Giuseppe Verdi
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 November 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 November 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199757824-0029
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 November 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 November 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199757824-0029
Introduction
Giuseppe Verdi (b. 1813–d. 1901) was the leading opera composer of 19th-century Italy. During his long and sensationally successful career, many of his operas became permanent fixtures in the repertories of the world’s principal opera houses; Rigoletto, La traviata, Il trovatore, Aida, and Otello are only some of the works by Verdi whose popularity remains undiminished to the present day. His style changed considerably from the early works, which drew significantly on the conventions and formal procedures established during the early part of the century in the operas of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and their contemporaries. By the mid-1840s, he was broadly regarded as the leading Italian composer of his time. His authorial voice developed remarkably during his long career, from the rousing choruses and forceful vocal lines of the early operas to the increasing formal freedom and rich psychological nuances of his middle-period works, and finally to the highly individual works of his late years. As his prestige and influence grew, in the mid-19th century Verdi vigorously asserted his authority on numerous fronts, pressuring librettists, singers, impresarios, and publishers to ensure that his artistic intentions were understood and realized and that his rights were adequately protected. He took the lead in selecting the subject matter for many of his operas and in shaping his librettos through intense epistolary exchanges with the poets who worked for him. The sources he chose included plays by Shakespeare, Schiller, Hugo, Dumas, and Gutiérrez. An eminently public figure in Italian society and culture, he became an icon of the Italian national movement known as the Risorgimento; during the first two decades of his career, his operas were often subjected to censorship, and significant compromises had to be reached to make them performable (including changes of title, locale, time, and character names). In the wake of the unification of Italy, he came to be regarded as a national hero and was invited to serve as a member of the first Italian parliament. The success of countless opera singers from the mid-19th century to the present day is closely associated with Verdi’s music, and their role in the dissemination and enduring success of his operas has been essential. Important textual research and the ongoing publication of the Works of Giuseppe Verdi (Verdi 1983–, cited under Sources and Editions), which aims to publish Verdi’s entire opus in critical edition, have sparked renewed interest in some of his lesser-known works, with recent productions of Giovanna d’Arco and I due Foscari at the Verdi Festival in Parma (in 2008 and 2009, respectively) and Attila at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, conducted by Riccardo Muti in 2010.
Reference Works
Virtually all music dictionaries and encyclopedias contain extensive individual entries on Verdi. Parker’s “Verdi, Giuseppe” (Grove Music Online) and Della Seta 2006 are the most current articles, and Porter 1980 remains a worthwhile read, albeit not reflecting recent bibliography and critical perspectives.
Della Seta, Fabrizio. “Verdi, Giuseppe.” In Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik. 2d ed. Edited by Friedrich Blume, 1438–1483. Personenteil 16. Kassel, Germany: Barenreiter, 2006.
Presents an extraordinarily accessible, thorough, and engaging overview of Verdi’s life, career, compositional methods, and cultural milieu, as well as numerous analytical and interpretive insights. Excellent bibliography.
Parker, Roger. “Verdi, Giuseppe.” In Grove Music Online.
An account of Verdi’s life and works in chronological order, with a final section examining the dissemination and reception of the composer’s work in the 20th century. Good list of works. The bibliography was last updated around 2000.
Porter, Andrew. “Verdi, Giuseppe.” In New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 19. Edited by Stanley Sadie, 635–665. London: Macmillan, 1980.
An excellent discussion of Verdi’s life and works. Superseded by Parker’s entry in Grove Music Online (Verdi, Giuseppe), it is still a worthwhile read for various critical insights and for the discussion of periodization. The bibliography is out of date.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Adams, John
- Afghanistan, Music in
- Air de Cour
- Albéniz, Isaac
- American Minstrel Music
- American Music Theory, 1955–2017
- Analysis
- Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela
- Armstrong, Louis
- Asia, Southeast
- Babbitt, Milton
- Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel
- Bach, Johann Christian
- Bach, Johann Sebastian
- Ballet Music
- Barber, Samuel
- Baroque Music
- Bartók, Béla
- Beatles, The
- Beethoven, Ludwig van
- Bellini, Vincenzo
- Berg, Alban
- Berio, Luciano
- Berlioz, Louis-Hector
- Bernstein, Leonard
- Biber, Heinrich Ignaz Franz
- Boccherini, Luigi (Ridolfo)
- Boulez, Pierre
- Brahms, Johannes
- Brass Instruments
- Brazil
- Britten, Benjamin
- Bruckner, Anton
- Buddhist Music
- Buxtehude, Dieterich
- Byrd, William
- Cage, John
- Canada
- Cantus Firmus
- Canzonetta
- Carter, Elliott
- Castrato, The
- Cello
- Central Asia
- Chaconne and Passacaglia
- Chamber Music
- Chausson, Ernest
- Chile, Music in
- China
- Christian Hymnody
- Chávez, Carlos
- Classical Era
- Clementi, Muzio
- Cold War Music
- Concerto
- Conductors and Conducting
- Continuo
- Copyright and Licensing in Music
- Corelli, Arcangelo
- Counterpoint
- Country Music, American
- Couperin, François
- Cuba
- Cuba, Classical Music in
- Dance
- Davis, Miles
- de Lassus, Orlande
- des Prez, Josquin
- Diaspora
- Digital World, Music in the
- d’Indy, Vincent
- Disability and Music
- Doctrine of Affections
- Donizetti, Gaetano
- Double Bass
- Dowland, John
- Du Fay, Guillaume
- Dunstaple, John
- Dvořák, Antonín
- Early Modern British Metrical Psalmody (1535-1700)
- East and West Africa
- Electronic and Computer Music Instruments
- Elgar, Edward
- Ellington, Edward Kennedy "Duke"
- England
- English Catholic Music after the Reformation to 1750
- English-Speaking Caribbean
- E. T. A. Hoffmann
- Ethnomusicology
- Exoticism
- Falla, Manuel de
- Fauré, Gabriel
- Field, John
- Film Music
- Folk Music
- Foster, Stephen
- Franck, César
- Francophone Caribbean, Music in the
- French-American Colonial Music
- Frescobaldi, Girolamo
- Fugue
- Gabrieli, Giovanni
- Gender and Sexuality in Music
- Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, Carlo
- Gibbons, Orlando
- Glass, Philip
- Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich
- Global Music History
- Gluck, Christoph Willibald Ritter Von
- Gounod, Charles
- Granados, Enrique
- Greece, Music in
- Grétry, André
- Guido of Arezzo
- Hancock, Herbie
- Hanslick, Eduard
- Haydn, Joseph
- Hensel, Fanny
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Hindemith, Paul
- History of Music Theory
- Holst, Gustav
- Honegger, Arthur
- Ichiyanagi, Toshi
- Iconography, Early Modern European
- Ifukube, Akira
- India, Music in
- Indigenous Musics of the Arctic
- Indonesia
- Instrumentation and Orchestration
- Instruments, Musical
- Iran, Music in
- Ireland
- Isaac, Heinrich
- Israeli Art Music
- Ives, Charles (Edward)
- Janáček, Leoš
- Japan
- Jazz
- Jewish Music
- Joachim, Joseph
- Joplin, Scott
- Karłowicz, Mieczysław
- Keyboard Instruments
- Keyboard Music
- Korea
- Liedekens, 15th- and 16th-Century Dutch Polyphonic Songs
- Ligeti, György
- Liszt, Franz
- Locatelli, Pietro Antonio
- Lully, Jean-Baptiste
- Lusophone Africa, Music and
- Lute, Vihuela, and Early Guitar
- Luther, Martin
- Machaut, Guillaume de
- Madrigal
- Mahler, Gustav
- Makeba, Miriam
- Mass
- Massenet, Jules
- Medieval Music
- Medievalism and Music
- Mendelssohn, Felix
- Messiaen, Olivier
- Mexico
- Milhaud, Darius
- Minimalism
- Monteverdi, Claudio
- Motet
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
- Music and Asian America
- Music and Cognition
- Music and Mysticism
- Music in Colonial Hispanic America
- Music in the Balkans
- Musica Ficta
- Musical
- Musical Instruments, Classification of
- Musorgsky, Modest Petrovich
- Nationalism in Western Art Music
- N’Dour, Youssou
- Nketia, J.H. Kwabena
- North Africa
- Notation
- Oboe
- Operetta
- Orchestral Music
- Organum
- Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da
- Paraguay, Music in
- Parton, Dolly
- Peking Opera (Beijing Opera, jingju)
- Penderecki, Krzysztof
- Performance Practice in Western Art Music
- Philosophy of Music
- Piazzolla, Astor
- Ponce, Manuel
- Popular Song in the Age of Louis XIV
- Post-Colonialism
- Poulenc, Francis
- Printing and Publishing of Music
- Program Music
- Prokofiev, Sergey
- Puccini, Giacomo
- Puerto Rico, Music of
- Purcell, Henry
- Queer Musicology
- Rameau, Jean-Philippe
- Rap/Hip-Hop
- Ravel, Maurice
- Recitative
- Recorder
- Reich, Steve
- Renaissance
- Resources for Musical Research
- Revueltas, Silvestre
- Rodrigo, Joaquin
- Romanticism
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
- Roussel, Albert
- Rumba
- Saint-Saëns, Camille
- Salsa
- Satie, Erik
- Scarlatti, Alessandro
- Scarlatti, Domenico
- Schenkerian Analysis
- Schnittke, Alfred
- Schoenberg, Arnold
- Schütz, Heinrich
- Schumann, Clara
- Schumann, Robert
- Serialism
- Shostakovich, Dmitry
- Sibelius, Jean
- Soler, Antonio
- Solo Secular Vocal Music
- Sonata
- Sonata Form
- Sound Art
- Sound Studies
- Strauss, Richard
- Stravinsky, Igor
- Street Music
- String Quartet
- Suite
- Sustainability, Music
- Symphony
- Tailleferre, Germaine
- Tallis, Thomas
- Talma, Louise
- Tango
- Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich
- Technology, Music
- Telemann, Georg Philipp
- Thailand
- Thomas “Mukanya” Mapfumo and Songs of Protest in Colonial ...
- Tonality
- Troubadours and Trouvères
- Umm Kulthūm
- Variation Form
- Vaughan Williams, Ralph
- Verdi, Giuseppe
- Victoria, Tomás Luis de
- Video Game Music
- Villa-Lobos, Heitor
- Viol
- Viotti, Giovanni Battista
- Virtuosity/Virtuoso
- Vivaldi, Antonio
- von Weber, Carl Maria
- Wagner, Richard
- Webern, Anton
- West Asia
- Western European Music Criticism, c. 1700-1970
- Wind Bands
- Women in Music
- Woodwind Instruments
- Yuasa, Jōji
- Zarzuela