voice. In his early days he was an imitator of the mad, lush Donizetti. Later he gave expression to the shuddering anguish of souls tempest tossed by destiny and their own passions. At the close of his magnificent career we find the word usurping his attention. Music, so often the tyrant in Wagner's dramas, becomes, not the handmaid of speech with Verdi, but its loving companion. He was an incomparable singer, a most human and Italian one, and he will be known to posterity as the greatest poet of passion born to Italy.
23The other deaths have been of moment. Franz Rummel, the pianist, well known here because of his marriage to Miss Leila Morse; Ethelbert Nevin, a composer of lyric gifts; Sir John Stainer, a respected English musician; Frederic Archer, the English born organist and conductor; Colonel J. H. Mapleson, king of operatic impresarios; Alfred Piatti, a great 'cellist and one time associate of Joseph Joachim; Josef Rheinberger; Zamara, the veteran harpist, and many others.
25The pianists we heard were Josef Hofmann, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Ernst von Dohnányi, Josef Slivinski, Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler, Leopold Godowsky, after his great success in Berlin; Enrico Toselli, Mary Hallock, Harold Bauer, Teresa Carreño, Adele aus der Ohe, Zeldenrust and Courtland Palmer, who played with finesse and musical feeling César Franck's beautiful symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra. Arthur Whiting gave piano recitals and introduced compositions of his own; Louis Saar played some new pieces of his at a composer's concert. Henry Holden Huss played the piano part of his Concerto with the Philharmonic Society last fall, and recently, with Kneisel, his new violin and piano Sonata. E. A. MacDowell's new piano Sonata proved to be of sound stuff, romantic, poetic, martial in character, and quite as significant as its predecessors.
27We heard orchestral concerts by the Philharmonic, Boston Symphony and Pittsburg Symphony; also performances by the Oratorio and Musical Art societies. Hans Winderstein brought the Leipsic Philharmonic here, and Edouard Strauss his Vienna Dance Orchestra. Sousa has been active at home and abroad, and English opera, recovered from its failure, is once more in the field. Other visitors were Emma Nevada, Lilli Lehmann, Sembrich, Nordica, Schumann-Heink, who were heard in concert. Maud Powell, a gifted woman, played a novelty, a Fantaisie in B minor for violin and orchestra, by Rimski-Korsakoff at a Philharmonic con-
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