Spring2013


and Peter Pears (his life partner, collaborator and leading tenor) both lived and founded a festival. Having tried out America, Britten had decided that the American approach was not for him. On the Suffolk coast facing out towards continental Europe, Britten felt at home both as a man and a composer at one with his surroundings which enabled him to give full vent to his musical expression.


Whilst best known today throughout the operatic world for his larger scale works (Billy Budd premiered in 1951 at Covent Garden, and Death in Venice in 1973 at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh) Britten is also loved for works perhaps more known to opera goers on these shores – Albert Herring, Gloriana, The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Owen Wingrave.


Britten shares two things in common with Wagner: both conducted their own and music of other composers. Both developed venues that would perform their works. The 830 seat Snape Maltings was opened by HM The Queen in 1967, whilst Wagner had his Bayreuth Festspielhaus, opened in 1876. In contrast, Verdi established in Milan the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, a rest home for retired musicians. Indeed, in his will, amongst other valuable bequests, Verdi left to the Home all rights and royalties, in Italy and abroad, for all of his operas.


Britten stands out as one of the major opera composers of the 20th Century. His operas are regularly performed all over the world at all of the major opera houses. According to Operabase, more Britten operas are played worldwide than any other composer born in the 20th Century. Only Puccini and Richard Strauss are ahead of him, if that list is extended to all operas composed after 1900. In particular, Grimes and Budd stand scrutiny with the very best of them. A performance I saw in the 70s, at Covent Garden, with the great Canadian tenor, John Vickers, as a most tortured Grimes, will remain in my memory as long as I have one.


I have also witnessed outstanding performances and productions of Billy Budd (both Covent Garden and English National Opera), Albert Herring and The Turn of the Screw (both at Glyndebourne). Together with his song cycles and War Requiem Britten’s reputation is surely secured.


So, who is the greater composer: Wagner or Verdi? The fact is that both of them were very, very great; indeed, two of the outstanding composers of the 19th Century. Verdi’s father was a taverner, and a most welcome first child after nine years of marriage. By the age of 10, Verdi had become the part-time organist at San Michele Arcangelo, and only 12 when given the full-time job. Verdi was now boarding with a family in Busseto, several miles away from his home at Roncole. Busseto was a city of culture and commerce and, here, he came under the influence of a wealthy merchant, Antonio Barezzi.


Verdi graduated from music school in Bussetto in 1827. In 1828, when he was 15 and Barezzi was 41, he became one of Barezzi’s protégés. With much help from him and the local Philharmonic Society, money was raised to send Verdi to the Milan Conservatory in the summer of 1832. The formal application sought a dispensation. He was 19 years old, the limit being 18. Verdi played his own compositions to the examining board and was rejected. It has been suggested that the professor of piano had invented a new method of keyboard technique which placed emphasis on the position of the pianist’s hands, and Verdi’s hands were not in ‘the right position’. So Verdi, who went on to compose 26 operas and one of the greatest and most performed Requiems ever, was rejected; in such circumstances, there is clearly hope for us all.


Verdi continued his studies in Milan and took private lessons. In 1836 he married Barezzi’s daughter, Margherita, and the marriage produced two children in 1837 and 1838. Both children tragically died


Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi


aged 1 and, within a year, Margherita had also died aged only 26. What an enormous loss to have to try to recover from! He was working on his first opera, Oberto, when his children died. It had its premier in 1839 at La Scala It was whilst working on his second opera, Un Giorno di Regno, that his wife died. This opera, given at La Scala in 1840, was a failure, and this was the lowest ebb of Verdi’s career and undoubtedly his life.


His next opera, Nabucco, given at La Scala in 1842, included the famous chorus for the Hebrew slaves, Va Pensiero. Nabucco established Verdi as a major force in Italian opera, and the chorus was taken up as a spiritual experience during the Risorgimento era. Today, many Italians consider it to be their ‘national anthem’. By the end of 1842, Nabucco had played 65 times at La Scala and, within two years, all over Italy and travelled to Vienna, Barcelona and Lisbon.


By 1842, at not yet 30 years of age, Verdi’s future was secured.


Where was Wagner by age 29? Wagner was born in Leipzig, the ninth child of a police actuary who died in the same year of Richard Wagner’s birth. The following year, Wagner moved to Dresden, since Wagner’s mother had married a painter and actor, Ludwig Gayer, a friend of the family. Until he was 14, Wagner was known as ‘Richard Gayer’. Following the death of Ludwig Gayer, the family returned to Leipzig in 1827.


(Cont. on page 10) City Solicitor • Issue 81 • 9


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