Verdi: Man and Musician

t-Latin elements-Appointed organist of Roncole-A record salary-Barezzi's encouragement of Verdi's tastes-Father Seletti and Verdi's organ-playing-Provesi's status and friendship towards Verd

and have risked being a little the poorer. He saw nothing, however. His child had been to school, and could read, write, and add figures-an ample education for the son o

than his money, however, was a good disposition and kindliness which endeared him to his traders. Verdi senior was an especially welcome visitor. With him the storekeeper gossiped, the conversation turning betimes upon the little fellow at home and his budding musical tendencies. Music and culture, it should be stated, w

merchant that the son would have to be bestirring himself; and Barezzi, having a vacancy for an office-boy, offered to try Giuseppe. The matter

i. He encouraged the musical proclivities of the office-boy, and, as we shall discover, most generously and materially assisted him

of Giovanni Provesi, organist and bandmaster of the duomo of Busseto. In return Verdi copied the instrumental parts for the various performers, working at "string" and "brass" parts with a neatness and accuracy that quite won the hearts of those who had to play therefrom. Some people would declare such copying to be inconceivable drudgery, but

ti by name, had commenced to teach him the Latin tongue, with the view, some day, of making a priest of him! Thus Verdi might have been for ever meditating in the cloister, instead of ministering to great demands, choreographic and otherwise, of a modern lyric drama stage! "What do you want to study m

act payment being ￡1:12s. yearly! Thus the parents' wish was gratified, for their little son was duly appointed in Baistrocchi's stead, and from his eleventh to his eighteenth year Verdi performed his duties in the dusty old organ-loft at Roncole, supplementing his salary with small fees for such additional services as baptisms, ma

f his clerk, allowed him to drift naturally into a harmonious haven. A story told of the young musician this while is ominous. It came to pass that Father Seletti, who would have the born-opera-composer a monk, was officiating at mass on an occasion when Verdi happened to be deputizing at the Busseto organ. Struck with the unusually beautiful organ music, the priest at the close of the service expressed a desire to see

fteen years old, on the high seat in the great organ-loft in the dim cathedral of Busseto-all unconscious, as every one else was, of the great future before him. When, from advancing years, Provesi resigned the conductorship of t

enied to him those gifts of colour and glow which are the wings of music, and lacking which, he may remain for ever a mathematical musical machine

eniable obstacle-the money! This difficulty was, however, eventually overcome. One of the Busseto institutions was the "Monte de Pieta," which granted premiums to assist promising students in prosecuting their studies. Verdi's petition was sent up, and with the wheels of benevolent machinery turning, as usual, slowly, the decision was l

his showing no special aptitude for music! Yet the world goes on, gaping and wondering at its monotonous mediocrity, while seven-eighths of its energy is being exhausted in repairing the consequences of the genius of its blunderers, who somehow are generally and everywhere in power, and rampant. Chiefly from shame, the rejection of Verdi at the Conservatoire has been indust

o obtain at Milan. "Think no more about the Conservatoire," said his f

taking his charge into the broad expanse of practical theatre work. All the drudgery of harmony, counterpoint and composition generally, had been learned and committed to heart long before; it was practice and experience in the higher grades of planning and spacing libretti, and the scoring of scenas and concerted numbers for operas, that Verdi needed. Th

ge of work, including the post of organist at the duomo, the conductorship of the Musical Society of Busseto, much private teaching, etc., kept Verdi well employed; but it did not deter him from a regular and assiduous prosecution of his operatic studies. He worked with