GIUSEPPE VERDI.From a portrait engraved by Deblois.
GIUSEPPE VERDI.From a portrait engraved by Deblois.
GIUSEPPE VERDI.
From a portrait engraved by Deblois.
After much anger and much debating, the monarch was turned into a duke of Mantua and the title into "Rigoletto." Verdi retired to Busseto and labored vigorously at his score. It was completed in forty days, and was performed at La Fenice, March 11, 1851. Its success was enormous. The work was soon given in every opera house in Europe with the same results that attended it in Venice. The composer rested on his laurels for two years. Then "Il Trovatore" appeared at the Teatro Apollo, Rome, Jan. 19, 1853. Its triumph was immediate and brilliant, and this opera also made an instant tour of the civilized world. It was only some five weeks later when "La Traviata" was produced at the Fenice. This opera, however, fell flat and was an utter failure. The composer, who rated the work very highly, was in despair.The fault was not with his score but with the singers, especially with Signora Donatelli who sang and acted Violetta. She was an exceedingly fleshy woman, and when the doctor, in the third act, announced that the heroine was emaciated by consumption and had only a few hours to live, the audience burst into roars of laughter. The opera was damned for Venice. Nevertheless, elsewhere it experienced a better fate and met with an enthusiastic reception. These three operas may be pronounced the best as well as the last of the Italian opera school as developed through Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti.
Verdi's next work was "Les Vêpres Sicilliennes," written for the Paris Grand Opéra, and given for the first time there June 13, 1855. It is a brilliant work, but made no advance on its immediate predecessors from the same source. Then came "Simon Boccanegra," for La Fenice, produced March 12, 1857. It was an irretrievable failure, despite its fine and intensely dramatic last act. This was followed by "Un Ballo in Maschera," brought out at the Teatro Apollo, Rome, Feb. 17, 1859. There was again trouble with the police, who objected to the original title, "Gustavo III.," a monarch who was assassinated. The text was also deemed objectionable, and the composer was commanded to choose other words for his music. Verdi indignantly refused, and the manager of the San Carlo at Naples, for whom the work was written, brought an action against Verdi for damages to the extent of two hundred thousand francs. This affair almost excited a revolution in Naples. The populace assembled outside Verdi's house and cheered him and followed him through the streets, shouting "Viva Verdi!" his name, read acrostically, signifying "VittorioEmmanueleReDiItalia"; the cry, though apparently honoring the composer, carrying with it a revolutionary significance. However, the title was changed; a governor of Boston replaced Gustavo III., and the opera was one of Verdi's most decided popular successes. His next opera was composed for St. Petersburg, and was "La Forza del Destino." It was brought out with mild success Nov. 10, 1862. Then succeeded "Don Carlos," for the Grand Opéra in Paris, produced March 11, 1867, and enthusiastically received; but it added nothing to Verdi's fame. He was now fifty-four years old, and had written twenty-six operas. His fame was world-wide, and he was the greatest living Italian opera composer. Wealth and honors had followed glory, and the son of the poor innkeeper of Roncole was now one of whom his native land was proud.
In the mean while Verdi was elected a foreign member of the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris, to take the place vacated by the death of Meyerbeer. More than this; for, when the duchy of Parma resolved to annex itself to the new kingdom of Italy and formed its first legislative assembly, Verdi was elected deputy to this body by the district of Busseto. He became a member of the Italian parliament upon the urgent solicitation of Count Cavour, but at the end of two or three years sent in his resignation. This, however, did not prevent King Victor Emmanuel making him a senator in 1875; he had no taste for politics, and after having taken the oath, he never again sat in that body. The honors that were showered on him did not turn his head, and he was never more pleased than when his friends, forgetting his titles, addressed him simply as Signor Verdi. In 1862 he composed a cantata expressly for the inauguration of the World's Fair in London. Four great musicians had been called on to represent their country musically at this exposition. They were Auber for France, Meyerbeer for Germany, Verdi for Italy, and Sterndale Bennett for England. Verdi is the only one of these masters still living. His work was an "Inno delle Nazioni," which was performed at Her Majesty's Theatre, May 24, 1862. The hymn comprised an introduction, a chorus, and a soprano solo sung by Mme. Tietjens. Thefinale, which is on a vast scale, skilfully combined the English, French and Italian national airs.
After "Don Carlos," Verdi did not produce a new opera for four years, and then appeared "Aïda," written for the opening of the Italian Theatre in Cairo, in December, 1871, the most brilliant and most original work he had composed up to that time, and, on the whole, the most impressive evidence of his musical genius. His next achievement was his splendid Requiem, written to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Manzoni and produced at Milan, May 24, 1874, in the church of San Marco. Its success in the church was immense, and elsewhere it was no less enthusiastically received and admired. In April, 1881, a revised version of "Simon Boccanegra" was given at Milan. The work was more successful than it wasin its original form, but it did not become popular. His other works up to this time were a string quartet, written at Naples and performed in the composer's own house, in April, 1873; a "Pater Noster" for two sopranos, contralto, tenor and bass; and an "Ave Maria" for soprano and strings. Both these last-named works were given for the first time at La Scala, April 18, 1880. Verdi was now sixty years of age, and could well afford to rest on his laurels. He had worked industriously and had reached a time of life when the inventive faculties begin to show signs of exhaustion. His growth in his art had been constant, and his latest works were his masterpieces. His fecundity, however, was not yet exhausted; for, after a silence of sixteen years, he produced "Otello," another magnificent opera, at La Scala, Feb. 6, 1887; and still later, when eighty years of age, he brought out "Falstaff," a work full of youth, inspiration and beauty, and marvellous as the invention of a composer who had reached fourscore years, though the opera calls for no excuse for shortcomings on account of its writer's advanced age. It is his latest effort, up to date, though there are reports that this wonderful old man is busy in the composition of an opera founded on Shakespeare's "King Lear."
VILLA SANT' AGATA.The residence of Verdi near Busseto.
VILLA SANT' AGATA.The residence of Verdi near Busseto.
VILLA SANT' AGATA.
The residence of Verdi near Busseto.
In addition to the immense mass of music already mentioned, Verdi has published for the voice sixromanzas, two bass songs, a nocturne for soprano, tenor, and bass, with flute obligato; an album of sixromanzas, and other lighter compositions. His youthful works that remain unpublished include marches, symphonies, concertos and variations for the pianoforte, duets, trios, church compositions, including a "Stabat Mater," and cantatas. He also wrote choruses to Manzoni's tragedies, and set music to many of the same author's poems. In 1862 he was one of the thirteen Italian composers who combined to write a requiem as a tribute to the memory of Rossini. For this Verdi composed a "Libera me," which so impressed Signor Mazzucato that he urged Verdi to compose the whole work. Manzoni dying soon after, Verdi offered to write a requiem in the poet's honor, and the last movement is the same "Libera me" that was written for the Rossini memorial.
After mourning deeply the loss of the wife and children that had been taken from him with suchagonizing rapidity, Verdi married Signora Strapponi, by whom, however, he has had no children. He resides on his handsome estate near Busseto, except during the winter months which he passes in Genoa. He has a beautiful garden and a large farm, to whose cultivation he devotes himself with enthusiasm. He is very fond of his animals, especially his horses. To young musicians he is especially kind. His modesty is excessive, and he objects strongly to talk of himself and his art triumphs. He lives quietly the life of a well-to-do country gentleman, and is delighted to see his friends, if they are not over-prone to discuss music. His disposition is charitable, and he gives freely but unostentatiously to the needy. Some of the splendors of his garden, which appear to be the mere caprice of a rich man with a taste for the luxuries of life, were conceived and carried out for the purpose of giving to poor working people out of employ, the means of earning a livelihood. He gave ten thousand francs toward building a theatre at Busseto, because the inhabitants desired one. It is a small but handsome and elegant building, on the front of which is inscribed, in letters of gold, the name of the great master, who years before, when a poor boy, played the organ in the church of the neighboring village of Roncole for the yearly pay of $7.20.
Verdi is described as "tall, agile, vigorous, endowed with an iron constitution and an energy of character that promise lifelong virility." His friend andcollaborateur, Signor Ghislanzoni, says of him: "I have known artists who, after having been recklessly prodigal of good humor and affability in their youth, have become gloomy and almost irritable under the burden of glory and honors. Verdi, on the contrary, seems to have left behind him at each upward step in his career a part of that hard, rough exterior that belonged to his earlier years." At eighty he is still young, still vivacious.
That Verdi is one of the most popular opera composers of his time must be freely conceded. That he is a great musician in any exacting sense of the word cannot be so readily granted. He has been in no sense an innovator, and as far as his influence on opera is concerned, he leaves it where he found it, except inasmuch as he has followed the changes that the musical development of his time has made in every branch of the art. He has not been an epoch-maker in opera, as was Rossini, and in nothing that he has written has he made such an impression on his contemporaries in opera as was made by the "La Sonnambula" and the "Norma" of Bellini, and the "Lucia di Lammermoor" and the "La Favorita" of Donizetti. As it seems to us, he was the logical outgrowth of the latter, as Donizetti was of Bellini, as Bellini was of Rossini, and as Rossini was of thefinalesof "Il Nozze di Figaro." Gifted with an inexhaustive fund of melody, and a strong feeling for dramatic effect, he trusted to these gifts without paying especial heed to any philosophical principle on which operas should be composed, and appealed to the nerves and the ephemeral emotions of his public, rather than to its heart or its intelligence, for its plaudits. The immense vogue he has won, not only in his own country but in every land where a taste for opera is cultivated, shows that this form of appeal was not made in vain. Nevertheless, the twenty-seven operas which form the great bulk of his musical life-work, in spite of their wealth and variety of melody, the extraordinary resources of invention they exemplify in their composer, and the fluent skill exhibited by him in saying the same thing in an infinite number of ways, do not present anything of the highest order, even in their kind. Not one of these operas is great in the sense that Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Seviglia" is great, or in the sense that the first act and the meeting of the cantons in the same master's "William Tell" are great. There are beauties innumerable in them, but they do not lie deeper than the surface. They are affluent in inspiration of a certain order, but it is the inspiration of a prolific tune-maker, with an instinct for opera writing, and without any very high musicianship or any very sincere artistic feeling. More spontaneous, perhaps, than Meyerbeer, in the invention of melody, he has never risen to the height of the magnificent duet between Raoul and Valentine, in the fourth act of "Les Huguenots," and the fine trio in the last act of "Robert le Diable."
Rigoletto 1851 Quartetto Atto IIIFac-simile musical manuscript written by Verdi.
Fac-simile musical manuscript written by Verdi.
Fac-simile musical manuscript written by Verdi.
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We have said that Verdi was the logical outgrowth of Donizetti. It would be more exact to say that, up to the time that "Aïda" appeared, he continued to follow in the same path as that trodden by the composer of "Lucia." The latter, after all, had a certain originality, inasmuch as his operas were, in many distinctive ways, different from those of any of his predecessors; though it may, with some show of justice, be claimed that the "I Puritani" of Bellini provided him with his model. The difference between Bellini and Donizetti, however, is far greater than is that between Donizetti and Verdi, though there is a marked family resemblance between all three, as far as conventional forms are concerned. Until quite recently, however, these forms were the monotonous characteristics of Italian opera. In saying this we do not mean that the operas of this school are not in harmony with the views that have of late prevailed regarding the absurdity of this form or the propriety of that form of opera: in other words, that Italian opera, with itscabballettas, duets, quartets, and itsscenas, consisting of a recitative, an andante, and a brilliant allegro, its adherence to flowing melody and to tunefulness generally is wrong in principle, as opposed to that form of opera or music-drama advocated by Wagner and his followers, which, it is claimed, is more natural and more logical. When the characters in a drama, instead of speaking, resort to singing in order to express themselves, whether they do it according to the methods of Wagner or the methods of Verdi, the absurdity is equally great. Ortrud giving vent to her hate in song is no less untrue to nature than is Azucena. There is no more truth, no more logic, in the "endless melodies" of Wagner than there is in the regularly formed and terminable melodies of Verdi. The opera music of Wagner, when performed by an orchestra without the assistance of voices, says no more than does the music of Verdi given under the same conditions, except that the latter is more intelligible as music pure and simple. We do not intend to draw any comparison between the respective qualities of the music of these composers, but we insist that no one who hears the music of either master for the first time, as mere instrumental music, can tell what it is intended to express on the stage. Hence it is folly to urge that the opera music of any school expresses more than that of another. It is folly to speak of nature in connection with the emotions of love, hate, hope, despair, joy and woe, when sung by actors to the accompaniment of an orchestra. The only logic that can enter into so illogical a process is that which, having conceded that song may take the place of speech, concedes all the rest. The opera composer should not be judged by any other canon of art than that which he has followed in writing his work; and when Wagner's Tristan sings his love according to the composer's idea of musical and dramatic propriety, he is no less ridiculous,per se, than is Verdi's Ernani in the like situation. The composer who creates the precise impression that he strives to create by the music he places in the mouths of his characters is the composer who has made all that can be made of his art, whether he be Wagner or Verdi. It is not the way in which it is done, but it is the result achieved, that is to be considered. That the two masters will express the same sentiment by methods directly contrary is nothing to the point. The effect is all that is of importance, and it is in the power of nobody to prove that the one method is right and the other wrong, or to impress greater propriety on the one than on the other, except arbitrarily and irresponsibly.
Verdi's reputation began to spread after "Nabucco"; it increased with "I Lombardi" and was established firmly by "Ernani." In all these works, affluence of melody and rhythmical variety are conspicuous. In none of them is there any profound musicianship. They suggest brilliant improvisation rather than deep thought. In certain portions of the scores of "I Lombardi" and "Ernani" there is vigorous dramatic color, but it is of the perfunctory type made familiar by Donizetti. The orchestration is conventional, and orchestral color is rarely sought except by violent contrasts. The overture to "Nabucco" is one of the few works in this kind that the composer has attempted. It is made up of melodies from the opera, put together with no special skill, and, though effective after a noisy fashion, is of no musical value. It is the best of his overtures, but in common with the others, is wholly barren of thematic development. In this purely instrumental branch of his art he has written nothing as good as Donizetti's overture to "La Fille du Regiment," in respect to form, instrumentation, and musicianship generally. His overtures to "Giovanna d'Arco," "Les Vêpres Sicilliennes," "Aroldo" and "La Forza del Destino," though tuneful and effective in their way, are without any merit on which we need dwell.
BUST OF VERDI.From a photograph at the Paris Opera Library.
BUST OF VERDI.From a photograph at the Paris Opera Library.
BUST OF VERDI.
From a photograph at the Paris Opera Library.
Verdi did not attain to fame without meeting with opposition. It was claimed that he was over-noisy, a charge not wholly without foundation, notably in his "I Due Foscari" which succeeded "Ernani," and in which the predominance of the brass wind instruments, a novelty then, was almost overpowering. Then, too, it was charged that his music, if it should be sung much, would ruin the voices of the singers, so addicted was he to write for them in their highest register. It was not until "Rigoletto" appeared that his instrumentation showed any marked care, or that he seemed to be impressed by the variety of effects that could be produced by a judicious use of the wood wind. In Gilda's air,Caro nomo, the scoring is delightful in its grace, delicacy and charmingly contrasted coloring. In the last act of this opera, too, is the famous quartet, in which are so felicitously mingled impassioned love, mirth, suspense and vengefulness,—the best thing in its kind that had appeared since the sextet in "Lucia" and the trio in "Lucrezia Borgia," and which was soon to be followed by the more popular but less artisticMisererein "Il Trovatore." It is true that he had written the stirring and effectiveCarlo Magnofinale to one of the acts of his "Ernani," and that it attained to immense popular favor; but the "Rigoletto" quartet is the most brilliant and most musicianly of all his efforts in its kind. "Rigoletto," which was composed in forty days, has outlived the sixteen operas that preceded it, and its wealth of melody and its powerful dramatic effects, cause it to be listened to still with much of the pleasure and interest that attended its first production forty-two years ago. It is one of the works in which the composer will live.
In "Il Trovatore" Verdi made another stride in advance. During the two years that passed between the production of "Rigoletto" and that of "Il Trovatore," a great change had taken place in his style. There is observable in the score of the later opera a larger variety in his harmonies, and the basses move more independently and more fluently. The accompaniments are less perfunctory, and are given a more artistic taste than that of merely emphasizing the rhythms in a conventional way. The instrumentation is richer, the parts often move more freely, and the general effect is more serious and impressive; while the varieties of tone-color are more affluent than in any of the composer's earlier scores. In other respects, notwithstanding the popularity of the opera, we do not think it is superior to "Rigoletto." On the contrary, it seems to us to lack something of the artistic dignity that pertains to its immediate predecessor. It is overfull of mere tune-making that does not fairly echo the dramatic sentiment of the situations on which it is expended. In "Rigoletto," Verdi seems to have escaped wholly from the influence of Donizetti. In "Il Trovatore" the methods of Donizetti are constantly recalled, and the opera seems cast in the same mould as "Lucrezia Borgia." The music given to Azucena, graceful and ear-pleasing as it is, for the most part appears trivial and frivolous when it is considered in relation to the passion it is intended to emphasize. Still, forty years after its birth it remains one of the most popular operas on the stage, even in Germany. "La Traviata" overflows with exquisite melodies, but here the composer has been more successful in wedding sound to sense. His theme was sentimental rather than dramatic, and the sensuous tunes harmonized well with the spirit of the text. Elegance, refinement and warmth of style characterize the score throughout, and the proprieties are not violated except in the vulgar air,Di provenza, the music of which, to say nothing of its reiteration of the same rhythmical phrase bar after bar, is ridiculously inappropriate to the sentiment of the situation. "Les Vêpres Sicilliennes" showed no further change in the composer's methods, and the same may be said of "Un ballo in Maschera," "La Forza del Destino" and "Don Carlos." There are fine dramatic and instrumental moments in all these works, but in none of them is there any advance beyond "Rigoletto." Moreover, there are many lapses back to the composer's "Ernani" period. He was not yet able or willing to break wholly with the past. It is true that he continued to give more and more care to those portions of his score that dealt with the action of the drama, instead of bestowing attention on the composition of catching melodies andensembles, to the neglect of the intermediate parts. In his "Simon Boccanegra," however, which succeeded "Les Vêpres Sicilliennes," he gave the first impressive indication of his sympathy with the more modern school of opera that existed outside of Italy; and inthis work he essayed a more declamatory recitative, a deeper regard for tone-color, and a more serious devotion to the dramatic sentiment of the scene and action, and less to the mere formal aria. In other words, Verdi became, to some extent, a revolutionist in his art, and was the first Italian master to recognize what was going on in the world of opera beyond the confines of his own country. The work in which this cry of progress was sounded met with complete failure, and for a time he returned to the old order of things, or else approached the new with faint-heartedness. When, after four years' silence, he was heard again, he was boldly and unequivocally an advocate of the new movement, as "Aïda" amply testifies. Here he abandons, for good and all, the conventional forms to which he had so long adhered. He has considered his libretto as a whole, and not as so many opportunities for tune-making; he has attempted to maintain a proper and uniform local color—has tried to create the impression of an unbroken and self-consistent dramatic entirety; he has essayed to impart as much interest to the recitatives, and to the more declamatory aspects of his score, as to the more purely melodious. The melody flows on with the familiar fluency, but it is tempered by dignity. The orchestra looms into primary importance as part of a logical whole, instead of remaining the mere accompaniment, more or less artistic, that it is in the composer's other scores. It is Verdi still, but a Verdi matured in style and fully ripened in artistic judgment,—a Verdi thoroughly awake, for the first time, to the fact that the horizon of art is bounded only by the height from which it is viewed.
CARICATURE OF VERDI BY DANTAN.From the Carnavalet Museum, Paris.
CARICATURE OF VERDI BY DANTAN.From the Carnavalet Museum, Paris.
CARICATURE OF VERDI BY DANTAN.
From the Carnavalet Museum, Paris.
In "Aïda" there is little that can be detached from its stage surroundings without loss of effect. That Verdi was satisfied with the results achieved by him in this opera is evidenced by his revision and rewriting of "Simon Boccanegra," in which the earlier melodies are retained, but in which the dramatic portions of the score are deepened and intensified, and made even more impressive than were the like features in the score of "Aïda." His "Othello," if not a still further step in advance, maintains to the full the position now assumed by the master. It is interesting to compare his treatment of the tragedy with that of his predecessor, Rossini. In all that pertains to dignity, sympathy with the spirit of the poem, seriousness of style and sincerity of art, the advantage lies wholly with the modern composer. Rossini's "Othello," however, emphasized an epoch in serious opera, for it is the first opera written throughout inrecitativo strumentoto the exclusion of the customaryrecitativo secco.
"Othello" exemplified that Verdi's conversion to the methods of modern musical thought was complete. The spectacle of a composer whose fame is established, whose labors have met with a substantial return that has placed him beyond the need of further toil, who has reached an age at which most artistic careers have closed, beginning as it were,de novo, is a rare one. That he said anything in his more recent operas that he had not already said is doubtful; his methods of thought remained unchanged, but the language in which he uttered them was more refined and more dignified. He was, however, to make a still greater departure from his past; and it was accomplished in his "Falstaff," in which at fourscore he was to show himself a modern of moderns. The progress was astonishing: but after all, it only emphasized one of the composer's familiar sayings, "If you want the new in art, you must return to the old"; for he has gone back to the fundamental principles of opera as enunciated by Gluck. There is here a wholesaleabandoning of the formal divisions in opera. Complexity has given way to simplicity. The music harmonizes with the characteristic spirit of the text; the melodies are brief; recitative is sparingly used, and musical declamation makes up the greater portion of the score. The orchestra no longer follows, but has risen to equal importance with the voice, and lends its own appropriate color and accent to the illustration and enforcement of the sentiment of the text. Graceful and exquisite tunefulness is maintained, but it falls into its proper place and continues no longer than it justly expresses the sentiment of the situation. There is a beautiful balance between the voices and the orchestra, and though the instrumentation is strikingly modern, it is free from the restless and wearying Wagnerian polyphony and excess of tone-color. Part-writing, an essential to which little attention has been paid by Italian composers of opera, comes into unusual though not brilliant prominence, and always with delightful effect. The scoring is never overloaded; the right touch always comes in the right place; and every change of color has its special meaning as a strengthening of the emotion of the moment, as indicated by the stage action. In brief, the latest work of the composer is his most masterly, musically considered; and what is most astonishing is, that it suggests nothing of its creator's age, except the experience, the mellowness, and the enlarged art feeling that have come with it. And yet it is more important as a manifestation of the composer's capacity to receive and to adopt new impressions in his extreme old age, than it is as a work of art. In other words, its value is of a personal rather than of a general nature, and Verdi remains to the end a great opera composer of world-wide popularity, who has exercised no influence and made no impression on the art of which he is so brilliant a representative.
In closing this estimate of Verdi as a composer of opera, we may add that even in his most absolute departure from the traditions of Italian opera, as he found them, he has remained essentially Italian. It has been argued that in his later works he falls under the sway of Wagner; but this, we think, would be difficult to demonstrate. He may not have remained uninfluenced by the German master's theories regarding the character of opera librettos, but musically, he is always a true son of his native land. His younger Italian contemporaries have far outrun him as reformers. From present indications it would appear that Verdi is destined to be the last of the long line of Italian opera composers whose theories were those of the old school, more or less modified in respect to style or fashion, as time passed. He has had no imitators and he will leave no disciples. In this he will also be singular, for from the dawn of opera to the present time every great composer of Italian opera has left behind him a survivor who has followed in his footsteps—at least until he has found out an individual path for himself. From the era when Nicolo Logroscino invented the concertedfinalefor comic opera, and it was first extended to serious opera by Pasiello, Italian serious opera began to break away from its earlier rigid form and to congeal into that which prevailed down to the period when the reform, with which we have just dealt, gave to it a death blow. From Pasiello and Piccinni, composer after composer appeared, each succeeding one overlapping his immediate predecessor and carrying the development of the school a step farther. Cimarosa followed Piccinni in this way, and was in turn followed by Rossini, who was succeeded by Mercadante, Pacini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi. Here, as we have already observed, the line abruptly ends, and not with the greatest of the brilliant group. Which, if any, of Verdi's operas will survive it is difficult to predict, but we think that "Rigoletto" has the best chance; but none of them is destined to the immortality of "La Serva Padrona," "Il Matrimonio Segreto," "La Sonnambula" and "Il Barbiere di Siviglia."
It only remains for us to consider Verdi's Requiem, a work that has been praised with as much enthusiasm as it has been condemned with acrimony. Dr. Hans von Bülow, speaking for one school of criticism, and with no very great discretion, asserted this composition to be a "monstrosity" that would do no credit to an ordinary pupil of any music school in Germany. It is possible that Dr. von Bülow viewed the work from a purely pedagogic standpoint and with special reference to transgressions of musical grammar. In matters of this kind much depends on the esteem in which the composer holds arbitrary rules, and on his right to heed or to disobey them as he may see fit. Much, too, depends on the standpoint, prejudiced or otherwise, from which the critic considersthe work. An ordinary pupil of any music school in Germany may or may not be able to write more correctly than Verdi has written in numerous places in this Requiem, but there is more in music than a strict observance of the rules of musical grammar; and it is in no need of demonstration that it is beyond the power of any ordinary pupil in any music school to write music of so high an order. In fact, be the work what it may, it has not been equalled in its kind by any contemporary graduates of one of the schools to which Dr. von Bülow refers. Another fault that has been found with this work is that it is not sacred in character. Reduced to its simplest terms this charge means that Verdi's Requiem is not conceived in the same spirit that Bach conceived his "Matthew-Passion" and Handel his "Messiah." This, in turn, indicates a belief that it is compulsory on a warm-blooded and highly emotional Italian to appeal to God in the mood that is favored of the more stolid and less impulsive German. The mere matter of difference in temperament makes it impossible to institute a comparison between the sacred music of Verdi and that of Bach and Handel. Then, too, there is overmuch of cant in perfunctory discussion of what is and what is not sacred in music; and after all, the words to which the music is composed would seem to have more to do with the matter than does the music itself. Considered in the abstract, it is no more reasonable to argue that Bach's music is essentially religious than it would be to argue that Verdi's is not. The argument must be decided, in either case, on arbitrary principles and according to the prejudices of those who participate in it. It would not be easy to define exactly in what the religious element of so-called sacred music is apparent, whether such music be of German or of Italian origin. It is beyond all contradiction that Handel utilized many of his Italian opera airs for his oratorios, and that what began by being profane ended by becoming serious. These airs were none the more profane for their operatic origin, and none the more sacred for their transferences to oratorio. The English and German speaking races have accepted Bach and Handel as the noblest exponents of what is understood by them as the religious sentiment in music; but that acceptance does not make a law for the Latin races,—for the Italians, the Spaniards and the French. Of the unequalled genius of Bach and of Handel, and of the large nobility of their music, there cannot be two opinions; but they wrote after the fashion of their day, and the musical style they adopted was not chosen because it was abstractly religious in character, but because it was the only style they knew, and it was the style common to the stage and the church, save that when adapted to the latter it was more contrapuntal in treatment. That choral fugues, single or double, strict or free, are radically or essentially religious in feeling, still remains to be proved. No man and no body of men are entitled to decide dogmatically that this or that style is the only one appropriate for sacred music. If Handel can be permitted to take airs written for purely dramatic works, and in what was then considered a purely dramatic spirit, by the most dramatic composer of his time, and use them for sacred works, why shall Verdi be condemned for composing his Requiem in a dramatic spirit, at first hand? It may be argued that Palestrina, among Italians, set the pattern for a dignified and undramatic style of church music; but it can also be urged, and with justice, that the music which Palestrina set to solemn words differed in no wise from the madrigals he composed to words of far other import. In judging Verdi's Requiem, as in judging other works of art ably and conscientiously made, we should try to look at it from the composer's point of view. In the abstract, there is nothing more suggestively sacred in the music ofI know that my Redeemer liveth, than there is in that ofHome, Sweet Home. The text makes the only difference. The foundation of the art and science of music is wholly arbitrary, but the laws of the school stop at the point at which the individuality and the imagination of the master composer begin to manifest themselves.
Verdi's Requiem is conceived in a spirit wholly antipodal to that in which Bach and Handel conceived their works. His, however, is the spirit of his time and nation, as was also theirs. Those who have accepted the "Matthew-Passion" as the culmination of what music can achieve in religion, condemn this Requiem as theatrical, maintaining that its melodies are constantly suggestive of opera and its more vigorously dramatic moments of stage effect; but the composer does not view it in the same way. He has written as an Italian Roman Catholic of to-day felt inspiredto write, and has made no pretence of attempting to write as a German Lutheran wrote over one hundred and fifty years ago. That the work is one of great power in its way, and often reaches a high point of impressiveness, has never been denied. Whether it is religious music or not cannot be determined except according to the prejudices of those who believe, on the one hand, that it is, and of those who believe, on the other, that it is not. Verdi and the majority of his countrymen are of the former opinion, and there is no universally received principle of musical art that can be brought forward to prove that they are in error. It is an argument that must be settled on either side by race partialities. Moreover, at what point a composer shall be checked in interpreting his text as he best understands it, cannot be easily decided. The Requiem was written to do honor to the memory of Verdi's friend, Manzoni, and that the composer acquitted himself of his task in a spirit of sincerity, both devotional and artistic, admits of no doubt. It is an Italian Requiem, and was so intended to be; and, therefore, it is useless, and something more, to find fault with it because it is not German. Its ultimate fate will not be decided by the critics, but will rest on the success or the failure of the appeal it makes to posterity. Verdi, though he has left no permanent mark on his art, has been the most popular opera composer of his time, and his extraordinary musical growth toward the close of his career indicates that there was in him a capacity for far higher work than he achieved. It is to be regretted that he did not sooner fall into line with the musical spirit of the age; nevertheless, he has made an honorable and dignified name in his art, and one that must always be mentioned with veneration.
B E Woolf
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MUSIC IN ITALY
TOWARD the end of the Middle Ages, the morning of a new and powerful intellectual life began to dawn. Renewed industry and commerce created wealth. In large and flourishing cities, the sense of liberty and of independence from the pressure of feudal rule united citizens in powerful corporations.
With wealth and liberty, literature, art and science found a favorable field in which to fructify.
From Italy the new light spread over the other European countries. The Italians, everywhere surrounded by the sublime remains of Greek and Roman art, recovered first from the lethargy and confusion, caused by the great immigration of Northern nations. In Bologna, Pisa, Padua, Parma, Naples and other cities, universities and high schools were founded, where it is said, thousands of students from all countries flocked to listen to the teaching of great masters; and in this rich, inspiring and varied spectacle, Dante was the noble central figure.
The development of music, in Italy, kept pace with that of literature, and its first emanations were based on the music of ancient Greece, so far as its few surviving musical hymns could be deciphered.
Greece disappeared as a nation after the Roman conquest, and its music vanished at the same time. The musical revival was an entirely new departure which dated from the appearance of the early Christian converts at Rome, during the time of the Apostles. These neophytes tried to introduce the old tunes which they had heard in the holy city. But such strange melodies could not, of course, find ready adoption, and they were suppressed during the general persecutions. They were, it is true, used in the worship which was secretly carried on in the catacombs. Here they survived, transmitted from generation to generation by oral communication only, during the three centuries that preceded the formal recognition of Christianity by the state.
As text and music were greatly corrupted through such transmission, Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan, made, about the year 384, a collection of the sacred tunes then in use, trying to restore them to their original form; and he appended to the collection a code of technical laws, in order to prevent future corruptions of the music. Saint Gregory the Great made many additions (590 A. D.) to the work of Saint Ambrose, and at the same time tried to establish more comprehensive musical laws. He was the first to revive, in their completeness, the eight modes used by the Greeks, and which supplanted the four used in the time of Saint Ambrose. The collection of Gregory included, also, many new tunes and hymns, together with music to the antiphones for the entire ecclesiastical year. All this he gave in an improved mode of musical notation (Semiography), and he called this new collection "Antiphonar."
The next stage in musical development was the important work of Guido of Arezzo (1030), a Benedictine monk of Pomposa, who wrote voluminously on musical theory and on the condition of the music of his time. It has been the rule with historians of music to attribute to Guido many discoveries which were doubtless made by other monks. Thus, he is credited with the invention of counterpoint, solmisation, the staff, the hexachord, the harmonic or Guidonian hand (see page 137), and the monochord. It is doubtful if research will ever be able to establish with accuracy exactly what we owe to Guido, but it is certain that he invented solmisation, by applying to the diatonic scale certain syllables of a hymn dedicated to John the Baptist, and they introduced new light and greater facility into the study of music. The modification of Guido's solmisation by the substitution of the more vocal syllable "do" for "ut," has been generally adopted; but the French, whose u is, by nature, sufficiently vocal, have not felt the need of this change.
In the early middle ages the entire study and teaching of science and art, so far as it is known, was in the hands of the monks. They did their utmost to maintain a clear distinction between learned and popular music. Thus it happened that the folk-song, the utterance of the people, had its own line of development. The earliest attempts in writing learned music date from the time of Hucbald, a Benedictine monk of Flanders (840-930 A. D.) and of the staunchest of his followers, Jean Perotin; but Hucbald was not the inventor of counterpoint. The principle of imitation and the foundations of canon and fugue, were laid in Northern Europe; the first great school of composition was established in the Netherlands. Elsewhere in this work will be found a systematic and full treatment of this period. We need therefore only direct attention to that essay on the subject, which establishes the chronological connection of the Netherland masters with the great era of ecclesiastical music at Rome.
The first Roman school owes its salient characteristics to the marked preference accorded Flemish singers in the choir of the Sistine Chapel, at Rome. The founder of the school was the Belgian, Constanzo Festa, who obtained a place in the choir, in 1516. His compositions and those of his pupils show distinct traces of the influence of the successors of Josquin des Près, but they possess sufficient individuality to prove the existence of innate genius of a very high order. Festa is believed to have been the first Italian composer who became a thorough master in counterpoint. But his Netherland tendencies did not prevent his foreshadowing that tenderness, purity and simplicity which distinguished the works of the great Italian masters who followed him.
The golden age of ecclesiastical music begins to dawn with the second Roman school and the appearance of Giovanni Pierluigi Sante Palestrina, one of the greatest and most original geniuses the world of art ever produced.
Numerous changes had taken place in musical style up to the time of Palestrina's appearance. When the rude forms of discant and organum, practiced by Hucbald and Guido of Arezzo, had been abandoned in consequence of the invention of counterpoint, the composers of the time, following the course of development already indicated, struck out in an entirely new art-form, called fugue. There were two kinds of fugue,—the free or unlimited, and the strict or limited. Both kinds still exist, but not under the same names. The former is now called real fugue, to distinguish it from modern deviations from the classical model. The latter kind we now call canon.
In earlier times the polyphonic styles, as well as the secular and ecclesiastic, had each enjoyed a separate existence and undergone a separate development; but the work of the Flemish masters did much to counteract these natural tendencies, and to bring, as it were, all musical grist to one mill. These writers not only made use of secular tunes, in order, as they thought, to give more variety to their music, but they often gave these tunes undue prominence, and thus rendered impossible a really artistic performance. We meet with innumerable masses based on secular themes, such as the first line of a well-known romance. "L'homme armé," for instance, a very popular song of the period, was thus used. It would be wrong, however, to attribute any irreverence to these composers. They were merely following the promptings of laudable and genuine artistic feelings, in employing that which should readily appeal to the musical sense of their listeners. Nor are we without examples of similar practices in other arts. In the works of the old Flemish painters, for instance, not only do we see anachronisms in their "Nativities," their "Marriages at Cana" or their "Festivals of Simon of Bethany," but the scene is laid in some well known inn; we find in the background a faithful copy of kitchen utensils of every description; and through an open door we descry the familiar face of a tradesman, or the portrait of the stout and coarse-looking innkeeper. It was a sign of the times, and no one dreamed of censuring the artist who thus worked. Those great painters threw on their canvas what they saw in every day life, never thinking that it should be otherwise; and the composers did likewise in their art. They used in an elaborate way the melodies most frequently heard; but in the course of time this manner of writing had disgraceful consequences. Musical degeneracy became so great and so general that it could only be termed musical debauchery. It was against absurdities such as these that the Council of Trent protested.
Pope Pius IV., having made thorough investigation, came to the conclusion that the style ofmusic generally cultivated was open to serious objections. It was in 1564 that he convened a commission of cardinals to consider the evil and to prescribe a remedy. This commission was inclined to banish from the church all music except unisons and unaccompanied plain chant; but it was decided, before issuing such a far-reaching decree, to canvass the possibilities of introducing "modern" music which should be free from frivolity. After much deliberation, they commissioned Palestrina to write a mass in the purest attainable church style. The result of their bidding was the composition of the Missa Papæ Marcelli. The success of this remarkable work far exceeded the high expectations that it had aroused. The Pope himself was present at the first performance in the Sistine Chapel, June 19, 1565. So moved was he by the work that, on leaving the church, he exclaimed: "This certainly must have been the harmony of the New Song which the apostle John heard sung in the heavenly Jerusalem, and of which this other John (Palestrina) has given us a foretaste in the Jerusalem on earth." And so it was formally determined that this mass should stand as a model for all church music thereafter to be composed.