Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi remains the greatest operatic composer that Italy, the home of opera, has ever produced. Yet throughout his lifetime he claimed to detest composing and repeatedly rejected it. He was a landowner, a farmer, a politician and symbol of Italian independence; but his music tells a different story.An obsessive perfectionist, Verdi drove collaborators to despair but his works lauded from the start as dazzling feats of composition and characterization. From Rigoletto to Otello, La Traviatato to Aida, Verdi’s canon encompassed the full range of human emotion. His private life was no less complex: he suffered great loss, and went out of his way to antagonize supporters and his own family. An outspoken advocate of Italian independence and a sharp critic of the church, he was often at odds with nineteenth-century society.In Verdi: The Man Revealed, John Suchet attempts to get under the skin of perhaps the most private composer who ever lived.
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Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi remains the greatest operatic composer that Italy, the home of opera, has ever produced. Yet throughout his lifetime he claimed to detest composing and repeatedly rejected it. He was a landowner, a farmer, a politician and symbol of Italian independence; but his music tells a different story.An obsessive perfectionist, Verdi drove collaborators to despair but his works lauded from the start as dazzling feats of composition and characterization. From Rigoletto to Otello, La Traviatato to Aida, Verdi’s canon encompassed the full range of human emotion. His private life was no less complex: he suffered great loss, and went out of his way to antagonize supporters and his own family. An outspoken advocate of Italian independence and a sharp critic of the church, he was often at odds with nineteenth-century society.In Verdi: The Man Revealed, John Suchet attempts to get under the skin of perhaps the most private composer who ever lived.
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Verdi

Verdi

by John Suchet
Verdi

Verdi

by John Suchet

eBook

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Overview

Giuseppe Verdi remains the greatest operatic composer that Italy, the home of opera, has ever produced. Yet throughout his lifetime he claimed to detest composing and repeatedly rejected it. He was a landowner, a farmer, a politician and symbol of Italian independence; but his music tells a different story.An obsessive perfectionist, Verdi drove collaborators to despair but his works lauded from the start as dazzling feats of composition and characterization. From Rigoletto to Otello, La Traviatato to Aida, Verdi’s canon encompassed the full range of human emotion. His private life was no less complex: he suffered great loss, and went out of his way to antagonize supporters and his own family. An outspoken advocate of Italian independence and a sharp critic of the church, he was often at odds with nineteenth-century society.In Verdi: The Man Revealed, John Suchet attempts to get under the skin of perhaps the most private composer who ever lived.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781681778297
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Publication date: 07/03/2018
Sold by: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format: eBook
Pages: 288
File size: 178 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

John Suchet presents Classic FM's flagship morning program in England. Before turning to classical music, John was one of the England’s most respected television journalists. As a reporter he covered world events, including the Iran revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Philippines revolution. John has been honored for both roles. In 1986 he was voted Television Journalist of the Year, in 1996 Television Newscaster of the Year, and in 2008 the Royal Television Society awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award. The Royal Academy of Music has awarded him an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his work on Beethoven, having written six books on the composer, including the highly acclaimed Beethoven: The Man Revealed. His bestselling biography of the Strauss family, The Last Waltz: The Strauss Dynasty and Vienna, was published in 2015.
John Suchet presents Classic FM's flagship morning program in England. Before turning to classical music, John was one of the England's most respected television journalists. As a reporter he covered world events, including the Iran revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Philippines revolution. John has been honored for both roles. In 1986 he was voted Television Journalist of the Year, in 1996 Television Newscaster of the Year, and in 2008 the Royal Television Society awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award. The Royal Academy of Music has awarded him an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his work on Beethoven, having written six books on the composer, including the highly acclaimed Beethoven: The Man Revealed. His bestselling biography of the Strauss family, The Last Waltz: The Strauss Dynasty and Vienna, was published in 2015.

Table of Contents

1 Confused Beginnings 1

2 A Father and His Daughter 13

3 'He is a Rude, Uncivil Scoundrel' 21

4 Intolerable Losses 33

5 Another Loss and a Fiasco 43

6 'Little by Little the Opera Was Composed' 51

7 The Galley Years 61

8 'Signor Maestro' 71

9 Verdi, Man of Property 81

10 Queen Victoria Is Not Amused 91

11 'The Hour of Liberation Has Sounded' 101

12 Verdi Sets Tongues Wagging 111

13 The Opera Is 'Repugnant, Immoral, Obscene' 121

14 A Rift in the Verdi Family 131

15 A Question of Identity 139

16 'Without You, I Am a Body without a Soul' 147

17 The Bear of Busseto 157

18 Verdi, Gentleman Farmer 165

19 'Verdi Is My Tyrant' 175

20 A Wedding at Last 183

21 A Soprano Impresses Verdi 193

22 'I Am an Almost Perfect Wagnerian' 203

23 An Opera for Cairo 213

24 'The All-Powerful Corruptor of Italian Artistic Taste' 223

25 Scandal and Comedy 233

26 'One Button More, One Button Less' 243

Afterword 255

Notes 267

Bibliography 270

Index 272

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