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VERDI, GIUSEPPE FORTUNING FRANCESCO (1813-1901), Italian composer, was born on the loth of October 1813 at Le Roncole, a poor village near the city of Busseto. His parents kept a little inn, combined with a kind of village shop. Verdi received some instruction from the village organist, but his musical education really began with his entrance into the house of business of Antonio Barezzi, a merchant of Busseto. Barezzi was a thorough musician, and under his auspices Verdi was speedily introduced to such musical society as Busseto could boast. He studied under Giovanni Provesi, who was maestro di cappella of the cathedral and conductor of the municipal orchestra, for which Verdi wrote many marches and other instrumental pieces. These compositions are now the principal treasures of the library of Busseto. Among them is Verdi's first symphony, which was written at the age of fifteen and performed in 1828. In 1832 Verdi went to Milan to complete his studies. He was rejected by the authorities of the Conservatorio, but remained in Milan as a pupil of Vincenzo Lavigna, with whom he worked until the death of Provesi in 1833 recalled him to Busseto. A clerical intrigue prevented him from succeeding his old master as cathedral organist, but he was appointed conductor of the municipal orchestra, and organist of the church of San Bartolomeo. After three years in Busseto, Verdi returned to Milan, where his first opera, Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, was produced in 1839. His next work, a comic opera, known variously as Un Giorno di Regno and // Finto Stanislao, was written in peculiarly distressing circumstances, the composer having had the misfortune to lose his wife and two children in the course of two months. Un Giorno di Regno was a complete failure, and Verdi, stung by disappointment, made up his mind to write no more for the stage. He kept his word for a year, but was then persuaded by Merelli, the impresario of La Scala, to look at a libretto by Solera. The poem took his fancy, in a short time the music was written, and in 1842 the production of Nabucodonosor placed Verdi in the front rank of living Italian composers. The success of Nabucodonosor was surpassed by that of its two successors, / Lombardi (1843) and Ernani (1844), the latter of which was the first of Verdi's operas to find its way to England. With Ernani Verdi became the most popular composer in Europe, and the incessant demands made upon him reacted upon his style. For several years after the production of Ernani he wrote nothing which has survived to our time nothing which deserved to survive. In Macbelh (1847) there are passages of some power, and passages too which indicate an approaching transition to a less conventional method of expression. In Luisa Miller (1849) also there is a noticeable increase of refinement in style, which contrasts favorably with the melodramatic vulgarity of his earlier manner.
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