Composer giuseppe verdi biography busseto

Giuseppe Verdi, known as “the Maestro”, one of the greatest composers in the world.

Much has been said about the man himself, the 27 works he set to music – especially the so-called “popular trilogy” of Il Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata – and his political commitment to the Risorgimento in Italy. Perhaps less well known, however, is the composer’s connection to his homeland, the province in Emilia, where he grew up and to which he always returned.

Verdi was born in 1813 in a small village about 35 km from Parma, Roncole di Busseto, to a family of merchants that were originally from Piacenza. It was here that the young Giuseppe learned to play the piano and the organ, and took his first steps towards composition.

The town of Busseto is also intimately linked with his romantic life. It was here that he met his first wife, Margherita Barezzi, and lived with his future second wife, the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi.  

To reconstruct the history of the places that meant so much to the life of the Maestro, the itinerary of the places connected to Verdi's life was created: a journey through mansions, museums, theatres and libraries, specifically designed for lovers of Verdi’s music, put on every year during the Verdi Festival at the Regio Theatre in Parma.

However, this is also an opportunity for those who want to learn more about the unbreakable bond Emilia-Romagna has with music, through the events in the life of one of its greatest exponents.

At the heart of the itinerary, there are the four houses linked to the composer’s life, first and foremost, the Villa Verdi, located in the countryside of Sant’Agata not far from Busseto. This house was purchased by Verdi in 1848 with the intention of giving it to his parents. However, following the death of his mother, Verdi and his partner Giuseppina moved in.

The Villa Verdi thus became the Maestro’s retreat; he would return here be

Italian opera composer (1813–1901)

"Verdi" redirects here. For other uses, see Verdi (disambiguation).

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (VAIR-dee, Italian:[dʒuˈzɛppeˈverdi]; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma, to a family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron, Antonio Barezzi. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him.

In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also served briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera Nabucco (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able to reduce his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He found further fame with the three peaks of his 'middle period': Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore and La traviata (both 1853). He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).

Verdi's operas remain among the most popular in the repertory. In 2013, the bicentenary of his birth was widely celebrated around the world with television and radio broadcasts and live performances.

Life

Childhood and education

Verdi, the first child of Carlo Giuseppe Verdi and Luigia Uttini, was born at their home in Le Roncole, a village near Buss

More than 150 years after his death, the works of Giuseppe Verdi form a major part of today’s opera repertoire. The Drinking Song from La traviata, The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco and ‘La Donna è mobile’ from Rigoletto are as well known in popular culture as they are in the world of opera. Father and daughter relationships are a recurrent theme in his work, as are the subjects of injustice, oppression and religious hypocrisy. A profoundly serious man, his final opera was a brilliant comedy. Verdi liked to give the impression that he came from a peasant background. However, he benefited hugely from an ambitious, middle-class father, who arranged music lessons and many other opportunities for him. Verdi began his education before he was four. When he was seven, his father bought him a spinet. By the age of nine, young Giuseppe was the resident organist at the church of San Michele, Roncole. Aged ten, he moved to Busseto to further his education. From 1831, he lodged at the home of Antonio Barezzi, a successful merchant and keen amateur musician. There he gave singing and piano lessons to Barezzi’s daughter Margherita. Barezzi sponsored his further musical studies in Milan before Verdi returned to Busseto in 1836 as maestro di musica. In the same year, he married Margherita, and they soon had two children. Tragically, Verdi’s children died in infancy, and his wife died soon after, leaving him distraught. With his personal life shattered and his professional life disrupted by grief, he turned his focus to composing opera. Verdi’s first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio, had achieved a modest success in Milan in 1839. On the basis of this, he was commissioned to write three operas for La Scala. The first, Un giorno di regno (1840), was a flop, but his follow-up, Nabucco (1842), was such a sensation that Verdi had a stream of new commissions. By 1853 he had written sixteen new operas. These include many of his most popular works, such as Mac

We are grateful to Pierluigi Petrobelli, president of the Learned Committee of the National Institute of Verdi Studies and “Knight of Verdi” - nominated by the Club of 27 of Parma - for kindly allowing us to publish his biography of Giuseppe Verdi.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)

Born at Le Roncole, near Busseto (Province of Parma), on 9 or 10 October 1813, to an innkeeper and a spinner, Verdi showed musical talent early on, as the inscription on his spinet bears witness: Cavalletti, a harpsichord-maker, repaired the instrument free of charge, “seeing the good willingness that the boy Giuseppe Verdi has for learning to play this instrument.” He owed his cultural and humanistic education mainly to his frequenting of the well-endowed library of Busseto's Jesuit School, which still exists.

Ferdinando Provesi, the local bandmaster, taught him the rudiments of musical composition and instrumental techniques, but it was in Milan that his personality was formed.

Although he was not accepted at the Milan Conservatory (because he was over the age limit), for three years he mastered counterpoint technique as a student of Vincenzo Lavigna, former maestro al cembalo at La Scala. At the same time, frequenting Milan's opera houses allowed him to become familiar, first hand, with the contemporary opera repertoire.

The Milanese atmosphere, influenced by the Austrian occupation, also permitted him to become familiar with the classical Viennese repertoire, especially the string quartet repertoire. His relationships with the aristocracy and contacts within the theater world were also decisive for the young composer's future: he would not dedicate himself to sacred music, as a church music master, or to instrumental music, but instead almost exclusively to music for the theater.

His first opera began life as Rocester (1837), had a long gestation period, and was then transformed into Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio; it was first performed on 17 November 1839, a