An almost frivolous, hat-in-the-air ebullition in the STRING department: A rather tame tune in CLARINET, relieved by a 'Cello guffaw down below: A string tune of which it may be said, 'The tail wags the dog'; it begins in a commonplace manner, then brightens up into a series of chuckles and ends with an (unintentional) tag of Three Blind Mice, of which a great deal of the happiest use is quickly made. Add to all these a number of quotations from the other movements (which will be easily recognised, even where two of them are running in double harness), and you have the last Movement of the New World. The orchestration is sometimes piquant and sometimes blatant. Note a most effective 'Piatti Solo' (i.e., a touch of the Cymbals) followed by an ascending passage by the Bassoons. The Columbia Record gives this Movement complete; the H.M.V. Record has the following omissions: Bars I- 9 Bars 49-59 Bars 100-114 Bars 128-167 i.e., a total of 75 bars out of 348--not very much, and in any case this Movement bears cutting better than any other in the Symphony, being slung together, rather than composed. The H.M.V. people give two sides to this Movement, the Columbia three. Five Large Columbia Light Blue Records. L. 1523-4-5-6-7, each 7s. 6d. Four Large Black H.M.V. Records. D 536, 537, 587, 613, each 6s. 6d. Printed Music. Goodwin & Tabb, Miniature Score, 6s. This is a favourite patter song from the Opera, The Barber of Seville (1816), the libretto of which (like that of Mozart's Opera, Figaro) is based upon Beaumarchais. Figaro, the barber and general handy-man of Seville, his guitar hanging from his neck, bustles on to the stage, singing: Largo al factotum della città. Presto a bottega, che l'alba è già, Ah, che bel vivere, che bel piacere Ah, bravo Figaro, bravo, bravissimo, Pronto a far tutto, la notte il giorno Pronto prontissimo son come il fulmine, Ah! bravo Figaro, bravo, bravissimo, Fortunatissimo per verità. Ah ah! che bella vita. -Sterbini. The present singer seems to depart slightly from these words once or twice. Verdi. FREE TRANSLATION. Room for the city's factotum! On his way to his shop at the dawn of the day. Oh what a life-like a spinning teetotum! You're fortune's favourite, your trade's but a toy. Ready for anything by night or by day. I never find one wherever I roam. Lancets and scissors and brushes and razors, All at my hand there, ready for use. Ladies and children, lawyers, star-gazers, Clip, shave, shampoo them and brush them up spruce. Figaro! Figaro! Coming, sir! Coming! Credo. -P. A. S. Of this justly famous piece of dramatic declaration there exists a large number of records. The one I have named above seems to me, after careful testing, to be the best, but tastes are not all alike, and readers may, if they wish, make their own choice, by making use of the convenience which all the larger dealers now offer for testing and comparing records. Verdi's two Shakespearean operas, his Otello and his Falstaff, are his masterpieces. Rigoletto, La Traviata and Il Trovatore are childish beside Otello and Falstaff, and Aida a mere gaudy show. Yet these two greatest works are at present the least heard, i.e., as wholes, though this Credo from the one opera and Quand era paggio from the other are popular concert pieces. How lamentably do most opera composers fail when they approach Shakespeare! That a Gounod should attempt ! a Romeo and Juliet, or an Ambroise Thomas a Hamlet And it is to the everlasting glory of Verdi that in his old age (for he was seventy-three when he produced Otello and seventy-nine when he produced Falstaff) he was able almost to cast aside the conventionality of Italian operatic expression, and to mate one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies and one of his happiest comedies with music not unfitting. Sixteen years had elapsed between the composition of Aida and that of Otello, sixteen years which he had, but for the composition of his Requiem, passed in silence. With Otello he opens a new period. He no longer seeks cheap, easy-running tune, but, doubtless influenced in some measure by the example of a contemporary (the greatest German dramatic composer and the greatest Italian dramatic composer were born within six months of one another), he places in the forefront of the demands he makes upon his genius a genuinely dramatic treatment of the thought of his librettist. This librettist was Boito, himself a composer of distinction, as well as a man of fine literary taste and a poet. He was a student and admirer of Wagner, though not in his music a follower of him. Possibly it was he who influenced his senior (Verdi was born in 1813, Boito in 1842) in the Wagnerian theories and achievements. There is something Wagnerian about this Credo. The directness of dramatic utterance is Wagnerian. Here, as stated above, is no attempt to be lyrical for the sake of being lyrical; the shape of the vocal phrases and general 'lay-out' of the piece are conditioned by the sequences of thought in the words. The orchestral part is almost entirely constructed of three bold phrases that have a strong resemblance to Wagnerian leading motifs. Yet the expression is throughout personal to Verdi and national to Italy. It is worthy of remark that the idea of putting into Iago's mouth an expression of his faith is entirely Boito's. |