Giuseppe Verdi Free Sheet Music, Program Notes, Recordings and Biography

The Voice of Italy

At the 1842 premiere of the opera Nabucco at La Scala in Milan, the audience was electrified. The story of the biblical Hebrews, exiled and singing of their lost, beautiful homeland, resonated deeply with the Milanese, who were themselves living under oppressive Austrian rule. When the curtain fell on the chorus "Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate" ("Fly, thought, on golden wings"), the theater erupted. The chorus became the unofficial anthem for the Risorgimento, the movement for Italian unification. Nearly sixty years later, when Giuseppe Verdi was buried, the vast crowd that lined the streets of Milan did not remain silent. Spontaneously, they began to sing "Va, pensiero." The boy from a humble village had become more than a composer; he had become the voice of a nation.

The Innkeeper's Son from Busseto

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was born in a small village in the province of Parma, the son of an innkeeper and a spinner. His musical talents were recognized early by Antonio Barezzi, a wealthy local merchant who became his patron and second father. Barezzi funded his musical education and welcomed him into his home. In 1832, Verdi traveled to Milan to audition for the city's prestigious conservatory, but he was shockingly rejected, ostensibly for being over the age limit and for technical flaws in his piano playing. Undeterred, he studied privately in Milan before returning to his hometown of Busseto as the town music master.

Tragedy and the Triumph of Nabucco

Verdi’s early life was marked by almost unimaginable tragedy. He married his patron's daughter, Margherita Barezzi, and they had two young children. Within a span of just two years, between 1838 and 1840, both his infant children and then his beloved 26-year-old wife died from illnesses. Crushed by grief and reeling from the failure of his second opera, Verdi vowed to never compose again.

He was rescued from despair by the impresario of La Scala, Bartolomeo Merelli, who saw his genius. Merelli practically forced a new libretto into Verdi's hands—the story of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, or Nabucco. Verdi took it home, and as he later recalled, he threw it on the table, where it fell open to the page beginning "Va, pensiero." He was profoundly moved, and the music began to flow. The opera's spectacular success in 1842 changed his life forever, making him the most celebrated young composer in Italy.

The "Galley Years": A Composer for the People

The success of Nabucco initiated what Verdi called his "galley years." For the next decade, he worked like a slave, churning out opera after opera for houses across Italy and Europe. He was a man of the theater, deeply involved in every aspect of production, from the libretto to the staging. Works from this period, like Ernani and Macbeth, show him honing his dramatic skills and developing a powerful, direct style that appealed to a broad public. His name itself became a patriotic symbol. The slogan "Viva VERDI" was used by Italian nationalists as a secret acronym for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Long live Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy).

The Great Middle Period: Rigoletto, Il trovatore, and La traviata

At the beginning of the 1850s, Verdi produced a trio of masterpieces that cemented his international fame and have remained three of the most popular operas ever written.

• Rigoletto (1851) was a dark, psychologically intense drama based on a controversial play by Victor Hugo. It featured a hunchbacked court jester as its tragic hero and one of opera’s most famous arias, the cynical "La donna è mobile."

• Il trovatore (The Troubadour, 1853) is a fiery melodrama of revenge and mistaken identity, filled with some of Verdi's most passionate and memorable melodies, including the famous "Anvil Chorus."

• La traviata (The Fallen Woman, 1853) was a stunningly modern work for its time, an intimate tragedy about a Parisian courtesan who sacrifices her own happiness for the sake of her lover.

The Gentleman Farmer and Grand Old Man

By the late 1850s, Verdi was wealthy and famous. He spent more time at his country estate in Sant'Agata, becoming a gentleman farmer and a respected landowner. He had long been in a relationship with the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, who had starred in Nabucco. They lived together for years, finally marrying in 1859. He composed less frequently but on a grander scale, producing monumental works for Paris and Cairo, including Don Carlos and, most famously, Aida (1871), an epic of love and war in ancient Egypt, commissioned for the opening of the Cairo Opera House. In 1874, he composed his magnificent Messa da Requiem to honor the Italian novelist and patriot Alessandro Manzoni. The work is a masterpiece of sacred music, but with all the dramatic power and emotion of his greatest operas.

The Final Shakespearean Miracles

After the Requiem, Verdi, now in his 60s, seemed to retire from the stage. But his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, and the brilliant librettist Arrigo Boito conspired to lure him back to the theater with the perfect subject: Shakespeare's Othello. Intrigued, Verdi, then in his 70s, returned to composition and produced his tragic masterpiece, Otello (1887). The opera is a stunning achievement of musical drama, a seamless fusion of music and text.

Not content to end on a tragic note, Verdi, collaborating again with Boito, produced one final, miraculous work. At the age of 80, he composed his first successful comedy in over 50 years, Falstaff (1893). Based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, the opera is a brilliant, sparkling, and wise comedy that ends with a magnificent fugue on the words, "All the world's a joke." It was a sublime final statement from a master who had spent his life plumbing the depths of human tragedy. Verdi died in Milan in 1901, a beloved national hero and the undisputed soul of Italian opera.

Section 4: References and Further Reading

• References and Further Reading

• Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane. Verdi: A Biography. Oxford University Press, 1993.

• Budden, Julian. Verdi. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2008.

• Rosselli, John. The Life of Verdi. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

• Parker, Roger. The New Grove Guide to Verdi and His Operas. Oxford University Press, 2007.