GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF STYLE
Verdi's popularity--An important personality in music--Most successful
composer of the nineteenth century--Verdi's opportuneness--Keynote
of future struck in _Nabucco_--Its characteristics--Distinguishing
features of Verdi's music--Stereotyped pattern operas--Change of
style imminent in _Luisa Miller_--Altered second period style of
_Rigoletto_--This maintained in _Il Trovatore_--_La Traviata_
forebodings--Basevi's charge of an altered style therein--_La
Traviata_ and _débûtantes_--True Verdi style in _Les Vêpres
Siciliennes_--_Simon Boccanegra_ and _Un Ballo in Maschera_--Third
period works--_Aïda_--Alleged Wagner influence--Mistaken
criticism--Orchestration of _Otello_--Its style and _technique_
compared with _Aïda_--_Falstaff_--Its position as an opera--A
saviour of Italian art--The _Illustrated London News_ defends Verdi
from early critics--Later critics silenced--Verdi vindicated.
There is no need to ask "Who is Verdi?" He is that Italian master
who has put a girdle of melody literally round the world. Not to the
accomplished musician, the cultured amateur, the plodding student, and
the happy home musical circle is he known only, but, to take England
alone, he is familiar by name and tune to thousands of the poorest and
lowest, whose only music is the street organ, and whose main musical
literature is the opera-house announcements on the theatre doors and
public hoardings. Men and women who cannot pronounce the name of
Mendelssohn articulate Verdi, and outcasts and arabs, whose opera-house
is the wide, wide metropolis, and whose only orchestra is engined
by the Saffron Hill fraternity, have the Italian _maestro_, in name
and tune, at their tongue-tips. All this may not be art, but it is
magnificent.
Verdi becomes a great art-study. He stands distinctly an epoch-making
musician. A composer who in 1845 had not been heard in England, and who
at the present time commands the lyric stage of this and every European
country, to say nothing of other continents, furnishes necessarily
solid ground for critical musical inquiry. His artistic career is most
instructive in its steady growth to mature ripeness. His efforts,
too, have been almost entirely confined to opera, and if we examine
Verdi's operas from first to last, it will not be difficult to trace
the change that has taken place in the fashion of opera during the past
three-quarters of a century. This has been as progressive as it has
been emphatic, and no composer's works reflect it so decidedly as do
Verdi's. The man and the musician went on in company. As he matured, so
his art-work ripened. The three periods of his artistic career furnish
a history of nineteenth-century operatic fashion and style.
While the most popular musician of the nineteenth century, he is, of
all Italy's famous exponents of dramatic-musical art, indisputably
the greatest. The land of song has produced many notable musicians,
many wondrous melodists; but not one of them, not even Rossini, has
so modified and influenced the national art as has Verdi. The entire
extent of his impress will only be fully known when the Italians come
to write their country's musical history. Verdi will be found to be the
master who made Italian opera a grand national art-form, something of a
social requirement in this closing nineteenth century.
To win a reputation such as belongs to Verdi, even if some discover
it to be ephemeral only, is, indeed, a great achievement. Other
pre-eminent musicians have laboured in every branch of their
art--sacred and secular, vocal and instrumental, oratorio and opera,
symphony and quartet, song and dance--with all which some of them
have hardly become known during their lifetimes outside the range of
their own country. There seems to be a profound musical problem here,
but the solution is at hand. The greatest of the great composers were
each and all before their time. Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and
Schumann came in an age that was all unprepared for them. Verdi, on
the other hand, whose phenomenal success is unlike theirs, was born at
the moment. The musical world was waiting with open arms for him; for
it had been satiated with opera music of a meretricious order, though
written by his own countrymen, from which any deliverance could not
fail to be a relief. The rescuer proved eventually to be Verdi.
Certain critics seem assured that Verdi copied, imitated, and
transferred Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, and other composers. If this
be true, then, in a sense, they stand indebted to him; for Verdi is the
best-heard Italian composer to-day. Verdi, however, was something more
than a musical _chef_, with the knack of serving up the _rechauffés_ of
brother musicians.
The public, apt to be blamed for the majority of its judgments, made no
mistake concerning _Nabucco_. Verdi's countrymen were "lifted along"
by the magic music, and, from _Nabucco_ to _Falstaff_--an unparalleled
instance of consistent artistic unfolding--this distinct power of the
master's has acted similarly upon thousands who have flocked to hear
the Verdi operas. Their passion, fire, and strong dramatic character
have proved irresistible.
The Milanese had heard Rossini, Mercadante, and Bellini to the full;
of the melodious phrases of Donizetti they were already tiring, when,
suddenly, a musician with rare force and passionate melodiousness came
upon them. Donizetti, mainly through his melodic prolificness, had
brought Italian grand opera to a level of triviality and mediocrity;
Verdi, with his depth of feeling and breadth of melody, promised an
exactly opposite musical manner. The public, ever ready for some new
thing, seized hold, willing to stand by him only as long as he could
stir and amuse them. This he has ever been able to do.
The natural qualities which characterise Verdi's music so decidedly,
stamped his first work, as they mark his latest. The underlying secret
of it all is furnished in the word _Advance_. It is not only Verdi's
superior, or particular melody and harmony which operate; it is the
common-sense, up-to-date way in which the composer has always regarded
his subject. By intuition, he took a greater and a deeper view of
Italian opera than any of his predecessors, and he went on advancing
with the times. His countrymen had melody mainly at their pen-tips.
Verdi used this and much more, and, while Wagner, for example, came
along "great guns" with his German national opera, Verdi was proceeding
to show that Italian grand opera could be brought to equal importance,
musically and materially. Verdi, in his first work, unquestionably gave
the lovers of opera something more than they had ever had before. That
"something" was below the surface, and did not affect the outward forms
so much as the hidden soul of the music. It was, however, discernible
enough. In this direction mainly did Verdi's early operas differ from
other Italian dramatic musical compositions. His later works, dating
from _Aïda_, are illustrations of the new Italian national operatic
art-form, which can never be surpassed, and will rarely be approached
in Italy.
_I Due Foscari_, a colourless, tame work which followed _Nabucco_,
did not enhance its composer's reputation. Of all Verdi's operas, it
would be difficult to find one showing fewer traces of his undoubted
steady development of style than this. _Giovanna d'Arco_, _Alzira_,
_Attila_, _Macbeth_, _I Masnadieri_, _Il Corsari_, _La Battaglia di
Legnano_, were all on the accepted Italian lines of Bellini and his
predecessors; but in _Luisa Miller_ there came a decided and suggestive
advance. There was a greater heightening of the dramatic interest,
while many of the vocal and instrumental combinations had never been
equalled in Italian opera. Certainly, Verdi was already doing more
than perpetuating the accepted Bellini-Donizetti method. It was yet
early to give the world an _Aïda_; but Verdi, we shall believe, was
feeling his way towards a more perfect Italian opera-form. What did
the country's opera lack that was so distinctly a born quality in him?
Dramatic fire, continuity, oneness of conception,--a whole, instead of
a piecemeal dramatic-musical composition. The first strivings after
this--a perfection that has been so undoubtedly attained in Verdi's
most advanced operas--were apparent in _Luisa Miller_.
Therein the choruses are exceedingly attractive with their striking
contrasts, while the brilliancy of, say the _bravura_, "_Lo vedi_," and
the pathos and fire of other solos and concerted pieces, combine to
produce a truly fine opera. Verdi has also so developed the situations
and heightened the interest, that a climax of overwhelming effect is
reached in the last act. The orchestration is replete with richness
and variety. The whole style of _Luisa Miller_ is musician-like to
a degree, despite occasional reflections of his own and other men's
compositions. The alleged defect of _Luisa Miller_ was a lack of
melody. None of the fervour and force that were heralded in _Nabucco_
were wanting, but the composer's melodic vein appeared to be drying
up! So thought the critics. Not quite! Verdi was contemplating greater
things, and in a while was to step into a new plane of creative musical
art. His first opera had been unrestrained melodic settings--after
the Italian fashion--of morbid and gloomy stories. He was to curb all
this; and what in _Luisa Miller_ were merely indications of this change
became realities in _Rigoletto_.
In a critical examination into Verdi's artistic development,
_Rigoletto_ occupies an important place. In it the composer, throwing
off his early First style, adopts a less popular mould, which, while
new in the history of Italian operatic art, was more characteristic of
himself. As it has been well put--"Verdi is the rough, fiery composer
no longer. Charm and grace are more to him now than mere noise and
hubbub. In _Rigoletto_ and _Trovatore_ he gets rid of all that.
Consequently we, who have often blamed him, have now only praise to
bestow upon him--a change that he himself has brought about, and on
which we congratulate him sincerely."[71]
This criticism describes exactly the situation. Not only was melodic
exuberance stemmed in _Rigoletto_ for a mixture of tune and recitative
or _musica parlante_, but the orchestration had met a chastening
process. While vocally the score was adjudged poor in melody and
entirely deficient in _pezzi concertanti_, the orchestration was
decidedly less noisy--its general character being uniformly calm and
tranquil.
The _Trovatore_ music is an excellent embodiment of Verdi's Second
period style. It is less studied and more spontaneous than _Rigoletto_,
but it sustains the advance in style. Uninviting as the libretto
was, it had striking situations, with its black story and its gross
improbabilities, which afforded Verdi scope for passionate expression
and effect in more than one vivid scene. It found the people's favour
immediately, and continues to hold audiences, despite the dinning
suggestions that it is "not popular," "is dying out," and should be
"placed on the retired list."
Though the public stamped _Il Trovatore_ with the _imprimatur_ of its
approval, it did not altogether please the critics. There has ever
been an endeavour to depreciate the opera, probably because so vast a
success was gained by such simple means. Thus it has been described
as "from beginning to end a direct plagiarism of Beethoven,"[72] as
if such a charge could be sustained either to the discredit of Verdi,
or to the credit of the Bonn master. Notwithstanding censorship, the
work has proved one of those few operas that have been "the rage" all
over Europe, and we repeat it still possesses the power to charm and
attract large, if not fashionable, audiences. Yet, what a span divides
it from _Otello!_ No two of the master's works show his change and
development of style more distinctly than these operas. To say nothing
about conception and construction, the vocal and instrumental music in
one and the other is as removed as a storm is from the rippling of a
rivulet. The two works have to be heard in the same week--as they were
at Covent Garden during the 1895 season with the hidden orchestra--to
realise and appreciate rightly, the mighty step (especially in the
instrumental department) between the two operas. _La Traviata_
foreshadowed something of what was to be accomplished in _Aïda_,
_Otello_, and _Falstaff_. There was the familiar appeal to the popular
ear, through that never-failing and ever-welcome channel--melody;
and the construction was similar to the _Trovatore_; the treatment
orchestrally and vocally, if curtailed and controlled, being much
after the old Verdinian manner. There was undoubtedly a lessening of
excessiveness, due more to the melancholy nature of the book probably,
than to a striving for a fresh style.
Basevi, the Italian critic, has thus written of _La Traviata:_ "It is
a composition which, by the quality of the characters, by the nature
of its sentiment, by the want of spectacle, bears semblance to a
comedy. Verdi has discovered a third manner, which in several points
resembles the French method of the Opéra Comique. This style of music,
although it has not been tried on the stage in Italy, is, however, not
unknown in private circles. In these latter years, we have seen Luigi
Gordigiani and Fabio Campana making themselves known principally in
this style of music, called _da camera_. Verdi with his _Traviata_ has
transported this chamber-music on to the stage, and with happy success,
to which the subject he has chosen well lends itself. We meet with
more simplicity in this work than in the others of the same composer,
especially as regards the orchestra, where the quartet of stringed
instruments is almost always predominant; the _parlanti_ occupy a
greater part of the score; we meet with several of those airs which
repeat under the form of verses; and, finally, the principal vocal
subjects are, for the most part, developed in short binary and tertiary
movements, and have not in general the extension which the Italian
style demands."[73]
That the music indicates another and Third style in Verdi's musical
manner we prefer to forget; such a classification would need to rest
upon this single score, and would involve us in a Fourth style, if we
wished to classify the operas of the composer's closing years. Three
periods in which to locate Verdi's art-progress and work are quite
sufficient. Wagner was yet not influencing Verdi! No one will doubt
that its music gave the opera its permanent position. Not only the
nervous _débutante_, but every _prima donna_ has seen in the character
of _Violetta_ a _rôle_ admitting of the finest touches and varied
emotions which a leading lady can be called upon to express in the
exercise of her art. From the day when Piccolomini roused the excited
_habitués_ of Mr. Lumley's house to a fever enthusiasm, a long list
of singers--including a Patti, Nilsson, and Albani--have studied and
played the part with varying advantage and delight, and whatever the
verdict has been, the grace and charm of the music has always commanded
the admiration of opera-singers, whether _soli_ or chorus. And
vocalists are as a rule better judges than are reporters and critics of
what music should be.
Notwithstanding criticisms, good, bad, and indifferent, the fact
remains that _La Traviata_, like _Il Trovatore_, is still with us; and
although we have long been warned that it is "declining in popularity,
like other operas of its period,"[74] it defers its final departure!
Why does the music continue to please the public?--the uneducated
section let us say. How is it that the cantatrice and queen of song
loves the part still? The answer is found in the natural and graceful
character of Verdi's music, and in nothing else. To us it has always
seemed a more original and satisfactory opera than _Il Trovatore_. More
equal throughout in quality, it contains some of the most touching
natural music that has ever been heard from the opera stage.
Spontaneous beauty and brilliant period were not wanting in _Les Vêpres
Siciliennes_, or in _Un Ballo in Maschera_, albeit the master-mind
appears disturbed. No Italian opera music could be more thoroughly
Verdi's than the numbers, "_Giorno di Pianto_," a reflection of the
_Donna è mobile_ canzone, and "_Ma se m'e forza perderti_" romanza in
_Les Vêpres Siciliennes_ and _Un Ballo in Maschera_ respectively.
As has been already suggested, in _La Forza del Destino_ and _Don
Carlos_ came unmistakable traces of a change in Verdi's manner.
Although in these operas his habit of portraying human passions at
their strongest pitch--in their noblest and sometimes their basest
moods--still remains, Verdi's mature or Third period works embody to
the fullest extent all that was generating in his mind nine years
previously. _Aïda_ in form and conception is clearly based upon _La
Forza del Destino_ and _Don Carlos_. Strikingly successful as the
master has been with his First and Second period operas, they were
not productions that reflected the fullest power of the high-minded
musician. Profitable financially they had indeed proved to their
composer; but they did not take Italian art one great step onwards.
Verdi was keenly sensible of this. The desire to achieve something
that would really advance his country's art taking possession of him,
therefore, and what was more, finding grand, speedy expression at
a time of life when most successful men seek repose--all this was,
indeed, most admirable and artist-like.
The instant _Aïda_ appeared, critics discovered much that was novel
in its style. It was a combination of old and new--the accepted
Italian opera mixed up with the best and latest in French and German
Grand opera. No one expected it of Verdi, yet here it was before
the world's eyes. On its production, doubts were freely expressed
concerning its permanent qualities. "It is easy to see that the work
will never achieve the lasting success of _Rigoletto_, the _Trovatore_,
and the _Traviata_," wrote one critic. Another said, "Except as a
spectacle, that it will be preferred by Verdi's old admirers to some
of his earlier and less pretentious works, or that it will gain for
him new disciples, we cannot think is in any high degree probable."
Unhappily for these predictions, the work saw something like a hundred
representations in Paris within the next three or four years!
A score of years and more have now passed, and yet _Aïda_ draws crowded
Royal Italian opera audiences, from which we conclude that the work
has always possessed real musical merit--merit which the critics, as
a body, first failed to recognise and acknowledge. The splendid opera
also, has proved one of a triad which have raised Verdi considerably in
the estimation of every right-minded musician. Before _Aïda_, _Otello_,
and _Falstaff_, he was dubbed by critics the "sanguinary Italian
melodist," the "morbid imitator of Meyerbeer," the "sensational,
commonplace composer," with other similarly inelegant, inaccurate, and
offensive epithets. Those who have lived long enough, however, have
discovered something more than the musical blackleg in Verdi.
The opera of modern times must possess merit as a drama; it does not
suffice for it to be but a peg, hanging upon which is a series of
pretty tunes. The old-fashioned plan of chopping up each act into a
series of recitatives, airs, duets, etc., is now discarded in favour
of more musical declamation. In the new opera there are less frequent
repetitions of the words, and consequently the dramatic action gains
in continuity. The orchestra too plays a more exalted part, being
resorted to not only to accompany and illustrate the text, but to
provide a general local colour throughout. All this Verdi supplied in
_Aïda_, and the cry at once raised was that he had been Wagner-hunting.
Critics in the musical profession and out of it--critics who know a
little about music, and a considerably larger number who knew nothing
of the art--declared that Italy had at last gone over to the German
musical method. But thirty years previously we were told that "Signor
Verdi's _forte_ is declamatory music of the highest passion"; also
that "the composer's music becomes almost intolerable, owing to his
immoderate employment of brass instruments." Undoubtedly in _Aïda_
the master adopts a deeper and more dramatic character than had been
usually shown by Italian masters; but he could have as easily done this
had Wagner never lived. The ambition of a master-mind like Verdi's
would be to raise his country's art to the level of other countries;
and the crowning life-work of Verdi has been to place Italian opera on
a higher plane, and to furnish an example of Italian national opera
that would compare with that of France and Germany. To accomplish
this the Bellini-Donizetti type of opera needed to be newly planned,
orchestrated, and shaped into a far more comprehensive homogeneous
whole. It was all this that _Aïda_ pretended to meet; and it, _Otello_,
and _Falstaff_ have left their composer's mind thoroughly at ease
probably concerning the place of Italy in dramatic music for the
future. Certainly they should have done.
In composing _Aïda_ Verdi had something more in view than pleasing
the ears of the Khedive and his Egyptians. He had before him the
operatic universe; and it was to arouse this that he sat him down to
write when almost a septuagenarian. To cut himself adrift from the
conventionalities of Italian opera, and place before the public a
grand and beautiful dramatic lyric work, comparable with any opera
that had preceded it, was indeed a great proceeding. With its modern
characteristics the first alarm raised by musical public and critics
alike was Wagner; but after many years' experience and trial of the
work it is discovered that there is very little, if any, Wagner device
or manner in it!
In the nineteen numbers of which the opera consists there is much that
is musically novel and beautiful. The descriptive music, especially
when removed from the tragic parts of the work, shows the composer
in his happiest mood. The emotional (even sensational) nature of the
music too is very marked, and this is where the master, retaining his
country's manner, rises triumphantly over French and German dramatic
music. The vocal music is thoroughly characteristic of Verdi. There are
few solos, yet the charm of such pieces as "_Celeste Aïda_," "_L'insana
parola_," and Aïda's romance, "_O cieli azzurri_," wherein she recalls
the beauty of her own country, makes ample amends in quality for
the absence of quantity. The duets, of which there are six, are not
unusually striking, but the _finales_ are exceedingly fine, and the
effect of the ensemble is most imposing. The vocal and instrumental
combinations are undoubtedly happy and effective.
It was the orchestration of _Aïda_ mainly which led public and critics
away concerning Verdi's supposed conversion to the Wagner or some
other "ism." No sooner were heard the grand choral and orchestral
combinations in the finales of the work,--movements remarkable alike
for their breadth, grandeur, and dramatic reality,--than it was
bellowed forth that Verdi had been imitating Berlioz, and the host of
modern manipulators of the orchestra. The ponderous instrumentation,
some say too much so, carried all minds at once to Wagner, when,
really, Verdi could still be Verdi if, exercising his privilege,
he elected to blow his theatre down with brass. "The work," wrote
a critic, "is very heavily scored, over-instrumented in the brass
particularly, and it would exact double the number and twice the
tone of the strings at Covent Garden to counterbalance the blatant
effects,"[75]--from which we are to believe, we suppose, that in this
opera the talented, experienced composer had taken leave of his senses!
Quite an unlucky hit, coming as it did at a time when the musical world
was only too ready to see in such criticism a hidden suggestion of
Wagnerian influence. It was unfortunate, too, inasmuch as the charges
of "over-instrumenting" and "undue declamation" were arraigned against
Verdi as far back as 1846, when _Nabucco_ was produced--long before
Wagner was heard of. "As we have had occasion to remark more than
once,"[76] wrote the _Athenæum_ critic, speaking of _Nino_, _i.e._
_Nabucco_, "its composer's music becomes almost intolerable, owing to
his immoderate employment of brass instruments." Again, "Signor Verdi's
_forte_ is declamatory music of the highest passion."
Yet, thirty years afterwards, these very characteristics are traced
to some recent French or German influence! Some few think otherwise.
The _Aïda_ subject, in its Eastern origin and character, calls for an
excess of broad, semi-barbaric effects, as any one acquainted with
oriental manners, life, and literature knows. Brass instruments convey
this admirably, better than all the "string" and "wood" in the world.
It is from this profuse employment of brass instruments, particularly
the six genuine Egyptian trumpets used in the triumphal march of
Radamès and his army, that the charge of imitating Wagner, or of
becoming "Germanised," has probably arisen. But if the truth be told,
this Verdi development has as much to do with Wagner as with Adam,
the departures being a consequence of the master's desire to write a
thoroughly up-to-date national opera, which his talent and learning
fully warranted him in doing. Both vocal and instrumental music aimed
at that illustrative local colour which the book and situation needed;
hence the lavish use of oriental scales, Persian songs, the dance of
black boys, with all the resplendent paraphernalia of Eastern temple,
pagoda, and palace.
With all its "new style," the effort to get away from old methods by
the employment of theoretical devices, novel and extreme harmonies,
abundant recitative, curtailed melody, magnificent finales, and
unlimited stage resources, _Aïda_ is still distinctly Verdinian. The
solos are peculiarly in Verdi's vein, and frequently suggestions of
_Trovatore_ and other works crop up, while the entire opera abounds
in dramatic, passionate expression peculiar to Verdi. All this is as
it should be from the Verdinian point of view; but if the result of
this laudable attempt to formulate a modern Italian opera must be to
brand it with some guiding influence or subject-model, then, instead of
making Wagner that power, it should be Meyerbeer. If Verdi has followed
any model at all, which we do not admit, it is the sumptuous richness
and picturesque variety of the composer of _Les Huguenots_, _Le
Prophète_, and _L'Africaine_. But Verdi wanted no model. At a distance
of twenty years we can look back and discover that Verdi had something
more in his mind when composing _Aïda_ than the slavish imitation
of this or that composer. He was about to crown his career with an
opera, or more, of a style which many circumstances debarred him from
attempting earlier.
All told, there is ample evidence in this first great work of Verdi's
Third period to show that the composer is still wholly himself. That
faculty, which was particularly Verdi's, of expressing extreme emotion,
and of raising his audience to the highest pitches of sensational
excitement, is present, notably in the finale of the second act. Then
the composer's old command of melodious imagery and pathos, together
with the expression of varied and conflicting passions, stamp the
work from beginning to end--the love duet in the second act, between
soprano and tenor, a romance in the third act, a soprano and contralto
duet, a quartet and chorus, and all the music, from the consecration
of Radamès down to his victorious return with Aïda's captive father,
being particularly Verdinian. Even the composer's supposed weaknesses
are present in _Aïda_. The whole subject is melodramatic; the principal
characters are killed, as usual; his alleged morbid preference for
dismal dirge-music finds ample vent in the funeral of the lovers, and
other tragic parts of the opera; from beginning to end can be heard
melodic suggestions recalling the old familiar operas. All this, and
page after page of imaginative, fancy tone-painting, _Aïda_ contains,
and yet we have been asked to believe that it is not Verdi!
The student of comparative musical science will see in _Otello_ a
further development of style. The composer confirms _Aïda_, and
while further stultifying the detractory criticism passed on _Aïda_,
furnishes ample proof of a marvellous vitality, and a freshness and
originality, with depth of learning, which his greatest of admirers
could scarcely have expected. Even with _Aïda_ thrown in (as a sort of
operatic abnormalism) many still regarded Verdi as the mere seductive,
melodramatic Italian melodist; the profound musician never. _Otello_
settled matters. The majesty, power, inspiration, and learning, the
command of theoretical device, and orchestral _technique_, were
overwhelming. Nobody expected it from Italy, still less from Verdi.
Quite a surprise! Here was a work wherein all the lights and shades
of human passion were depicted with a truthfulness and reality which
no living musician could equal. The greatest of the world's poets and
dramatists was set in a fashion to dispute which, or to disparage,
would be useless. There could be no other conclusion, and whether
performed in Italy, France, or in England, one opinion only has been
possible as to the _Otello_ music. This must be held to be a great
triumph for the justly famed, though long abused, musician, especially
when, as we contend, this perfected art-style is Verdi's own--the
man's musical genius, characteristics, and great learning at their
highest pitch, uninfluenced, unaffected (save in that legitimate
manner which experience brings) by any foreign composer or school. The
developed mind and man in Verdi's case gives us the splendid spectacle
of the developed musician, particularly _en evidence_ in _Otello_. If
we delight to watch the growth and ripening of Verdi's genius from
_Oberto, Conte di S. Bonifacio_, to the _Missa di Requiem_, we can
become still more interested in pondering over the _nuova maniera_
which marked _Aïda_, a manner which is heightened in the _Otello_
masterpiece, and accentuated in _Falstaff_.
_Otello_ is a perfectly modern opera, thoroughly up-to-date in design,
material, and construction. Of its four acts, the last is distinctly
the most masterly; the second being a little inferior to the third.
The initial act is marked with Verdi's matured manner less than either
of the others. Though somewhat fragmentary in places, the opera holds
together with perfect homogeneity, and it must be regarded as a wholly
uninfluenced score, more so than _Aïda_. The "Love duet" and Iago's
"Credo" are the only pieces in the opera that recall Wagner, and they
have too much of the Verdi and the intensely Italian about them to be
mistaken. No! _Otello_ is an opera which only an Italian could write;
a work which will always rank as a brilliant example of latest Italian
grand-opera. In advanced thought and reasoning, together with depth of
learning and exercise of the declamatory branch of vocal art, it is
somewhat superior to _Aïda_, but it is doubtful whether it will ever
become as popular, because it lacks the glorious picturesqueness and
inspiration of that grand work.
Had Verdi's career ended with _Otello_ there would have been no
difficulty in determining his place--a very forward one--in the
world's history, and notably in the world of dramatic music. With the
production of _Falstaff_, however, the wonderful vitality, resource,
and inspiration of the giant mind broke out afresh, bewildering
everybody concerning the art-possibilities that were still in store
behind the more than octogenarian composer. It is the swan-song perhaps
of the illustrious master, and a great song it indeed is. To think that
such a score should be the easy pleasurable outcome of the brain of a
man bordering upon his eightieth year was, at the time, one of the most
extraordinary features in connection with the production of _Falstaff_,
and the fact will ever stand amongst remarkable efforts in musical
annals. _Il Trovatore_ is a monument of melody, a standing example
of what passionate tune can be and is as an element of art; _Otello_
was an extraordinary development in breadth of style and usage, vocal
and instrumental; but _Falstaff_ surpassed all. It sums up all that
is best in Verdi's musical mind and method, and will ever serve as a
standard of Italian national art, _nemine dissentiente_. It is the
most brilliant, the most masterly, of all his operatic productions.
Gorgeous in its wealth of invention and consummate skill, it places
Verdi on his highest artistic pedestal. Like _Aïda_ and _Otello_ it
is pre-eminently a musician's work, and shows the widened style of
the composer, which used to be regarded as a Wagner imitation more
than either of its predecessors. With all its delightful, unceasing
humour the work does not appeal readily to the popular mind, the fact
being that to understand and enjoy it the taste must be educated. Like
Wagner's operas, _Falstaff_ is a score that taxes the critical sense,
and the more musical and highly cultivated the listener is, the more
will Verdi's latest music command attention. Nor does this mean that
the opera will not live. On the contrary, as musical knowledge becomes
more and more spread, _Falstaff_ and _Otello_, the advanced handiwork
of Verdi, will prove to be music of a far more satisfactory nature
than that luxuriant passionate sort which abounds in _Trovatore_,
_Traviata_, and other young Italy operas.
If the music of _Falstaff_ proved a revelation to those who first heard
it, it was also a revolution. Nobody had ever credited Verdi with the
preponderating quality in this opera; it was Mozart come to life again!
The humanity of the man who had ever depicted the morbid, treacherous,
worst-passioned natures was suddenly reflected in the light-hearted,
innocent frolic of youth, music as light and babbling as a child's
speech. All that was so cheerful in _Le Nozze di Figaro_, the fun of
the _Barbiere di Siviglia_, with much of the Verdi characteristic,
shot out in _Falstaff_ in a way that simply electrified the musical
world. The tragic, melodramatic Verdi was no more: in his place stood
the exalted, the chastened master of art. No other composer had ever
made such a change of front, a change that brought him on good terms
with the whole musical world. _Falstaff_ was indeed a new apocalypse.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the _Falstaff_ music after its
jovialness is its consistent character--one of high quality and
finely detailed workmanship. It is not a case of sandwiching a good
tune, dramatic chorus, or an overwhelming _ensemble_, between a mass
of meagre indifferent writing, but from first to last the music is
of a most elevated, high-pitched order--tune, harmony, scholarship,
_ensemble_--these abound; but the whole is so well balanced and
dexterously planned, as to make the opera a delightful study for the
theatrical musician as well as for the careless listener. As has
been well said, "_Falstaff_ is not a mere string of pretty tunes,
_ensembles_, and choruses of every-day pattern, but a colossal work,
a mass of intricacy, such as musicians alone can dive into and
comprehend whilst uncultivated listeners can yet find enchantment upon
the surface. For to the cunning of a Wagner has here been allied the
simplicity of a Mozart."
Undoubtedly _Falstaff_ is the most remarkable example of the master's
genius, and when we reflect that while it was being evolved there
was a gaping world, with ears all open, waiting to learn how much of
Wagner would resolve into Verdi, it becomes truly astonishing that its
composer has steered so clear of any appreciable influence or model.
It is the unaided work of the one master-hand. Assuming that Verdi has
anywhere imitated Wagner, then in _Falstaff_ the Italian is certainly
further removed from the German than in any other of his operas. There
is hardly a recurring theme in the whole opera; and the everchanging,
constantly varying tints of emotional expression, the brilliant
_ensembles_, the ingeniously contrived pieces, where three and more
rhythms are expressing chattering views and sentiments at one and the
same time; beautiful solo pieces, duets, and notably an accompanied
quartet--all these, and the highly dramatic and well-judged _finales_,
have no more to do with Wagner, or any other composer save Verdi,
than they have with Homer. As a whole, _Falstaff_ is an astounding
masterpiece. In form, construction, scholarship, and musicianly result,
it is the finest opera Verdi, or any Italian, has written. Its vocal
and instrumental play and device are such as were never thought to be
in Verdi, and, like its two immediate predecessors, it places Verdi in
the first rank of the world's operatic composers. _Falstaff_ must ever
be regarded as a wondrous specimen of humorous music, constructed upon
perfectly legitimate and classical lines. No nobler work could crown
an artist's life-efforts; no other work shows so well the advanced and
chastened style of Verdi's Third and matured period. _Falstaff_, as a
creation, has immortalised Verdi. It has done more. _Finem respice!_ It
has saved artistic Italy in this _fin de siècle_ age. This last work of
Verdi's furnishes the culminating point in the history of Italian opera.
How then can the punishment which Verdi received at the hands of
his first English musical critics be explained? How came it that a
composer, who had lovingly placed many splendid tributes upon the high
altar of his art, was so estimated, by at least one responsible critic,
as to merit severe castigation of such a character as this:--
"Signor Verdi is the one prophet of Italian opera, and since this
paragraph was penned, the waning of the coarse light of his star is
pretty distinctly to be observed. It is hardly possible to imagine his
violence outdone by any successors; yet this would seem to be the law
of Italian movement in such shows of art as are to be popular."[77]
Thirty and forty years ago, music here was hardly deemed worthy of
criticism in newspaper columns, albeit a journal here and there--the
_Athenæum_, for instance--recognised the art. If, however, there were
then few musical representatives of the English Press, the disadvantage
appears to have been atoned for by the character of the criticisms.
Some few of the musical scribes deigned to notice, and were deemed
capable of considering, Verdi. These began, from the first, to hunt
him _à outrance_, neither discerning nor expecting any good from the
Italian. Never was there a more abused man than Verdi. If "best things
are moulded out of faults," then to distinguish "faults" in such a
musical renegade was out of the question. The whole was, according to
certain critics, hopelessly unregenerate!
"Verdi's career in this country has been curiously chequered. If
artistical anathemas could have annihilated his fame, then would he
have long since ceased to have been heard of; but he appears to enjoy
a cat-like vitality amongst our amateurs. Never was there one of his
works produced, either at Her Majesty's Theatre or at the Royal Italian
Opera, but he received a terrific castigation from criticisers, and
the musical public were assured, after these awful denunciations of
indignant journalism at the performance of such 'unmitigated trash,'
that the name of Verdi could be no more uttered in this musical
metropolis. And yet the thus extinguished composer--on paper--the very
next season was sure to be brought forward in the shape of a revival
of one of his 'failures,' or in the representation of his latest
continental novelty. What then is the key to this anomalous state of
things, wherein it is found that Verdi's defenders, amongst writers,
are so few, and his partisans still more rare, and still Verdi is
not shelved? Is it that amongst opera frequenters there is a fiat in
his favour, which is sufficiently strong to maintain his name in the
repertory? Or is it that the general body of amateurs feel that the
dead-set against the only composer left in Italy is based on prejudice,
intolerance, and injustice?
"Whatever may be the solution of these questions, it is, at all events,
satisfactory to find that the spirit of justice is sufficiently
powerful amongst English audiences not to be carried away by mere
clamour; and _Rigoletto_, the three-act lyric drama, put on the stage
for the first time on Saturday, with such magnificent resources, will
secure an impartial hearing from those _connoisseurs_ who are not led
away by proper names only."[78]
Thus wrote one critic who possessed good sense and courage which
enabled him to look calmly on, while the pen-and-ink slaughter raged
fast and furious, for several years following Verdi's advent here.
Coming from a journalist representing a leading, influential journal,
the comment is, at least, suggestive.
As it bears, moreover, upon an interesting aspect of present-day
journalism, it may, at this long removed period, well be reviewed,
if only in justice to Verdi. That the composer long since vindicated
himself there can be no doubt; but this does not do away with a
present-day question of how far public criticism should influence those
who read it, or to what extent hostile censorship has operated, or
may do, to crush the artistic aims and possibilities of those for the
encouragement of whom, and not for their annihilation, journalistic
comment is supposed primarily to exist. Perspicuity should be the first
law of criticism.
The writer of the above quoted remarks had in view, among others, such
contemporary journals as the _Times_ and _Athenæum_, which papers,
especially the latter, had been particularly endowed, as it would
appear, with the mission of "slating" Verdi, until there could be
reached what in pugilistic parlance is known as a "knock out." Not for
a moment do we doubt that all that was written and published had in
view the possible interests of Art.
It is not difficult for us, living in these closing years of the
Nineteenth Century, to assure posterity that the suggestion of an
"ephemeral reputation" for _Il Trovatore_ has been sadly belied;
and Verdi has demonstrated in the broad light of day that neither
Rossini nor Meyerbeer nor Auber accomplished for dramatic lyric art
what he has done. "Mission" or no mission, "system" or no system, _Il
Trovatore_ has braved the battle of managerial cupidity for nearly half
a century; it has replenished theatre coffers, and it still "draws"
crowds who enjoy listening to it. What more is wanted? If Music does
these things, then, surely some of the first conditions of Art are
fulfilled. The most modern of modern music can accomplish little more,
unless it be to vex the mind with its abstruseness, and to tax the
brain in divining the whereabouts of this or that theme, and the entry
and passage of some particular "subject" phrase. This revelling in the
region of theory, the perpetual expectation for progressions of fugal
enterprise and cleverness, are well enough in their way, and provide
admirable occupations for musical "cobwebs"; but is it a congenial
employment for the rank and beauty of Society? If attendance at the
opera is to involve some trying brain-study for the audience, the boxes
and stalls must soon be empty. Music for the stage must ever be of a
nature to give enjoyment; when it ceases to be this, and becomes a
study--a something that even the πολλοί themselves cannot
understand--then its existence is jeopardised.
What means the latter-day revival of _Il Trovatore_, _Rigoletto_, and
other old familiar operatic acquaintances? Is it a reaction in favour
of the old at the cost of the new in art? Let it be borne in mind that
the present is, for the most part, a new generation listening to and
admiring Verdi's Second period strains. The audiences are not made up
entirely of old fogeys in green spectacles and drab sparrow-tails,
whose waning physical powers are overcome by emotional memories of the
past. Is it true after all that the _Trovatore_ music has long been
declining, and is all but dead; that now and then a dramatic soprano,
as Madame Titiens was, or a "lungs of brass" tenor, as Signor Tamagno
is, can more or less galvanise the corpse into life? We think not.
Our opinion is that there is real genius, true sterling worth, in the
music of the _Trovatore_, which of itself--and not from any lack of
taste, or culture, or of mental aberration on the part of the "mob"
(for whom alone, we have been assured Verdi could cater)--has preserved
this opera, and many others, in the hearts and ears of the public at
large. Here and there the vocal and instrumental processes may seem,
and probably are, uncouth; but that the music as a whole possesses
undying properties, a life-current passing on to all who hear it, we
have no doubt. Thus, although the dictates of fashion may set aside the
_Trovatore_ for a while, there will always be the risk of its bounding
out unexpectedly to take hold of the hearts of a new rising generation.
If the _Trovatore_ music had not been vital music from the first, it
would not be here to-day, inasmuch as the work is one which has never
been "written up" by the critics. The process has rather been to mount
the tub and affect a superior taste, while poor, deluded, no-cult folk
flocked to the opera-house to listen to hackneyed stuff, which we have
been assured was not music at all! But the voice of the people--the
_vox populi_--is not to be denied, even though critics wax warm.
Millions find tune in _Trovatore_; and tune (when of the quality of
Verdi's) becomes the first, the unextinguishable principle of music.
This is the grand secret of the vitality of _Trovatore_ and operas
akin to it, which the intelligent many will continue to enjoy to their
heart's content, _malgré_ the pityings of wiseheads. When _Trovatore_
is as extinct as the dodo, and as dead as the door nail, that will be
the time to sing its requiem, although there would seem to be little
promise of any of this generation being required to attend that solemn
function. Pending the setting of the sombre seal, we, for our part,
will continue to respect Verdi, and folk in general will not be far
wrong if they take to believing that Verdi is as good a judge of music
as were any, and all, of his defamatory critics.
Political circumstances had much to do with Verdi's jumping into
popularity in Italy. Not so in England. No element of luck attended his
_débût_ here, where he stood not upon his merits. From the first he
encountered a determined opposition. It has never been quite clear what
this opposition wanted, but that it was supported by such a power as
the late Mr. Chorley, for forty years the independent musical critic of
the _Athenæum_, is sufficient evidence to prove that it was formidable.
What did it mean?
Weber (1786-1826) and Meyerbeer (1791-1864) were of course known
here. That romantic character pervading the German national opera
had become familiar to English ears through Italianised versions of
such supernatural subject operas as _Der Freischütz, Euryanthe_, and
_Oberon_; whilst opera-goers were growing accustomed to the gorgeous
pageantry and dazzling resources of gigantic examples of operatic
architecture like _Les Huguenots_, _Le Prophète_, and _L'Africaine_.
Can a leopard change its spots? Surely the sapient critics were not
expecting a transformed Italian opera model from an Italian at one
bound? Verdi had been applauded in Italy for what he had accomplished
on the continental lines of his country's opera. He was professing
nothing more, and Mr. Lumley, when arranging for the composer's works
for the English stage, contracted for naught else. As all the world
knows, Verdi has accomplished immeasurably more since, in bringing
Italian opera fully up to the level of the Weber, Meyerbeer, or Wagner
model. The public is now prepared for Italian operas of the _Aïda_
and _Falstaff_ stamp, but it is doubtful if, fifty years ago, their
production would not have brought forth a storm of disapproval. Verdi's
earlier operas, _Ernani_ and _Il Trovatore_, were fully worthy of the
average taste of the times; and if it be maintained that they are going
out of fashion, precisely the same thing can be said of several of the
German and Franco-German operas which certain critics applauded while
they abused Verdi, and with which Verdi's works were compared and
declared to be inferior.
Whatever prompted the resistance to Verdi (the strong feeling between
the management of the rival opera houses may have had something to
do with it), it is certain that Verdi encountered a determined and
unfair opposition on coming to England. Equally certain is it that
Mr. Chorley became a powerful mouthpiece of the opposition. With a
freedom permitted to its talented staff that did infinite credit
to the management of that leading journal of art and literature,
the _Athenæum_, its pages were long allowed to be disfigured with
anti-Verdi criticism such as it is now difficult to understand, unless
it had for its object the immediate Germanising of Verdi by sheer force
of censorship.
The musical drama is the most artistic manifestation which man can
express. A successful grand opera demands all that is highest in music,
drama, and a host of other phases of cultured training. This can only,
save very exceptionally, be achieved towards the end, not at the
beginning, of a lifetime; and the perspicuous critic should be able to
foresee the prospects of this in a young composer. Great as Mr. Chorley
perhaps was as a musical censor, he did not forebode the successful
future of Verdi any more than he encouraged Mendelssohn, his judgments
upon whom have been long since overturned.
This chiefly, however, as a footnote to history. Verdi has outlived all
opposition, and has risen to a great artistic eminence fully deserved
in the case of one who has laboured so ably and so unremittingly in
music. Now the critics on all sides fall down and worship him. He is
beloved in England not less than in his own land, while all the world
will long remember him by his _Requiem Mass_ and latest operas, if
not by such familiar lingering strains as "_La Donna è Mobile_," "_Ah
si ben mio; coll essere io tuo_," "_Quando le sere al placido_," and
scores of others.
_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_; and, having borne dearly-loved ones to
Death's portals, Heaven forbid that we should ever speak ill of those
that sleep. But, history must be written; and it is only sheer justice
to Verdi to advance his side of the case. That Verdi, _ab initio_,
down to the production of _Aïda_ (when the composer was sixty-three
years of age), experienced a long spell of powerful English critical
hostility is beyond doubt. Whether Italian opera had so obtained under
Bellini, Donizetti, Mercadante, and Rossini that folks, or sections of
society, were so surfeited with it as to positively refuse to tolerate
more while Weber, Wagner, and Meyerbeer could be had, however promising
that more might appear, or whether the great reputation that generally
preceded the introduction of the Verdi scores put up the backs of
the critics, are possibilities which might furnish some key to the
solution of the problem which this opposition provides for us who are
considering it to-day.
We may be told that, to early critics, Verdi's artistic career was a
difficult one to judge, since it was so peculiarly progressive--unique,
in the way in which it gradually led up to the culminating excellence
seen in _Aïda_, _Otello_, and _Falstaff_; but, unhappily for such a
theory, the critical notices were not correspondingly appreciative
and graduating. Verdi was wrong, always wrong, no good: "lock, stock,
and barrel" he had to be dismissed as worthless and hopeless. A slow
unfolding of the composer's musical manner and method, together with
a corresponding recognition from his critics, would be understandable
enough; but we do not get this. Our study of the critical processes
leaves us with the conviction that he was knocked about like a tennis
ball. Little wonder that the critic of the _Illustrated London News_
felt constrained, on behalf of the maltreated, half-murdered man, to
call "fair play." Then, much that was written was as contradictory
as are scientific negatives and positives; while we all know that
prophetic warnings and predictions alike have been singularly belied.
_This_ opera would not "live," and _that_ was the worst of even Verdi's
worst operas, yet to-day such compositions are amongst us, and being
listened to with delight! We have demonstrated, we hope, beyond doubt
how in the case of _Rigoletto_--one instance that will suffice--an
opera was one day declared to be without merit, only to be held up
subsequently by the same journal as a sample of musical excellence.
It is inconceivable that there were no signs, no glimmerings, no
foreshadowings in early years, nor during Verdi's Second period, of
that great genius which has given us an _Aïda_ and a _Falstaff_, two
grand classic works as far removed as fire and water in their tragedy
and comedy, as well as in their eastern and western colouring and
flavour. Could the critics really see no great future awaiting the man
who wrote _Ernani_, _Rigoletto_, _Il Trovatore_, and _La Traviata_? Was
there no promise of that store of art to be opened to us in Verdi's
Third period works? Was there not a veritable rough diamond here,
awaiting only to be shorn of its excrescences, and subjected to the
lapidary's art to become a precious jewel? Did not the genius of the
great operatic composer exist in embryo, while Verdi was taking the
lower rungs of the artistic ladder? Was there not the making of a
rare son of art in one who could rouse the popular enthusiasm as this
Italian was doing? Did the public on all sides clamour and acclaim,
pack and squeeze themselves, and listen with pent up wonder and
surprise, all after nothing? Dozens of such pertinent questions could
be put in respect to the relations of many of the public and critics
towards Verdi.
Our views concerning musical criticism have been expressed.[79] Among
all the qualities however, necessary to him deserving to rank as a
capable critic, is one which he should be called upon to exercise
more frequently than any other, viz., the power of detecting what is
good in a man; and that _instanter_. Make, not break, should be, but
is not, the motto for every censor entrusted with the power of the
press-pen. In the case of Verdi, it was war to the knife. _Delenda
est Carthago_ went forth, and Carthage _must_ be destroyed. But it
wasn't. The criticism which for the most part was meted out to Verdi
rarely ever contained a sentence of encouragement, but instead,
the man who was some day to become the wonder and admiration of
the entire musical world was hooted and howled at as should be an
impostor. Many a man would have taken refuge behind the shelter of an
undisturbed mediocrity, but somehow, the critics could not scotch this
species-specimen. Verdi went on in his way, and the censors who abused,
went theirs; with what result we know to-day. The critics are silenced
and Verdi reigns, musically, _in excelsis_.
How the late Mr. Chorley and Mr. Davison--these particularly--could
trace so little of the good promise in Verdi surpasses our
comprehension. They were men of the highest integrity and attainments,
and purposed injustice would furnish the most foolish of explanations
of the situation. Verdi had the great public of this and of other
countries on his side, however, and on this he was content to rely.
Public opinion once again proved to be right, and Verdi now stands
vindicated. Happily both the _Times_ and _Athenæum_ have long since
ceased to oppose the master. The critics of these journals and those of
other English newspapers now fall down and worship Verdi--and well they
might!
This aspect, this experience of the composer's career is not without
its lessons. It shows that we must not judge of a man or of his work
by what we read only; that individual culture and practical knowledge
provide the best key wherewith to unlock the door of every repository
of science and art; but, chiefly, does it prove that no amount of
adverse criticism or opposition can, or should, be permitted to bar the
way to that goal of high excellence which every earnest worker with
an honest conviction and high purpose before him has every right to
persevere towards, no matter what the difficulties, until his fullest
realisations have been attained. In this respect, Verdi's experience
supplies a splendid all-time lesson.
[Footnote 71: _Gazette Musicale_, 25th January 1857.]
[Footnote 72: _Musical Recollections of the Last Half-Century_, vol.
ii. p. 281.]
[Footnote 73: _Verdi_ (Pougin--Matthew), p. 154.]
[Footnote 74: _Athenæum_, 7th June 1880.]
[Footnote 75: _Athenæum_, 1st July 1876.]
[Footnote 76: _Athenæum_, 7th March 1846.]
[Footnote 77: _The National Music of the World_: Henry Fothergill
Chorley, edited by Henry G. Hewlett (1880), p. 76.]
[Footnote 78: _Illustrated London News_, 21st May 1853. Eight years
previously the _Illustrated London News'_ (5th July 1845) critic, while
expatiating on operas of bygone composers which had been heard and
reheard to satiety wrote thus of Verdi:--"A better state of things is,
however, we trust, approaching. The appearance of a composer of so much
originality of genius as Verdi, heralds, it may be hoped, that of a new
and more ambitious school, whose masters will not be satisfied with
tickling the ear and pleasing the fancy, but will seek for the more
permanent and legitimate sources of effect."]
[Footnote 79: _Phases of Musical England_ (Crowest), p. 22.]