The twenty-six operas of Giuseppe Verdi are among the world's best-loved music. In works such as Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La traviata, and Aida, Verdi developed the musical language of Romanticism in a way that still speaks to listeners around the world. Born in 1813 in a village near Parma, Verdi was the son of an obscure innkeeper. His musical talent was soon obvious, and at the age of nine he became the organist at the village church. Denied entrance to the conservatory in Milan, he studied privately instead and soon had an opera accepted for production at La Scala. His third opera, Nabucco, made him famous throughout Italy; with his fifth, Ernani, he became a celebrity throughout Europe and his career was on its way. At the height of his success came works like Il trovatore, the most popular opera all over the world for the better part of the 1850's. Tragedy struck early in Verdi's life when he lost his young wife and both children to illness within a three-year period. Later, he became involved with the singer Giuseppina Strepponi and scandalized provincial society by living with her for ten years before they married. But above all else, the story of Verdi's life is the story of his work; he was still challenging himself to expand his artistic horizons at the age of 79, when he completed his last opera, Falstaff. Julian Budden's Verdi first traces the composer's life story, then provides illuminating commentary on each of the works. Appendices include a chronology, a list of works, a "who's who", and a select bibliography. A special feature of Verdi is a glossary of nineteenth-century opera terms, explaining words such as "cabaletta" and "cavatina" that are often used in writing about opera but seldom clearly defined.

Verdi (Master Musicians Series)

Biographies & Memoirs

BUDDEN, Julian

Arts & Literature

Schirmer Reference

Verdi (Composers Across Cultures)

In this third edition of the classic Verdi, renowned authority Julian Budden offers a comprehensive overview of Verdi the man and the artist, tracing his ascent from humble beginnings to the status of a cultural patriarch of the new Italy, whose cause he had done much to promote, and demonstrating the gradual enlargement over the years of his artistic vision. This concise study is an accessible, insightful, and engaging summation of Verdi scholarship, acquainting the non-specialist with the personal details Verdi's life, with the operatic world in which he worked, and with his political ideas, his intellectual vision, and his powerful means of communicating them through his music. In his survey of the music itself, Budden emphasizes the unique character of each work as well as the developing sophistication of Verdi's style. He covers all of the operas, the late religious works, the songs, and the string quartet. A glossary explains even the most obscure operatic terms current in Verdi's time.

Oxford University Press

Julian Budden, one of the world's foremost scholars of Italian opera and author of a monumental three-volume study of Verdi's works, now offers music lovers a major new biography of one of the giants of Italian opera, Giacomo Puccini. Blending astute musical analysis with a colorful account of Puccini's life, here is an illuminating look at some of the most popular operas in the repertoire, including Manon Lescaut, La Boheme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot. Budden provides an illuminating look at the process of putting an opera together, the cut-and-slash of nineteenth-century Italian opera--the struggle to find the right performers for the debut of La Boheme, Puccini's anxiety about completing Turandot (he in fact died of cancer before he did so), his animosity toward his rival Leoncavallo (whom he called Leonasino or "lion-ass"). Budden provides an informative analysis of the operas themselves, examining the music act by act. He highlights, among other things, the influence of Wagner on Puccini--alone among his Italian contemporaries, Puccini followed Wagner's example in bringing the motif into the forefront of his narrative, sometimes voicing the singer's unexpressed thoughts, sometimes sending out a signal to the audience of which the character is unaware. And Budden also paints an intriguing portrait of Puccini the man--talented but modest, a man who had friends from every walk of life: shopkeepers, priests, wealthy landowners, fellow artists. Affable, well mannered, gifted with a broad sense of fun, he rarely failed to charm all who met him. A new volume in the esteemed Master Musicians series, Puccini offers a masterful portrait of this beloved Italian composer.

Puccini: His Life and Works (Composers Across Cultures)

Critical analyses, background information, and selected musical examples are used to trace the evolution of the composer's style

Operas of Verdi, The: Volume 1: From Oberto to Rigoletto

Arts & Photography

Music

This second of three volumes covers the operatic works of Verdi written during the decadence of the post-Rossini period.

The Operas of Verdi : From Don Carlos to Falstaff

Now available in new paperback editions, the three volumes of The Operas of Verdi cover every aspect of the composer's rich and varied operatic achievement. Marked by extraordinary research and enhanced by hundreds of musical illustrations, this monumental study follows the developent of Verdi's oeuvre from his earliest opera Oberto to his final work, Falstaff. Julian Budden has mined the vast resources of European archives to provide a groundbreaking interpretation of Verdi's work and has discovered much new material, including an unpublished additional aria for I Due Foscari. In addition, The Operas of Verdi has now been brought up to date in light of the most recent scholarship, making it a substantially new edition of a classic work. Volume 1 traces the the organic growth and development of the composer's style from 1839 to 1851--from Oberto to Rigoletto--and examines each opera in detail, offering a full account of its dramatic and historical origins as well as a brief critical evaluation. More than 350 musical examples make the significance of these early operas to Verdi's developing style especially clear. In the second volume, Budden covers those operas written during the decadence of the post-Rossini period. During this time Verdi, having exhausted the simple lyricism found in such works as Il Trovatore and La Traviata, found new life as he directly confronted the masters of the Paris opera with his Les Vêpres Siciliennes. The new scale and variety of musical thought that can be sensed in the Italian operas which followed is shown here to culminate in La Forza del Destino. The third and final volume of the study covers the quarter century which saw grand opera on the Parisian model established throughout Italy, and the spread of cosmopolitan influences that convinced many that Italian music was losing its identity. Verdi produced his four last and greatest operas during this time--Don Carlos, Aida, Otello, and Falstaff--operas which helped inaugurate "versimo," in which a new, recognizably Italian idiom was realized. The third volume also includes a new, comprehensive bibliography compiled by Roger Parker.

The Operas of Verdi: Volume 1: From Oberto to Rigoletto, Revised Edition

The Operas of Verdi, Vol. 3: From Don Carlos to Falstaff

History & Criticism

Marked by extraordinary research and enhanced by hundreds of musical illustrations, this monumental study follows the development of Verdi's oeuvre from his earliest opera Oberto to his final work, Falstaff. In writing the first edition of this classic work-which appeared to great acclaim in 1973-Julian Budden mined the vast resources of European archives to provide a groundbreaking interpretation of Verdi's work, and along the way discovered much new material, including an unpublished additional aria for I Due Foscari. Now available in a revised edition, The Operas of Verdi is now brought up to date in light of the most recent scholarship, making it more useful and entertaining than ever. Volume 1 traces the the organic growth and development of the composer's style from 1839 to 1851-from Oberto to Rigoletto-and examines each opera in detail, offering a full account of its dramatic and historical origins as well as a brief critical evaluation. More than 350 musical examples make the significance of these early operas to Verdi's developing style especially clear. In the second volume, Budden covers those operas written during the decadence of the post-Rossini period. During this time Verdi, having exhausted the simple lyricism found in such works as Il Trovatore and La Traviata, found new life as he directly confronted the masters of the Paris opera with his Les Vepres Siciliennes. The new scale and variety of musical thought that can be sensed in the Italian operas which followed is shown here to culminate in La Forza del Destino. The third and final volume of the study covers the quarter century which saw grand opera on the Parisian model established throughout Italy, and the spread of cosmopolitan influences that convinced many that Italian music was losing its identity. Verdi produced his four last and greatest operas during this time-Don Carlos, Aida, Otello, and Falstaff-operas which helped inaugurate

The Operas of Verdi: Volume 1: From Oberto to Rigoletto (Clarendon Paperbacks)

Clarendon Press

Volume Two covers those works written during the decadence of the post-Rossini period. During this time, Verdi, having exhausted the vein of simple lyricism to be found in Il Trovatore and La Traviata, achieved self-renewal in direct confrontation with the masters of the Paris Opera with his Les Vepres Siciliennes. A new scale and variety of musical thought can be sensed in the Italian operas that follow, culminating in La Forza del Destino.

The Operas of Verdi: Volume 2: From Il Trovatore to La Forza del Destino (Clarendon Paperbacks)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BUDDEN, Julian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by BUDDEN, Julian

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BUDDEN, Julian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Verdi (Master Musicians Series)

Verdi (Composers Across Cultures)

Puccini: His Life and Works (Composers Across Cultures)

Operas of Verdi, The: Volume 1: From Oberto to Rigoletto

The Operas of Verdi : From Don Carlos to Falstaff

The Operas of Verdi: Volume 1: From Oberto to Rigoletto, Revised Edition

The Operas of Verdi, Vol. 3: From Don Carlos to Falstaff

Verdi (Composers Across Cultures)

The Operas of Verdi: Volume 1: From Oberto to Rigoletto (Clarendon Paperbacks)

The Operas of Verdi: Volume 2: From Il Trovatore to La Forza del Destino (Clarendon Paperbacks)