Masters of Italian Music

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 Excerpt: ... LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS GIUSEPPE VERDI Frontispiece FACSIMILE OF AUTOGRAPH SCORE BY VERDI To/acef. 65 ARRIGO BOITO. 137 FACSIMILE OF AUTOGRAPH SCORE BY BOITO PIETRO MASCAGNI FACSIMILE OF AUTOGRAPH SCORE BY MASCAGNI GIACOMO PUCCINI FACSIMILE OF AUTOGRAPH SCORE BY PUCCINI RUGGIERO LEONCAVALLO 156 163 177 189 205 215 The frontispiece and portraits 0/ Messrs. Boito and Puccini are from photographs copyrighted by Messrs. G. Ricordi & Co., Milan; and those of Messrs. Mascagni and Leoncavallo are from photographs by Messrs. Guigont & Bossi, Milan.. Permission has been kindly granted us by these firms to reproduce their photographs the exclusive rights of which they strictly reserve. GIUSEPPE VERDI There was current some years ago among writers on music a phrase which used to be a perpetual source of irritation to the rising generation. It was one of those circumlocutions dear to musical critics, and apparently indispensable to their technical vocabulary. The phrase in question was "the last of the Titans," and I need hardly say that it was invariably applied to Mendelssohn. Much as I disliked the expression in those days, with its confident assumption of finality and its contemptuous ignoring of all contemporary talent, it occurs irresistibly to my memory as I write of Giuseppe Verdi. Only a blind admiration of the past could refuse a place among the Titans to the extraordinary genius who seems with each decade to have added to the fuller maturity of his genius a double portion of youthful energy and vigour, until his labours culminated (so far as the world has yet seen) in the exuberant wit and the tender wisdom of "Falstaff." Development is the badge of the musician's trade. In music, to stand still is to recede. But though history gives us many examples of an as...