Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

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Good. 1842 wasn't all plain sailing, though. Sadly for arts lovers everywhere, a Czech national dance, known as the polka, has come into fashion with the elite circles of high society. Poor darlings, making right pillocks of themselves, skipping around like hermits on their day out. Around the same time as polkas, a paper is published called 'On the Coloured Lights of the Binary Stars'.

So what? I hear you say. Well, let me tell you that it was written and published by one CJ Doppler.

Still so what? I hear you cry. So let me tell you, then, that it was the same paper, and the same Doppler, that isolated the effect known as… the Doppler Effect. What then, hmm?

Right. OK. I see. So what, still. OK, let's move on - nothing to see here.

And so to the 'Nebuchadnezzar Opus', as it were. Not merely or even necessarily the 'magnum' opus, so to speak, but one that was to prove a turning point for a young composer from Busetto, in the Parma district of Italy.

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi, to give him his full if slightly worrying name, was born in the small Italian village of Le Roncole, near Busetto. He led a fairly ordinary Italian village life, too, give or take the odd early incident. In Verdi's case, it was that, while serving at the altar at church - as an acolyte, to be precise - the priest had noticed that he was paying too much attention to the sound of the organ, and not enough to his sacramental duties. As a result, he did what any priest worth his salt would have done - he kicked him sharply up the arse, sending him tumbling down the altar steps and leaving him almost comatose at the bottom.^ Oddly enough, Verdi never really sought a musical opening in the Church - so maybe that Catholic priest did Italian opera the biggest favour possible.

At the age of twenty-three, Verdi might have had even more reason to give up on the whole music thing, too. By then, he'd been to the big city, Milan, to seek his musical fortune, only to be unceremoniously dumped on before he even got into music college: the powers-fhat-be denied him a place at the conservatoire. 'Lack of piano technique', said one; 'over age', said another: 'insufficientiy gifted', said a third. So he slunk back to his native Busetto and got a local job, as Director of die Philharmonic Society. And that's how it could have stayed. A big albeit undeveloped fish in a very small pond. But it didn't.

Back in Busetto, Verdi married. Her name was Margherita, and despite the fact that she was plain - only cheese and tomato - they had two children. Tragically, though, his kids died in infancy, and, just two years later, he lost his wife too. Verdi did what many musicians before him had done - he threw himself into his music.

He grafted hard on the city's music by day, and then on his own by night. He was working on an opera. He had high hopes for it and spent every unallotted moment tweaking a note here or reorchestrat-ing a phrase there. So convinced was he that it was a winner, his magnum opus, that he moved back to Milan, and took his now completed opera widi him. It was 1840, and, amazingly enough, for the man rejected by the conservatoire, the most famous opera house in the world, La Scala, Milan, agreed to stage his opera. Verdi was right. The world would sit up and take notice of his opera.

Well, OK, he was partly right. The world would sit up and take notice, only not of this opera. Let me try the title on you, and you tell me when was the last time you saw it in any opera house's forthcoming season brochure: ®btxtBf Cento tit?»???? amp;?? Quite. Says it all, eh? Despite the fact that it maybe didn't achieve its fi OK, any priests reading, I'm using irony here, OK? Or is it litotes? I can never work that baby out. place in history, it did, nevertheless, achieve its place in the La Scala season of 1840/41, and to modest success, too. As a result he was commissioned to write another. THIS ONE! THIS ONE would be the magnum opus. This would be one to go down in history. And so he came up with: Hit «©????????? OK. Wrong again. In fact double wrong, with cheese. Wrong Royale, as it were, because not only would this not go down well in history, it would not go down well in the La Scala season of 1841. Verdi was nearly broken. Look at him - he'd lost his wife and children, he'd given up his safe job in his hometown, he'd had a minor hit with his first opera, and now he'd had a turkey with his second. It was not the start he had hoped for. In fact he was on the point of giving it all up. Indeed, he visited his opera producer, a chap called Merelli, with the express purpose of telling him that he was packing it in. Merelli, however, had other ideas.

He'd been approached by a librettist, Solera, with a 'book', as they say in opera circles, for an opera of the story of Nebuchadnezzar, set in the Jerusalem and Babylon of 568??. Ignoring Verdi's protestations, he forced the manuscript into his hands, ushered him out, and locked his door. Verdi spent a few minutes pleading with his colleague from outside, but to no avail. Exasperated, he retired to the nearest coffee house for an espresso.

Over coffee, the libretto fell open. It was at the page where Verdi could read the words 'Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate' - 'Fly, thought, on wings of gold.' His mind immediately began to wander over the musical possibilities of the words, and he started to think. After a few minutes he put on his coat, flung some coins on the table and rushed home. By the time he got there, virtually the whole of one chorus was written in his head. All he had to do was 'copy it out' of his brain, so to speak. The chorus was 'The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves': the opera was Nabucco. It was to turn Verdi's career, and the path of Italian opera, completely around. Within the year, Italian opera was, once again, King, and Giuseppe Verdi was its most famous composer.

Officially, it's called Nabucodonosor. Thank goodness he shortened it to Nabucco. But then operas are like that. They're a bit like show dogs - they have a normal name and a ridiculous kennel name. Many operas of which we think we know the tide are, in fact, officially called something else. Cost fern Tutte, for example, when displayed in show, goes by the name of Cost fan Tutte ossia La Scuola degli Amanti, Catchy, huh? Beethoven's Fidelio won best in breed as Fidelio, oder eheliche Liebe. Obviously! Fairly rolls off the average Italian tongue, as rumours used to go about Vivaldi.

Another reason for the success of Nabucco might also have been the state of Italy at the time. The Italian nationalists were less tlian twenty years away from a unified Italy, and the symbolism of Nabucco, with its enslaved heroes, was not lost on Verdi's countrymen. 'Va, pensiero' was taken up as a national signature tune in the fight against the Austrian oppressors.