Verdi

(vEr'de), Fortunio Giuseppe Fran- cesco, compr. b. Le Roncole, near Bu eto, Italy, Oct. 10, 1813, d. Milan, Jan. 27, 1901. Son of working people; org. le ons from local orgt. whom he succeeded at 11; whole employed in distillery at Bu eto, lived in house of musical people, took le ons of one, Provesi, and became leader of local Philharmonic Society; refusal of authorities to admit him to Milan Cons, (they did not find evidence of talent for music) sent him back to Bu eto where he conducted an orchestra m face of opposition; 1838, two years after marriage to Marg her it a Barezzi moved to Milan; failure of first opera and death of wife and two children came close together; first succe was Nabucco 1842, followed by I Lombardi 1843 and the triumph of Ernani, 1844; then after several minor works came Rigoletto 1851, Trovatore and Traviata 1853, Un oaUo in maschera 1859; with Laforza del destino 1862, and Don Carlos 1867, and markedly in Aida (written for Khedive of Egypt, 1st performed at Cairo 1871), he turned away from earlier style VIAJDANA which was the purely lyric Italian manner to one with more attention to richne of orchestration and appropriatene of music; between 1871 and 1887, Verdi wrote no dramatic works, only the Manzoni Requiem 1874; in 1S87 with Otetto ana 1893 with Fcdstaff he achieved the only adequate operatic settings of Shakespeare, and also wrote with an entire truthfulne of dramatic expre ion, an elaboratene of instrumentation, and an absence of empty ornament surprising in a man so old and so succe ful in other styles; question of the influence of Wagner on these later works is still debated, but the influence seems to have been limited to seriousne of attitude and careful orchestration rather than in adapting of leit motif or subordination of voice parts. In still widely popular earlier operas he shows a fertility of melody scarcely equaled by any one except Ro ini, which overbalances the extreme thinne of his orchestration.