The career of Verdi is in many ways the most remarkable in musical history. None other covers such an extended period of productive activity; none other shows such a very gradual and constant development; none other delayed so long its full fruition. Had Verdi died or stopped writing at the same age as did Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Schubert, or Schumann—to mention only a few—his name would be to us merely that of a delightful melodist whose genius reached its fullest expression in Rigoletto and the Traviata. He would rank perhaps with Rossini and Donizetti—certainly not higher. But at an age which is usually considered beyond the limit of actual achievement he gave to the world the crowning masterpieces which as far surpass the creations of his prime as Tristan and Die Meistersinger surpass Das Liebesverbot and Rienzi.
II
Giuseppe Fortunino Verdi was born on October 10, 1813, in the little village of Le Roncole, about three miles from Busseto. His parents were Carlo Verdi and Luigia Utini, peasants and innkeepers of Le Roncole.
Happily, the narrative of Verdi’s early years is comparatively free from the wealth of strange and wonderful legends that cluster like barnacles around the childhood of nearly every genius. There was something exceptional, however, in the sympathetic readiness with which the untutored innkeeper encouraged his son’s taste for music by the gift of a spinet and in the eager assiduity with which the child devoted himself to the instrument. In encouraging his son’s taste for music it was the far-fetched dream of Carlo Verdi that the boy might some day become organist of the church of Le Roncole. At the age of eleven Verdi justified his father’s hopes. Meantime he went to school at Busseto and subsequently became an office boy in the wholesale grocery house of one Antonio Barezzi.
Barezzi was a cultivated man. He played with skill upon the flute, clarinet, French horn, and ophicleide, and he was president of the local Philharmonic Society, which held its meetings and rehearsals at his house. There Verdi’s talent was recognized by the conductor Provesi, who after a few years put the young man in his place as conductor of the Philharmonic Society and frequently used him as his substitute at the organ of the cathedral.
Eventually, however, Verdi exhausted the musical possibilities of Busseto, and his loyal friends, Barezzi and Provesi, decided that he should go to Milan. Through the influence of Barezzi he was awarded one of the bursaries of the Monte di Pietà,[120] and, as this was not sufficient to cover all his expenses, the good Barezzi advanced him money out of his own pocket.
Verdi arrived in Milan in June, 1832, and at once made application in writing for admission as a paying pupil at the Conservatory. He also went through what he afterward called ‘a sort of examination.’ One learns without surprise that he was not admitted. The reason for his rejection is one of those profound academic secrets about which the world is perfectly unconcerned. He was simply advised by Provesi’s friend, Rolla, a master at the Conservatory, to choose a teacher in the town, and accordingly he chose Vincenzo Lavigna. With him Verdi made rapid progress and gained a valuable practical familiarity with the technique of dramatic composition. From this period date many forgotten compositions, including pianoforte pieces, marches, overtures, serenades, cantatas, a Stabat Mater and other efforts. Some of these were written for the Philharmonic Society of Busseto and some were performed at La Scala at the benefit concerts for the Pio Istituto Teatrale. Several of them were utilized by Verdi in the scores of his earlier operas.
From 1833-36 Verdi was maestro di musica of Busseto. During that time he wrote a large amount of church music, besides marches for the banda (town band) and overtures for the orchestra of the Philharmonic. Except as preparatory exercises, none of these has any particular value. The most important event of those three years was Verdi’s marriage to Margarita Barezzi, daughter of the enlightened grocer who so ably deputized Providence in shaping the great composer’s career. This marriage seems to have kindled a new ambition in Verdi, and as soon as the conditions of his contract with the municipality of Busseto were fulfilled he returned to Milan, taking with him his wife, two young children and the completed score of a musical melodrama, entitled Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, of which he had copied all the parts, both vocal and instrumental, with his own hand.
Verdi returned to Milan under most promising auspices, having already attracted the favorable notice of some of the leading social and artistic factors of that musical city. A few years before, when he was studying in Milan, there existed a society of rich musical dilettanti, called the Società Filodrammatica, which included such exalted personages as Count Renato Borromeo, the Duke Visconti, and Count Pompeo Belgiojoso, and was directed by a maestro named Masini. The society held weekly artistic meetings in the hall of the Teatro Filodrammatico, which it owned, and, at the time we speak of, was engaged in preparing Haydn’s ‘Creation’ for performance. Verdi distinguished himself by conducting the performance of that work, in place of the absent maestri. Soon afterward Count Borromeo commissioned Verdi to write the music for a cantata for voice and orchestra on the occasion of the marriage of some member of his family, and this commission was followed by an invitation to write an opera for the Philodramatic Theatre. The libretto furnished by Masini was altered by Temistocle Solera—a very remarkable young poet, with whom Verdi had cultivated a close friendship—and became Oberto di San Bonifacio.