VERDI, GIUSEPPE. - Musician b. at Le Roncole near Busseto (Parma) on 10 Oct. 1813, d. at Milan on 27 Jan. 1901.
He received the first rudiments of music from the organist of his native village, Baistrocchi, whom he, at only 12 years of age, already ably replaced at the organ. To indulge his passion for music, his parents sent him at the age of 10 to Busseto, where a friend of his father, A. Bareszi, came to hold him dear and to help him; there little Giuseppe, while continuing to go on feast days to Le Roncole to play the organ in church and thus be able to help the family, ardently studied music with can. F. Provesi and Latin with can. Seletti. Failed in the entrance examination to the Milan Conservatory, he continued to study privately with maestro V. Lavigna, devoting himself to frequenting the opera, to transcribing pieces for the band and to conducting orchestral performances (among which should be remembered that of Haydn's oratorio The Creation). In 1836 he obtained the post of music master of the Commune and of the Monte di Pietà of Busseto, where he wrote his first opera Oberto conte di S. Bonifacio. Having lost his two children and his wife within the span of two years, he suffered a profound despondency, but his strong spirit recovered and with Nabucco (which drew inspiration from the pages of the Bible, whose reading from his youthful years had infused in his soul strong throbs of emotion) he began his true and glorious theatrical career.
In his long and industrious life he divided his time among Milan (1839-42), Florence, London, Paris, Rome,
Busseto, Genoa and the Villa of S. Agata (at Vidalenzo, near Busseto). Shortly after the death of his second wife Giuseppina Strepponi (1897), having gone to Milan to spend the Christmas holidays there, he died there of emiplegia. Besides the vast and immortal operatic activity that embraces some thirty masterpieces, from Oberto (1839) to Falstaff (1893), in which, if not the whole subject (such as Nabucco, I Lombardi, Giovanna d'Arco), stand out pieces of fervent religious impetus, such as the Ave Maria of the opera Otello and others, there should be remembered of him the sacred compositions which, although not of a liturgical character, express the yearning of his faith. First among all the Messa di Requiem, written in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, a mass in which psychological indeterminacy and a humanity moved by accents were noted. Alongside the too rigid academicism of form, in the too veristic search for dramatically expressive effects, accentuated by the use of wind instruments, there nevertheless stand the flowing melodic vein, the sweetness of the invocations and the tragic depiction of the drama of the judgment.
After this powerful work, the lesser sacred works will seem weaker, perhaps cold and a little mannered: the Pater Noster, on Dante's text, for 2 sopranos, contralto, tenor and bass, the Ave Maria, also in Dante's vernacular rendering, for soprano and strings, both performed at La Scala in 1880; the Stabat Mater, for 4-part chorus and orchestra, performed at the Paris Opera on 7 Apr. 1877. With the Stabat were collected the Ave Maria on an enigmatic harmonic scale, for 4 voices, the Laudi alla Vergine Maria on texts taken from the last canto of Dante's Paradiso, for 4 white voices, a Te Deum on an Ambrosian theme, for double chorus and orchestra, all pieces performed at the Paris Opera in 1898. The collection was printed under the title Quattro pezzi sacri.
Among the occasional compositions, it will be interesting to remember one of his last pages, the prayer Pietà, Signor, written for a single issue for the benefit of those harmed by the earthquake that on 16 Nov. 1894 had devastated Calabria and Sicily. A student of the great masters of the past, especially of Palestrina, he used to say... "it seems to me that the art of Palestrina and of Marcello is also a great art... and it is ours." "There is the beautiful, Christian art of the age of Palestrina... the true prince of sacred music and the eternal father of Italian music." "Let us return to the ancients: it will be a progress!" (v. R. Casimiri: G. V. e gli ideali ceciliani, in Boll. Ceciliano, 10 [1916], pp. 81-94).