GIUSEPPE VERDI
IUSEPPE VERDI, the last representative of the long line of Italian opera composers of the old school, was born Oct. 10, 1813, at Roncole, a little group of dwellings about three miles distant from Busseto, and occupied by some two hundred impoverished and ignorant laborers. His origin was very humble, his parents being poor and the keepers of an insignificant inn and also of a small shop where were dispensed sugar, coffee, pipes, tobacco and liquor. Of Verdi's earliest infancy little is known. His surroundings were miserable enough, and the atmosphere in which he lived was not of a nature to foster art aspirations. As a child he was sad and taciturn, and showed no inclination to indulge in those amusements that are so eagerly enjoyed by youngsters generally. He manifested at a tender age that fondness for music which has been so often chronicled in this work of the youth of those who afterwards became famous as composers. His only enthusiasm was when an organ-grinder passed through the village, for then he could not be kept at home, but would follow the ambulant music-maker from place to place. This is almost all that is current regarding his earliest musical taste, and it is by no means an evidence of any abnormal partiality for music, since it is not rare in children to be attracted by street music even when the player is not a pied piper of Hamelin to draw them after him by a magic spell. However, the child Verdi must have borne other testimony to his instinctive love of music, for when we next hear of him it is as the owner of a spinet, which, by the way, is still in the composer's possession. He was then seven years old. That a poor innkeeper should have squeezed from his scanty earnings sufficient to buy his son such an instrument must be received, in absence of other proof, as evidence that his musical gifts were of a precocious order that caused them to be considered worthy encouragement. An old friend of Verdi's father has placed on record the earnestness with which the lad practised on this spinet. We are told that he was at first content with his ability to play the first five notes of the scale, and then busied himself in trying to combine the notes in chords, falling into a rapture of delight when he by chance sounded the major third and the fifth of C. We read, furthermore, that when he could not find the same chord again the next day he lost his temper, and seizing a hammer began to break the spinet to pieces, for which foreshadowing of a certain school of pianoforte playing that has since then come into vogue, he received an exemplary blow on the ear from his angry father. The next we hear of him is as a pupil of one Baistrocchi, the organist of the little church of Roncole, who had been engaged by Verdi's father to give the boy music lessons. At the end of a year the old story so often told of the youth of great artists was repeated. Baistrocchi confessed that the pupil had learned all that the teacher had to impart, and therefore young Verdi's connection with him ceased. As the boy was then only eight years old, the question is rather one regarding the extent of the pedagogue's knowledge than of the pupil's capacity. Be this as it may, two years later Verdi, at the age of ten, replaced Baistrocchi as organist of the church. His salary the first year was about $7.20 of our money. The second year it was increased by eighty cents and consequently amounted to $8.00, or a trifle over two cents a day!—certainly far from munificent. In the mean while Verdi had received no schooling, and his father thought it time to look after the lad's education. A cobbler who lived at Busseto and by name Pugnatta, agreed to give young Verdi board and lodging and to send him to the principal school in the town, in return for six cents a day to be paid by the elder Verdi. Extortionate charges were not the rule in and about the birthplace of the future composer of "Aïda," the "Manzoni Requiem" and "Falstaff." At school the boy studied industriously, and walked the three miles between Busseto and Roncole twice every Sunday and feast-day to play the organ at his church in the latter place. His wretched income was increased annually by some ten or twelve dollars, received from christenings, weddings and funerals; and at the annual harvest festival, when it was customary for the organist of the place to go about from door to door with a sack over his shoulder to make a collection for himself, he added a trifle to his finances. Such experiences were severe for a sensitive boy.
In two years at Busseto, while under the protection of the cobbler, whose lodger and ward he was, Verdi learned to read, write and cipher. About this time he made the acquaintance of a Signor Barezzi, who took a deep interest in him, gave him employment, and aided him in enlarging his musical knowledge. In the house of Barezzi the rehearsals and concerts of the Philharmonic Society of Busseto took place. Here, for the first time, Verdi had an opportunity to study music seriously. He attended all the rehearsals, and seemed so absorbed in his love for the art that Signor Ferdinando Provesi, who was the conductor of the concerts as well as chapel master and organist of the cathedral, took a fancy to him, and under his excellent guidance Verdi was led into a more serious course of study. Under Provesi, who was a good contrapuntist, a composer of numerous operas of which he was the author of both words and music, and who was, in addition, a man of wide reading, Verdi studied until he was sixteen years old. In the mean while he had improved rapidly, and he frequently replaced his master as organist at the cathedral and as conductor of the Philharmonic concerts. He likewise wrote numerous works, which he copied, taught and conducted himself. Nevertheless, as a composer he manifested no very brilliant precocity and no special genius. His talent for music was clearly indicated, but nothing has appeared to show that his early artistic development was akin to that of a Mozart, a Schubert, or a Mendelssohn.
At the age of sixteen it was thought advisable that he should go to Milan in order to study in the conservatory there. His own means did not encourage any hope of realizing this step forward. However, Signor Barezzi came to the front again and induced the Monte di Pietà, an institution with a fund to assist promising young men without means in the study of art or science, to award Verdi six hundred francs a year for two years. To this Barezzi added the funds for music lessons, and for board and lodging in Milan. Under these encouraging conditions Verdi went on his way to Milan, where he arrived in due season, full of hope and enthusiasm; and with this incident ended the least interesting and the most painful period of the young composer's life: not that he did not suffer afterward, for his first experience in Milan was a very discouraging one; but he was never again to know the extreme misery of poverty and obscurity that had colored his life up to that time.