0.10 Appendix 1: musician biographies  (Page 37/37)

Verdi’s career coincides almost exactly with the Risorgimento, the nationalist movement that he passionately supported and that culminated with the unification ofItaly under King Victor Emmanuele in 1861. Although the scenes and characters in Verdi’s operas have no direct connection to contemporary events in Italy, the stories of tyranny, conspiracy, political assassination, and suppression of individual and national liberties struck a chord with the Italian public. The slogan of the unificationmovement became VIVA, VERDI, the letters of the composer’s name standing for Vittorio Emanuele, Re di Italia (Victor Emmanuele, King of Italy). Toward the end of Verdi’s life, opera was developing in new directions under the influence of German and younger Italian composers, but he was still beloved by hiscountrymen. The route of his burial procession in Milan was said to have been lined by as many as 200,000 people and an estimated 300,000 attended the official memorial service.

Almost 20 of Verdi’s operas are staples of the romantic repertory today, among them Macbeth, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Un Ballo in Maschera, La Forza del Destino, Don Carlos, Aida and, from late in his life, Otello and Falstaff . With the exception of his first and last operas, which are comic, Verdi was drawn to passionate, eventful stories that are dark, violent, and end with the death of one or more major characters. In his words, “I want subjects that are novel, big, beautiful, varied and bold—as bold as can be.” Thelibrettos of three are based on Shakespeare, others on Friedrich Schiller, Voltaire, and the romantic writers Victor Hugo, Lord Byron, and Dumas. Having chosen his subject, Verdi worked closely with his librettists to construct fast-moving, eventful plots with vividly contrasting emotions. Conflicts between fear, love, jealousy, fidelity,patriotism create dramatic tension both between and within individual characters. As the libretto evolved, so did Verdi’s ideas for the powerful melodies, energetic rhythms, and climactic buildups through which those passions would find musical expression. In casting his operas, Verdi looked for singers who brought to their roles a combinationof high level of vocal accomplishment and vivid stage presence, qualities that continue to be the hallmarks of the great interpreters of Verdi today. In the words of the soprano Renata Tebaldi: “Verdi suffered a great deal through his life and I hear it in his music as the expression of his own soul. Singers must remember to try and achievethe greatest ‘expressione’ in singing Verdi to do justice to this great Maestro.”

Vivaldi, antonio (1678–1741)

Antonio Vivaldi was one of the most prolific and influential composers of the Italian Baroque. He received his musical education from his father, then at the age of 15 began his training for the priesthood. In 1703, the year of his ordination, he assumed the position of teacher of violin at the Pietá, a Venetian home for orphaned, illegitimate,and indigent girls. He spent most of the rest of his life in Venice, although productions of his operas took him to Rome, Mantua, Verona, and Prague. At the height of his popularity, his commissions and published works amassed him considerable wealth, but at the time of his death, in Vienna, he had become impoverished and was buried in apauper’s grave.

The list of Vivaldi’s compositions is both large and diverse, encompassing orchestral and instrumental chamber works, masses and other sacred music, and operas. Of his over 40 operas, more than half have been lost and none are part of the standard operatic repertory today. On the other hand, his concertos, of which over 500 have beenpreserved, are firmly established in the instrumental literature. His music has been featured in numerous television commercials and in the scores of such recent films as The Royal Tenenbaums, Sidewalks of New York, Being John Malkovich, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Final Cut , and Shine .

Many of Vivaldi’s concertos were written to be played by the more talented of his students at the Pietá. During one six-year period, from 1723 to 1729, the records of the Pietá show he was paid for 140 concertos, an astonishing twelve per month. These and other of his instrumental and sacred works would have been performed by the girlsat concerts that became major events in the social life of the Venetian nobility and foreign visitors.

Vivaldi was a seminal figure in the history of the concerto, especially the violin concerto. About 200 of his 500 extant concertos are for one violin and another 30 or so for two or more violins, or violins with other solo instruments. His writing for the violin explores the instrument’s virtuoso capabilities as well as its capacity to“sing.” He standardized a three-movement design for the concerto as a whole, in which the fast tempo and animated character of the first and third contrast with a more lyrical and expressive slow movement in the middle. Vivaldi also established a formal pattern for the fast movements, called ritornello form, which involves a systematicalternation of solo and tutti forces. He was a pioneer of program music, instrumental music that portrays a story, scene, or other nonmusical subject. The most famous of his programmatic works is The Four Seasons , a collection of four violin concertos, one devoted to each of the four seasons of the year.