Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

I V 1874

1874. Not a bad year, I suggest. And imagine, if you did one of those ubiquitous seven-hour-long schedule-filler TV programmes recalling the year, with various talking heads popping up (the same ones who popped up last week, and seemed to have exacdy the same opinion of a completely different year) and full of clips of music, and items you'd forgotten from the year - well, how would it sound? Nothing like the following, I can guarantee.

First up in the clips stakes is Verdi's Requiem. This is one truly amazing work - not an opera, obviously, and yet very operatic in style. In fact it was labelled, by conductor Hans von Bulow - he of the flighty baton and even flightier wife - as 'an opera in church vestments'. And you can see what he meant - this is very much a Requiem in the line of Berlioz rather than Bach or Mozart. It's a very theatrical, dramatic piece. More importandy, though, it was to Verdi what William Tell was to Rossini. By that I don't mean it cost a fortune in flit's amazing that despite Wagner and Cosima's infedelities, von Bulow remained a dedicated Wagner fan all his life. apples - I mean it was the last piece he wrote before retiring for a while. In Verdi's case, it wasn't the full, 'Rossinian' thirty-four years, but he did shut up shop for the next thirteen. Thirteen years! A long time for the people of Italy, no doubt. He just… moved to the country. Wrote nothing, 'Do not Disturb' sign up, everything. (Wipes tear from eye.)

So that was Verdi and his 'operatic' style of 1874. His Italian sound is very different, too, to the German operatic sound of Wagner. It's not just that you don't have to shave twice and bring a change of clothes to get through an Italian opera, it was just, well, different. Very different. Italian opera and German opera had taken different turns on the road, and were travelling different paths. Verdi's stuff was still pushing at the limits, somewhat - I mean, just listen to Aida and La Forza del Destine: these were both really stretching it compared with where Verdi started in Nabucco, for instance. And so it would be - the two were nearly thirty years apart. And thirty years, musically, in that - and this - day and age means a hell of a lot.

Anyway, that's Verdi's Italy, and Wagner's Germany, but where is France? And who is France, as it were? Well, come with me, to the next line but one, and I'll tell you. But bring your hankies - it's a weepy.