The Raymond Overture is even more popular than that to Mignon. Raymond was first performed at the Opéra-Comique on June 5, 1851. The overture opens with a spirited section punctuated with dashing chords. A serene transition, highlighted by a passage for solo cello, brings on a light, tuneful air in the violins against sharply accented plucked strings; a graceful countermelody for the woodwind follows. This appealing material is repeated at some length with embellishments and amplifications until a new thought is asserted: a brisk, march-like melody that slowly gains in sonority and tempo until a climactic point is reached in which this march melody is forcefully given by the full orchestra. The strings then offer a sentimental melody by way of temporary relief. But the overture ends in a dramatic and spirited mood with a finale statement of the march tune.
Enrico Toselli
Enrico Toselli was born in Florence, Italy, on March 13, 1883. After studying with Sgambati and Martucci, Toselli toured Italy as a concert pianist. But he achieved renown not on the concert stage but with the writing of several romantic songs. One of these is the “Serenata,” No. 1, op. 6, through which his name survives. He also wrote some orchestral music and an operetta, La Principessa bizzarra (1913) whose libretto was the work of the former Crown Princess Luisa of Saxony whom he married in 1907 thereby creating an international sensation. Toselli died in Florence, Italy, on January 15, 1926.
The “Serenata” (“Rimpianto”) with Italian words by Alfred Silvestri and English lyrics by Sigmund Spaeth was published in the United States in 1923. This romantic, sentimental, Italian melody, as well loved in this country as in Europe, was for many years used by Gertrude Berg as the theme music for her radio and television program, The Goldbergs. It was also used as the theme music for an early talking picture, The Magic Flame, in which Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky were starred.
Sir Paolo Tosti
Sir Francesco Paolo Tosti, one of Italy’s best known song composers, was born in Ortona sul Mare, Abruzzi, Italy, on April 9, 1846. His musical education took place at the Royal College of San Pietro a Maiella in Naples. He left Naples in 1869 after serving for a while as teacher of music. Returning to his native city he now initiated his career as a composer of songs. Though a few of these early efforts became popular he failed for a long time to find a publisher. Success first came to him in Rome at a song recital in which he featured some of his own compositions. He scored an even greater success as singer-composer in London in 1875. He now settled permanently in London, serving as a singing master to the royal family, and as professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1908 he was knighted. In 1913 he returned to his native land. He died in Rome on December 2, 1916.
Tosti had a remarkable lyric gift that was Italian to its very core in the ease, fluidity, and singableness of his melodies. This talent was combined with an elegant style and a sincere emotion. His best songs are among the most popular to emerge from Italy. The most famous and the most moving emotionally is without question “Addio” (“Goodbye, Forever”). Almost as popular and appealing are “Ideale” (“My Ideal”), “Marechiare,” “Mattinata,” “Segreto,” “La Serenata,” and “Vorrei morire.”
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi, the greatest of the Italian opera composers, was born in Le Roncole, Italy, on October 10, 1813. He demonstrated such unmistakable gifts for music in his boyhood that his townspeople created a fund to send him to the Milan Conservatory. In 1832 he appeared in Milan. Finding he was too old to gain admission to the Conservatory, he studied composition privately with Vincenzo Lavigna. For several years Verdi lived in Busseto where he conducted the Philharmonic Society and wrote his first opera, Oberto, produced in Milan in 1839. Now settled in Milan, he continued writing operas, achieving his first major success with Nabucco in 1842. During the next eight years he solidified his position as one of Italy’s best loved opera composers with several important works among which were Ernani (1844), Macbeth (1847) and Luisa Miller (1849). A new era began for Verdi in 1851 with Rigoletto, an era in which he became Italy’s greatest master of opera, and one of the foremost in the world. Il Trovatore and La Traviata came in 1853, to be followed by I Vespri Siciliani (1855), Simone Boccanegra (1857), Un ballo in maschera (1859), La Forza del destino (1862), and Aida (1871). Now a man of considerable wealth (as well as fame), Verdi bought a farm in Sant’ Agata where he henceforth spent his summers; after the completion of Aida, he lived there most of the time in comparative seclusion, tending to his crops, gardens, and live stock. When Cavour initiated the first Italian parliament, Verdi was elected deputy. But Verdi never liked politics, and soon withdrew from the political arena; however, in 1874, he accepted the honorary appointment of Senator from the King.
As a composer, Verdi remained silent for about fifteen years after Aida. By the time the world became reconciled to the fact that Verdi’s life work was over, he emerged from this long period of withdrawal to produce two operas now generally regarded as his crowning achievements: Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). During the last years of his life, Verdi lived in a Milan hotel. His sight and hearing began to deteriorate, and just before his death—in Milan on January 27, 1901—he suffered a paralytic stroke. His death was mourned by the entire nation. A quarter of a million mourners crowded the streets to watch his bier pass for its burial in the oratory of the Musicians Home in Milan—accompanied by the stately music of a chorus from Nabucco, conducted by Toscanini.