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The University High School Band
The History and Theory of Music

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi by Giovanni Boldini

In 1813, while northern Italy was still under Napoleonic control, Giuseppe Verdi was born in a small town called Busseto to two poor innkeepers. When he was a boy, he heard a travelling violinist and asked his parents to get him one, but they could not afford it. They did enroll him as a choir boy at their church, and he reportedly fainted upon hearing the organ. The young Verdi's mother began giving him music lessons, and by the age of 8 he was the parish's full-time organist.

Verdi became involved with the Philharmonic Society in Busseto, where he met Antonio Barezzi, who helped him make many connections both in Busseto and in nearby Milan. Verdi gave voice lessons to Barezzi's daughter Margherita, and married her in 1836. They had two children, both of whom died within a year, before Margherita died in 1839.

Verdi applied unsuccessfully to the conservatory in Milan, but through Barezzi's influence managed to impress some of the professors, and was able to stage an opera at La Scala, the Milan opera house. This first opera was "Nabucco" (1836), which became a huge hit and was so successful that La Scala gave Verdi a literal blank check to write another opera.

After his success in Milan, Verdi spent some time in Venice writing operas for La Fenice, the Venetian opera house. Here he had his three biggest successes: "Rigoletto" (1851), "Il Trovatore" (1853), and "La Traviata" (1853).

In 1859, Verdi married Giuseppina Strepponi, a singer whom he had met in Milan, and his output slowed somewhat. In 1869, however, the Egyptian government commissioned an opera for a new opera house in Cairo. Verdi wrote "Aida," which premiered in 1871. It was a big success in Egypt and an even bigger success in Milan.

Throughout his career, Verdi had trouble with censors, as many of his operas dealt with the death of kings and noblemen, and with common folk yearning for freedom. Verdi sympathized with the Italian unification movement all his life. Italian revolutionaries would often shout, "Viva V-E-R-D-I!", by which they meant "Vittorio Emanuele, Re d'Italia," and when questioned by the police would simply reply that they were fans of Verdi's operas. After Italian unification was achieved, Verdi was briefly elected to the Parliament of Sardinia, and later to the Italian Senate, although he did not participate much.

In 1873, Verdi wrote a requiem mass for the Italian philosopher Alessandro Manzoni. Verdi retired two years later, but secretly kept writing operas. "Otello" premiered in 1887 and "Falstaff" in 1893, when Verdi was eighty years old.

Compositions

Rigoletto: "La Donna é Mobile"

Il Trovatore: "Anvil Chorus"

La Traviata: "Brindisi"

Aida: "Grand March"

Requiem: "Dies Irae," "Libera Me"