Verdi - The Complete Works
Part 3. Operatic Extracts, Other Works And Rarities

Regrettably there are only very brief informative notes in the accompanying booklet in respect of the non-operatic music. The English versions are on pp. 87-94 of the Volume 2 booklet, these including two pages of photographs of singers. All recording details and contents are given in full on pp. 61-71.

CDs 68-69. Requiem and Quattro Pezzi Sacri
In Intermission 4 above, I outline how and why this Requiem was written. It is often referred to as the Manzoni Requiem whilst some cynics have referred to it as Verdi’s best opera. It is certainly one of the most dramatic of Requiems. After the reverential and ecclesiastical style of the opening Requiem and Kyrie the music varies between the beautifully lyric and the heavily dramatic as in the Dies irae and Tuba mirum with the bass enunciating the words "Mors stupebit et natura", in translation "Death and nature shall be stunned" (CD 68 Tr. 3). In this performance the sepulchral tones that Martti Talvela brings to them along with Solti’s dramatic reading are chilling in their effectiveness. The mood lightens for Luciano Pavarotti’s elegantly sung Ingemisco (Tr.8) which follows the soprano and mezzo duet with Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne superb in every respect. The Offertorium and conclusion on CD 69 bring the work to a wonderful end with the Libera me sung by Sutherland boasting excellent legato and expression, despite those famous missing consonants. She brings Solti’s magnificently dramatic interpretation to its conclusion.

Recorded in the Sofiensaal Vienna in 1967, with the Vienna Philharmonic and State Opera Chorus under the supervision of John Culshaw and Christopher Raeburn, this recording and performance has, since its publication, been my personal first preference as many successors and competitors have passed through my shelves.

Solti, then Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, along with their Chorus, added the Quattro Pezzi Sacri to his recorded CV in Chicago’s Medinah Temple in May 1977 and May 1978. Ray Minshull and James Mallinson were in charge of the recording (CD 69. Trs. 10-13).

After the composition of Otello Verdi, for his own pleasure, prepared the Ave Maria for four solo voices to the so-called enigmatic scale, an unusual one contained within one octave. It was not performed until 1895 and not originally considered for inclusion among the Quattro Pezzi Sacri. Verdi composed the Laudi ala Vergine Maria in 1887, before Falstaff, to a text based on Dante and the remaining Stabat Mater and Te Deum in 1895 and 1896. In a resonant acoustic the chorus work sounds excellent with Jo Anne Pickard the adequate soprano soloist in part four.

CD 70. Sacred Works
The brief booklet notes referred to above give no information about the Messa Solenne featured on this disc except artists involved. The work is not mentioned in Budden’s Verdi (Master Musicians Series, Dent, 1985). As I understand it the Messa Solenne (Messa di Gloria) in E flat major on this CD (Trs.1-6) is from an early (1835) manuscript, attributed to Verdi, in an arrangement by Professor Dino Rizzo. It features a high tenor, a soprano and a bass. Certain of the other contents on this disc also derive from Professor Rizzo’s work (Trs.7-10). The soloists for these items include well-known names such as Juan Diego Florez, Kenneth Tarver and Michele Pertusi. All were recorded in 2000 with the Coro Sinfonico di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi under Chailly. They are all interesting and well performed except in Tr.10 Tantum ergo in G major, when Kenneth Tarver fluffs a note. This latter work Budden, dates as 1836 (ibid p. 364).

Early in 1879 Verdi, for his own amusement in his arid operatic compositional period after Aida, composed a Pater Noster for unaccompanied five-part chorus (Tr. 11) and an Ave Maria for solo soprano and string orchestra. These two pieces (Trs. 11-12) conclude this disc along with the Libera Me, Domine (Tr.13) being Verdi’s contribution to the aborted Mass Verdi proposed in Rossini’s memory (see Intermission 3). To my ears the soloist, Cristina Gallardo-Domâs, is not ideally steady, in the latter piece.

CD 71. Discoveries
With Chailly on the rostrum, and recorded between 2000 and 2002, these varied pieces, some in Critical Editions by Professor Dino, include additional overtures/preludes that Verdi composed for performances of Aida (Tr.5) and Otello (Tr.7). We also hear the added prelude to act three of I Lombardi (Tr.8) and the original one to the 1857 version of Simon Boccanegra (Tr.9). All are interesting and well played and will give pleasure.

By far the longest of the preludes is that to Aida at just over eleven minutes of music (Tr.5). The piece was composed for the Milan premiere of the opera in 1832. The music grows out of the earlier, brief, prelude as played at the premiere in Cairo and ever since. However, Verdi was dissatisfied with his proposed extended version and it was unused with the manuscript seemingly lost until 1940 when Toscanini, having acquired an autograph, played it at a concert in New York with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The Orchestra of Santa Cecilia gave a second performance under Molinari in Rome whilst a recording of the Toscanini concert was preserved in the archives at the Lincoln Center. Using these sources Abbado played a version at La Scala on 2 November 1977 and included it in his recording of Pavarotti Premieres based on rare tenor variants from four operas along with the Prelude to the First Edition of Simon Boccanegra also included on this CD (Tr.9). The origins of the new overture and the musical structure of the Aida revision are outlined in detail by Budden ("The Operas of Verdi", Vol 3, Cassell, 1981 pp. 190-191 and 255-257). I am amazed that Verdi’s enlargement, that relates to many themes in the opera, was not taken up, as was the extended overture to La Forza Del Destino for the Milan premiere in 1869, to become a regular concert piece, particularly in the days when an orchestral concert comprised an overture, a concerto and a symphony.

By contrast with the Aida prelude, that to Otello written for the French version of the opera presented in Paris in 1894 (Tr. 7) is distinctly shorter at nearly six minutes. Of equal interest to the preludes are the other items included on the disc, in particular those involving solo instrumentalists, particularly the long Capriccio for bassoon (Tr.10) and the opening Sinfonia in C (Tr.1).

The music of the prelude to the 1862, original version of La Forza del Destino (Tr. 3) is the same as that on the CD of the complete recording from St Petersburg (CD 49).

CD 72. Songs
Many singers have tackled Verdi’s collections of songs. They are ideal recital material. Mostly written in the 1830s, before the production of Oberto, and the 1840s. The selections often depend on singer preferences. I have listened to the singing of Margaret Price on this record and compared it with the recent issue by diva of the moment, Diana Damrau. Both give pleasure. However, recorded in the Mozartsaal of the Vienna Konzerthaus in April 1986, and including the Ave Maria of 1880 (Tr.15), I found this disc very involving and satisfying. The dates of composition extend to Stornello of 1869 (Tr.14) and the delicate Ave Maria of 1880 (Tr.15) of the composer's later, mature period. Geoffrey Parsons is the sensitive accompanist.


CD 73. Songs, Arias and other rarities
In terms of variety of content this disc is perhaps the cream of the non-operatic CDs in this collection. Recorded at various locations 1980-2005, the contents come from a variety of sources. Music from various operas is included in the form of arias sung by Domingo (Trs.16-19). The item from Les Vêpres Siciliennes, the aria À toi que que chérie is sung in French, the only example of the correct language in this collection for this opera albeit Domingo is not the most natural of singers in that language or its style. As with the other three operatic extracts, from Attila, I due Foscari and I Lombardi (Trs. 16-19), where Domingo is idiomatically accompanied by Gergiev.

Elsewhere the compilers seem to have scoured widely and beyond the Universal stable to good effect as well as including more songs albeit without compositional dates. These include six sung by Renata Scotto, renowned for her dramatic and well nuanced singing of Verdi roles, showing another side of her vocal skills (Trs. 2, 3, 5 and 6).

Also included on this CD is the Hymn of the Nations (Inno delle nazione) featuring Luciano Pavarotti with the Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra under James Levine. This piece of music was a special for Verdi. Not used to composing pièces d'occasion, he did so, as the Italian representative, for the 1862 Great Exhibition in London to a text by Boito. It is a stirring piece (Tr.21) involving verses from the English National Anthem, in English. Pavarotti is heard to good effect. In the event the piece was not performed as part of the official celebrations, but was given in London on 24 May 1862, to great acclaim, with a soprano soloist.

CD. 74
For their recording of Verdi’s String Quartet in E Minor in this collection the editors have gone back to the early days of LP and a mono recording of 1951 featuring the Quartetto Italiano. In four movements the work was composed in 1873, between the composer’s last two operas and published three years later. Despite its age, the recording allows illustration of Verdi’s skill in another compositional genre as well as the quality of Decca’s recording at that time compared with that of many competitors.

This disc also includes the ballet music from two of his operas: Jérusalem and the French version of Il Trovatore. The ballet for the latter was added to the third act and also allowed some contentious business between the composer in Paris to be amicably settled as outlined in detail by Budden ("The Operas of Verdi", Volume 2, Cassell, 1978. pp. 107 et seq). The performances here, conducted by Antonio de Almeida with the Orchestre National de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo and recorded in 1974 and that by The National Philharmonic Orchestra under Richard Bonynge, recorded in September 1976 are wholly pleasurable to my ear and are excellent interpretations.


CD 75. Ballet music
The concluding disc of this extensive collection of Verdi’s music is wholly devoted to his ballet music. It includes recordings with Chailly on the rostrum of the ballet music from Otello, Don Carlos, Aida, Macbeth and I vespri siciliani. All the items are featured in the complete recordings of the operas concerned in section 2 above. All are played with the conductor’s usual brio and sympathetic adherence to the score as well as being well recorded.


Epilogue
In the November 1897 Giuseppina contracted pneumonia and died at the age of 82. Verdi was desolated. A prima donna at the time of his first opera, she had first been his adviser as to fees, then in turn mistress, wife and companion. She not only loved Verdi but revered him too. Her understanding of him as an artist stands out as truly extraordinary. She never tried to influence the direction of his composition, tolerated her exclusion from his life during the creative process, his elation immediately after a premiere and the depression that followed. She never doubted that his composing was the point on which all their life should focus, and for this the operatic world should be ever-grateful. Her will concluded with the words "Now, addio, mio Verdi. As we were united in life, may God rejoin our spirits in heaven." She was buried in Milan after which Verdi returned alone to Sant’ Agata.

Verdi was physically shaken by Strepponi’s death and complained that his hand trembled and his legs would not support him. He wrote to a friend "I am not sick, but I am too old." Younger friends such as Boito, Stoltz and Ricordi visited him, but all the friends of his generation who had lived through the years of the Risorgimento and unification were dead. He was lonely and spent more time in Milan where he physically watched over the construction of the Casa di Riposo, knowing every detail, even the costs of materials. Through his constant attendance it became known locally as Casa Verdi. He also had to estimate the cost of endowing the foundation and how to endow it. After establishing it as a charitable foundation he bequeathed the building itself, treasury bonds, two hundred thousand lire and the Italian and foreign royalties from his operatic compositions. It exists to this day.

On 21 January 1901 as he was dressing in his suite in the Grand Hotel in Milan Verdi suffered a stroke. He survived, unconscious until the early morning of 27 January when he died. In that period the hotel was draped in black and straw laid down in the streets to deaden the noise of traffic. As he stipulated he was laid to rest alongside his wife in the Milan municipal cemetery without music or singing. A month later both coffins were removed to the now completed Casa di Riposo on a specially-built carriage where they now lie. Two hundred thousand people lined the streets, wreaths arrived from all over the world and Royalty and members of the Italian Parliament followed the procession. Arturo Toscanini conducted a choir of eight hundred in a rendition of Va pensiero, sull’ali dorate! from his Nabucco. So passed the man named "The Glory of Italy", without doubt the greatest of all Italian composers and whose works, together with those of Mozart, form the backbone of the repertoire of every opera house in the world. At least his genius and greatness were recognised in his lifetime. Viva Verdi!

Robert J Farr

Part 1. Introduction ~ Part 2. The operas ~ Performance & Recording Details