Verdi: The Great Composers
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About this ebook
Welcome to The Independent’s new ebook series The Great Composers, covering fourteen of the giants of Western classical music.
Extracted from Michael Steen’s book The Lives and Times of the Great Composers, these concise guides, selected by The Independent’s editorial team, explore the lives of composers as diverse as Mozart and Puccini, reaching from Bach to Brahms, set against the social, historical and political forces which affected them, to give a rounded portrait of what it was like to be alive and working as a musician at that time.
With Verdi, Italian opera reached its zenith, where music and drama are fused into an indissoluble whole. Although he wrote 28 operas, less than half remain regularly performed. Yet those which are remain a gold standard of characterisation, stagecraft and musical vocabulary. Rigoletto, La Traviata, Un Ballo in Maschera, Aïda – the roll call is long, but it is especially with his final two operas, Otello and Falstaff, that he becomes the unassailable master.
But it was not just the excellence of Verdi's artistry which propelled him to fame. Verdi was writing just as Italy was becoming increasingly resentful of Austria's domination, and there was a growing movement to unite the patchwork of territories of which Italy was composed at the time into a unified country. He became identified with the ambitions of reunification, and many of his operas, with their political subtexts, became rallying calls for the nationalists. Michael Steen unpicks how this most unsociable of men, a reluctant politician but a brilliant composer, became the figurehead for the birth of a nation.
Born into a modest background, Verdi, with his sound business sense, grew rich and famous; rich enough to ignore the scandalised disapproval of his neighbours at his living openly with his mistress for many years before marrying her. At his death 200,000 people lined the streets to bid farewell to their hero.
Read more from Michael Steen
Puccini's Madama Butterfly: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMozart's The Magic Flute: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMozart's Marriage of Figaro: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lives and Times of the Great Composers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMore Great Operas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreat Operas: A Guide to Twenty-Five of the World's Finest Musical Experiences Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Great Operas of Puccini Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPuccini's Tosca: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRossini's The Barber of Seville: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBizet's Carmen: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVerdi's Rigoletto: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBritten's Peter Grimes: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMozart's Don Giovanni: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWagner's Tristan und Isolde: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPuccini's La Bohème: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRossini's La Cenerentola: A Short Guide to a Great Opera Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Reviews for Verdi
10 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A very worthy book, although it's not really the kind of thing you'd read straight through; it's more of a reference text. Steen covers everything from historical and social contexts of the composers to the nitty-gritty of their daily lives.
I think some reviewers overreact to the idea that Steen is just being sensationalist: it's genuinely interesting to read about the more salacious aspects of these men's lives (very akin to 'The Twelve Caesars' in that sense), but he also approaches the stories from a musicologist and historical angle.
Steen's voice is sort of like an aged history teacher, trying to tell a story even if he often wanders off the point. I'm not sure you could read this reference-heavy text all the way through in one sitting, but it's a good starting point for someone with some music knowledge, interested in these stories. From here, you can peruse the endless footnotes for more expansive reading on any individual composer.