III.
Verdi is the most nervous, theatric, sensuous composer of the present century. Measured by the highest standard, his style must be criticised as often spasmodic, tawdry, and meretricious. He instinctively adopts a bold and eccentric treatment of musical themes; and, though there are always to be found stirring movements in his scores as well as in his opera stories, he constantly offends refined taste by sensation and violence.
With a redundancy of melody, too often of the cheap and shallow kind, he rarely fails to please the masses of opera-goers, for his works enjoy a popularity not shared at present by any other composer. In Verdi a sudden blaze of song, brief spirited airs, duets, trios, etc., take the place of the elaborate and beautiful music, chiselled into order and symmetry, which characterises most of the great composers of the past. Energy of immediate impression is thus gained at the expense of that deep, lingering power, full of the subtile side-lights and shadows of suggestion, which is the crowning benison of great music. He stuns the ear and captivates the senses, but does not subdue the soul.
Yet, despite the grievous faults of these operas, they blaze with gems, and we catch here and there true swallow-flights of genius, that the noblest would not disown. With all his puerilities there is a mixture of grandeur. There are passages in “Ernani,” “Rigoletto,” “Traviata,” “Trovatore,” and “Aida,” so strong and dignified, that it provokes a wonder that one with such capacity for greatness should often descend into such bathos.
To better illustrate the false art which mars so much of Verdi’s dramatic method, a comparison between his “Rigoletto,” so often claimed as his best work, and Rossini’s “Otello” will be opportune. The air sung by Gilda in the “Rigoletto,” when she retires to sleep on the eve of the outrage, is an empty, sentimental yawn; and in the quartet of the last act, a noble dramatic opportunity, she ejects a chain of disconnected, unmusical sobs, as offensive as Violetta’s consumptive cough. Desdemona’s agitated air, on the other hand, under Rossini’s treatment, though broken short in the vocal phrase, is magnificently sustained by the orchestra, and a genuine passion is made consistently musical; and then the wonderful burst of bravura, where despair and resolution run riot without violating the bounds of strict beauty in music—these are master-strokes of genius restrained by art.
In Verdi, passion too often misses intensity and becomes hysterical. He lacks the elements of tenderness and humour, but is frequently picturesque and charming by his warmth and boldness of colour. His attempts to express the gay and mirthful, as for instance in the masquerade music of “Traviata” and the dance music of “Rigoletto,” are dreary, ghastly, and saddening; while his ideas of tenderness are apt to take the form of mere sentimentality. Yet generalities fail in describing him, for occasionally he attains effects strong in their pathos, and artistically admirable; as, for example, the slow air for the heroine, and the dreamy song for the gipsy mother in the last act of “Trovatore.” An artist who thus contradicts himself is a perplexing problem, but we must judge him by the habitual, not the occasional.
Verdi is always thoroughly in earnest, never frivolous. He walks on stilts indeed, instead of treading the ground or cleaving the air, but is never timid or tame in aim or execution. If he cannot stir the emotions of the soul he subdues and absorbs the attention against even the dictates of the better taste; while genuine beauties gleaming through picturesque rubbish often repay the true musician for what he has undergone.
So far this composer has been essentially representative of melodramatic music, with all the faults and virtues of such a style. In “Aida,” his last work, the world remarked a striking change. The noble orchestration, the power and beauty of the choruses, the sustained dignity of treatment, the seriousness and pathos of the whole work, reveal how deeply new purposes and methods have been fermenting in the composer’s development. Yet in the very prime of his powers, though no longer young, his next work ought to settle the value of the hopes raised by the last.
Note by the Editor.—In 1874 Verdi composed his “Requiem Mass.” It is written in a popular style, and received unanimous praise from the Italian critics, and as thorough condemnation from those of Germany, in particular from Herr Hans von Bülow, the celebrated pianist. It was chance which induced the composer to attempt sacred music. On the death of Rossini, Verdi suggested that a “Requiem” should be written in memory of the dead master, by thirteen Italian composers in combination, and that the mass should be performed on every hundredth anniversary of the death in the cathedral of Bologna. The attempt naturally proved a complete failure, owing to the impossibility of unity in the method of such a composition. On the death, however, of Alessandro Manzoni at Milan, Verdi wrote for the anniversary of the great man’s death a Requiem, into which he incorporated the movement Libera me which he had previously written for the Rossini Requiem.
In 1881 “Simon Boccanegra” was performed at Milan, with very partial success. It was a revival of an opera Verdi had written ten years previously, but which had failed owing to a confused libretto and a bad interpretation. It, however, in its present form, falls short in merit when compared with the composer’s finest operas—“Rigoletto,” “Il Trovatore,” and “Aida.”
Verdi’s last work, “Otello,” has been brought out since this volume went to press; its brilliant success at the theatre of La Scala, Milan, on the 5th of February, is a matter of such recent date that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon it at present. Verdi has accepted an invitation from the managers of the Grand Opera at Paris to produce “Otello” at their theatre in the course of the year; the libretto will be translated by M. du Loche, and a ballet will be introduced in the second act, according to the traditions of the French opera. In all probability it will also be performed in London, but as yet no public intimation on the subject has been made.
It is of course impossible at present for any definite decision to be pronounced on the merits of this latest work compared with the composer’s other operas; the few following facts, however, concerning “Otello,” excerpted from the reports of the musical critics of our leading journals, may prove of interest.
Verdi was first induced to undertake the composition of “Otello” on the occasion of the performance of his “Messa da Requiem,” at the Scala, for the benefit of the sufferers by the inundations at Ferrara. The next day he gave a dinner to the four principal solo singers, at which were present several friends, among them Signor Faccio and Signor Ricordi. The latter laid siege to the maestro, trying to persuade him to undertake a new work. For a long time Verdi resisted, and his wife declared that probably only a Shakespearian subject could induce him to take up his pen again. A few hours later Faccio and Ricordi went to Boïto, who at once agreed to make the third in the generous conspiracy, and two days after sent to Verdi a complete sketch of the plan for the opera, following strictly the Shakespearian tragedy. Verdi approved of the sketch, and from that moment it fell to the part of Giulia Ricordi to urge on the composer and the poet by constant reminders. Every Christmas he sent to Verdi’s house an “Othello” formed of chocolate, which, at first very small, grew larger as the opera progressed.
Rossini’s famous opera on the same subject, in which Pasta and Malibran won renown in their day, was produced in Naples in the autumn of 1816. How it impressed Lord Byron, who saw it in Venice soon afterwards, we learn from an amusing postscript to his letter to Samuel Rogers, wherein he says:—“They have been crucifying ‘Othello’ into an opera; the music good but lugubrious; but as for the words—all the real scenes with Iago cut out and the greatest nonsense instead. The handkerchief turned into a billet-doux, and the first singer would not black his face, for some exquisite reason assigned in the preface.” In this curiously maimed and mangled version, Roderigo became of far more importance than the Moor’s crafty lieutenant. Odder still was the modified French version played in 1823, when the leading tenor, David, thinking the final duet with Desdemona unsuited to his voice, substituted the soft and pretty duet, “Amor, possente nume,” from Rossini’s later opera “Armida.” A contemporary French critic, who witnessed this curious performance, observes—“As it was impossible to kill Desdemona to such a tune, the Moor, after giving way to the most violent jealousy, sheathed his dagger, and began the duet in the most tender and graceful manner; after which he took Desdemona politely by the hand and retired, amidst the applause and bravos of the public, who seemed to think it quite natural that the piece should finish in this fashion.”
Verdi, with that healthy horror of tiring the public which has always distinguished him, declined Signor Boïto’s proposal to treat the subject in five acts; and, Shakespeare’s introductory act being discarded, the first act of the opera corresponds with the second act of the tragedy. After that the musical drama marches scene by scene, and situation by situation, on parallel lines with the play, with this important exception only—namely, that the “Willow Song,” as in Rossini’s opera, is transferred from the last act but one to the last act. There are no symphonic pieces in “Otello,” unless the brief orchestral presentation of the “Willow Song” before the fourth act can be so considered. The work is a drama set to music, in which there are no repetitions, no detached or detachable airs written specially for the singers, no passages of display, nothing whatever in the way of music but what is absolutely necessary for the elucidation of the piece. The influence of Wagner is perceptible here and there, but there are no leading motives, and the general style is that of Verdi at his best, as in “Aida.”
“It is well for the Italians that, in hailing Verdi as a great man of genius, they are not honouring one who moves the profane world to compassion, scarcely distinguished from contempt, by weakness of character. His work is so good throughout, so full of method, so complete, because his nature is complete and his life methodical; for the same reason, no doubt, he has preserved to a ripe old age all the essential qualities of the genius of his manhood. The leaves that remain on the Autumnal trees are yet green, and the birds still sing among them. ‘Otello’ itself will, in some form or other, soon be heard in London; and it is pleasant to think that the subject is taken from one of the greatest works of the greatest of all literary Englishmen. The theme is noble, and so, apparently, is the treatment. Nor should we forget that so distinguished a composer as Signor Boïto has not disdained, nay, has elected, to compose the libretto for the old maestro. That is a form and sample of co-operation we can all admire. Will Italy One and Free continue to produce great and original musicians? Verdi is the product of other and more melancholy times. Be that as it may, better national freedom, civil activity, and personal dignity, than all the operas that were ever written.”