Frederick James Crowest

“ 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. ”

“ Petrovich—artists who, on the whole, did justice to the masterly music put into their mouths. At the conclusion of the performance Verdi was called forward some twenty times amid a scene of enthusiasm, and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs, indescribable. The excited people yoked themselves to the maestro's carriage, and drew him at a vexatiously slow pace (in order that he might catch the applause) to his hotel; and those who retired to rest that night did so to the accompaniment of singing and cries for Verdi, which had not ceased when all good people should have been asleep. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ It will be allowed, we suspect, that no dramatic-lyric work is so well known, or has enjoyed a more amazing popularity than has Verdi's opera of The Troubadour. Whatever may be its merits and demerits, it is unquestionably a work which has delighted a generation fast passing away; while it bids fair to afford equal pleasure to a new and rising one, judging by the hearty reception given to the opera at recent performances. For long and long have ominous words been uttered predicting the decline and death of Il Trovatore, with all Italian opera of its kin. ”

“ The score of Falstaff is something of an alpha and omega of a musical life—there is the young and the old, the youth and the philosopher present and apparent, in rare harmonious weaving. The symmetry of the whole is striking indeed; while the clever construction throughout shows not merely the educated, but also the painstaking composer. [Pg 201] All the music is not of such superlative grace as that delicious scene where the animated quartet of merry wives are reading Falstaff's love-letters ”

“ Ever abreast of the times, Verdi saw a deeper and broadening meaning overtaking the lyric drama; and, reserving to himself the right to speak as he perceived, he published Aïda. This language he again laid down in Otello, a splendid outcome of latter-day genius. The same may be said of Falstaff. It completes a triad of masterpieces which ought to breathe new life into the Anglo-Italian lyric drama, if so be the decrees of fashion, and not a dearth of operatic talent and novelty, have not already administered the death-blow to that relic of the good old times. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I Masnadieri, to quote the Athenæum, "at all events, must increase Signor Verdi's discredit with every one who has an ear. We take it to be the worst opera which has been given in our time at Her Majesty's Theatre.... There is not one grand concerted piece—a condition hard upon a composer whose only originality has been shown in his concerted music.... The performance must be recorded as the failure of a work which richly deserved to fail, in spite of much noisy applause." ”

“ Lumley offered the young Italian maestro the vacancy. A tempting offer of a large salary, a three years' engagement, and the right to put a new opera of his own composition upon the stage each year was made. What tremendous art issues hung in the balance! A consent from Verdi, and his later works might never have been written, for the turmoil of a conductor's life knocks out of a man all energy for composition; besides which, when once the bâton is taken up, the creative faculty invariably disappears. ”

“ 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? ”

“ There is hardly one phrase in the part of the Buffoon which might not belong to Signor Verdi's Doge in I Due Foscari or to his Nabucco. The music of combination and dramatic action, again, is puerile and queer—odd modulations being perpetually wrenched out with the vain hope of disguising the intrinsic meagreness of the ideas, and flutes being used for violins, or vice versâ, apparently not to charm the listener but to make him stare. ”

“ In opera, melody was ever the great essential feature in the eyes of the Italians, and although there have been struggles to dislodge, or depose it, the evening of Verdi's career—the culminating point in the history of Italian Opera—furnishes the convincing proof that tune still remains the predominant factor in successful dramatic construction and realisation; for what would be the value of Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff, if they had not melody? ”

“ 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. ”

“ We all remember his thoughtful countenance and well-shaped head, with its finely-chiselled features, and dark eyes full of the fire of genius, the whole set off with a liberal gift of hair on the head and face. The slender build and highly-strung temperament at once arrest the eye; nor can we fail to be attracted by the tidily-attired exterior of the master. Verdi is best seen under the ordeal of some operatic triumph. Then through all the excitement he remains what he is—a quiet, calm, modest gentleman, one of those intellectual giants who scorn to trade upon their greatness. ”

“ It is not difficult, even if it be premature, to deliberate upon Verdi's probable place in, and influence upon, musical art. His labours, exemplified in such dramatic-music masterpieces as Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff, prove incontestably that perfected Italian opera, of such workmanship as these operas, crowning the later years of their great composer's life, can be, and is, a more refined art-production than either the most advanced or the least extravagant of the operatic models championed by Wagner, or any other reformer of the lyric drama. ”

“ 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 [Pg 224] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a grim commentary upon the usual way of managing the things of this life, to witness a man who has made melody for the whole world for now over half a century being refused an entrance scholarship at the training institution of his own land! It is a fact, nevertheless, that Verdi was actually denied admittance to the Conservatoire di Musica of Milan, on the ground of his showing no special aptitude for music! ”

“ 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 [Pg 226] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Without development there can be no such thing as a great orchestral structure. A theme must be taken and worked out in the wondrous Beethoven fashion ere anything instrumental worth the name of a symphony or overture can be evolved. All this means musical patience and application, which Italians have not; otherwise overtures to Italian operas would be something else than melodies of the opera, announced to the audience at the outset, in order to acquaint them with choice tunes that are to follow. ”

“ It is true that the composer in seeking for scientific combinations has not shown his former spontaneity, and that his themes are at times commonplace, while his instrumentation generally is too ponderous; but there are redeeming features in the elaborate score sufficient to prove that he still maintains that peculiar ascendency over the sympathies of audiences which asserts itself in striking situations so vividly. In short, Signor Verdi has the faculty, amidst trivialities, of never writing an opera in which there is not some display of emotional and sensational power. ”

“ The work itself possesses the beauties and defects peculiar to Verdi—a certain grandeur of conception and power of dramatic effect is even more striking here than in many other of the maestro's compositions. There is a warmth, spirit, and energy in the music which carries away the listener, which excites and inspires; at the same time there is a want of softness and repose which is, in this opera, more than usually perceptible. The too frequent use of the drums and the brass instruments is the great fault we have to find in this work. ”

“ A new production from the prolific pen of Maestro Verdi is a thing to which we are pretty well accustomed, and it happens that the new production in question, La Traviata, [Pg 133] is the weakest, as it is the last, of his numerous progeny. It has pretty tunes, for every Italian has more or less the gift of melody; but even the tunes are trite and common, bespeaking an exhausted invention, while there are no vestiges of the constructed skill, none of the masterly pieces of concerted music, which we find in the Trovatore or in Rigoletto. ”

“ If, too, during this long period it has seemed as little more than a luxurious form of amusement for quality people in England, it must be remembered that the great middle class here have tasted it, while the student and amateur have considered and digested the musical stage-play, and found it invested with a noble influence and character that could scarcely fail to elevate, where the ordinary drama might lower the public taste and morals. In Italy the opera is as much the necessary food of the common people as of the aristocracy. ”

“ The antiquaries of music, who care less to enjoy a work than to classify it, will not find the task in the case of Falstaff easy, for Falstaff does not fall readily into any of the required classes. It belongs to no school, not even to that of Verdi himself, for there was little in any of his other operas to show that he possessed the supreme gift of humour, though indeed we might have remembered that so exquisite a sense of proportion as his never goes unaccompanied with humour, and is dependent on it for perfection. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Signor Basevi has said—"From 1849 onwards, during ten years of national strife and protests, Verdi carried on politics in music, as we have all done in literature and humour. He carried on politics in music because, perhaps, without himself being conscious of it, he drew from the restlessness and tumult of his soul a kind of music which responded precisely to the restlessness and tumult of our minds ”

“ 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." ”

“ Nature may have denied to him those gifts of colour and glow which are the wings of music, and lacking which, he may remain for ever a mathematical musical machine, too many of whom, loaded with academical degrees and distinctions, and the consequent array of scholastic millinery, have been given to the world.
Verdi's ambition was to become a successful opera composer, but ere he could succeed, there were branches of study which could only be mastered in an establishment such as the Conservatoire at Milan. ”

“ Rapturous, unctuous music is not permanently strengthening and soul-raising. Emotionally, it carries to a great height, only to lead to a reaction, and to some lower estimate of music that captivates but does not elevate. In the Requiem, there is abundant theoretical workmanship—more such evidence than is usually met with in modern Italian Church music; yet, although this was the studied purpose of the musician, it has not enabled Verdi to rid himself of characteristics which stamp southern musical art as plainly as they do the architecture and the person. ”

“ It is not the medium, however, that we are contending against. Some of the greatest, grandest prayers have been expressed in simplest song. It is the colouring element, the atmosphere, pervading southern Church music which, being operatic, renders such music inadmissible by the side of German and English religious art. This objectionable feature stamps Verdi's Requiem from beginning to end. The score is impregnated with the world, and not with the cloister. The Italian worshipper must have movement and action, rather than reflection, even in his devotional music. ”