Vocal Ornaments in Verdi

Vocal Ornamentation in Verdi: The Phonographic EvidenceAuthor(s): Will CrutchfieldSource: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Summer, 1983), pp. 3-54Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746545 .Accessed: 29/09/2011 06:37

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Vocal Ornamentation in Verdi: the Phonographic Evidence

WILL CRUTCHFIELD

The gap between the introduction of the necessary technology around 1500 and the actual in- vention of the phonograph in 1877 was followed by a few tantalizing decades of delay. Liszt, Wagner, Clara Schumann, and Jenny Lind went to their graves unrecorded before comprehen- sive documentation of the foremost interna- tional artists got underway around 1903-05. Still, early recorded sound offers a wealth of information about the composers and performers of the late nineteenth century. It has remained a problematic body of evidence, though, more al- luded to than investigated.

No doubt this is attributable in part to the limitations of acoustical recording.' These could at times discourage or even prevent artists from reproducing the musical characteris- tics of their live performances, and the primi-

tive sound inevitably establishes a faintly comic ambience for the unacclimated modern listener. One must learn not only to listen through surface noise and to imagine the upper frequencies uncaught by the recording horn, but also to concentrate on the music-making in the face of much that by standards we have since come to take for granted sounds haphazard, rough, and inexpert. (Once concentration is achieved, one comes to realize that by other standards we have forgotten to expect, the old performers were expert where we are haphazard and rough.)

There is also the simple problem that, especially at first blush, we may not like what we find on the old discs. Our mind's ear can effect between written accounts and modern prefer-

19th-Century Music VII/1 (Summer 1983). C by the Regents of the University of California.

1A perceptive and highly readable discussion of the problem is found in the introduction to J. B. Steane's The Grand Tra- dition: Seventy Years of Singing on Record (London, 1974), pp. 4-12.

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ences a compromise which recordings disallow. The phonograph offers a constant challenge to the belief that authentic practices, especially those traceable to composers or their associates, are the surest guide for modern executants. Few, to cite one example from among many, would wish to hear Bart6k played in the left- hand-before-the-right style which seems to have been so automatic with the composer that he did not shed it even for his own forward- looking music.

In The New Grove, Howard Mayer Brown suggests that Verdian opera may present a similar case. "It seems likely," he writes, "that vocal performance in both lieder and opera was a good deal more mannered then than now"; and later, "With the evidence of early recordings to go on, it would be relatively simple for modern performers to give 'authentic' renderings of Verdi's operatic roles . . . and yet this is rarely, if ever, done because the performances would more likely be censured for their lack of taste than praised for their authenticity.'"2

Poor taste did crop up from time to time, and I have not skewed the argument by suppressing it in the transcriptions which follow. But it was not the rule. The style preserved on the old discs is in large part recommendable as an enriching, corrective influence on modern performance. Italian opera's vocal language retained a vocab- ulary of ornamentation longer and more consistently than is often understood, and the language as a whole presented at that time a variety of intriguing possibilities for a body of music which most of us know, so to speak, only in modern translation.

I. THE MUSIC AND ITS PERFORMANCE

Artists and repertoire. Roberto Bauer's His- torical Records 1898-1908/9 lists 1,633 recordings of Verdi by 469 singers.3 Hundreds more lay

beyond the scope of the catalogue, have come to light since its compilation, or were made by the same artists after its cut-off date. "Ideally, while engaged in such a task as this," wrote the chron- icler of singing, John Steane, at the outset of his much larger one, "one should hear everything, dismiss nothing, and compare everything with at least something else. It is a great relief to know that this cannot be done." I can only echo this, adding, as Steane does: "Readers will no doubt understand that much more has been heard than is noted here."4

The information presented here is drawn from a survey of just over 1,200 early Verdi recordings.5 These include what I take to be nearly all the significant ones, though some outstanding example pro or contra my arguments is probably to be found on a disc I have passed over, not had access to, or never heard of. From this material, 207 musical examples (from 142 recordings by 74 singers) are presented in transcription. In general, I have drawn on Italian singers, and concentrated on those whose debuts took place before 1900. I have omitted all but a few examples from the spe- cialized world of the "coloratura" soprano. Vari- ants which persist in modem performances (extra high notes, mostly) have been documented representatively rather than comprehensively.

2The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 6th edn., ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1980), XIV, 390. 3Bauer's New Catalogue of Historical Records 1898-1908/9 (London, 1947) lists all the lateral cut classical vocal recordings known to him at the time of its compilation. Cylinders and records pressed from master cylinders ("vertical cut") were excluded; these are listed by Victor Girard and Harold M. Barnes in Vertical Cut Cylinders and Discs (London, 1964). Biographical information on these singers is in some cases plentiful, but in most, scarce. The principal and most

convenient source is Kutsch and Riemens, Unvergaingliche Stimmen: Sdingerlexicon, 2nd rev. edn. (Bern, 1975). The considerably shorter first rev. edn. (1966) is translated into English by Harry Earl Jones as A Concise Biographical Dic- tionary of Singers (Philadelphia, 1969). Fuller accounts of many are contained in the liner notes to various reissues of their records, and in Michael Scott's The Record of Singing to 1914 (New York, 1977). For convenient chronological placing of the artists whose performances are transcribed here, table 1 gives (where known) dates of birth, debut and death, with whatever information is available for the singers not listed in these reference works. 4Steane, p. 2. SRoughly a sixth of these, including most of the more important ones, have been reissued on long playing records at one time or another (see table 2 for a listing of reissues available at the time of writing). For the rest, I am greatly indebted to the Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Di- vision of the Library of Congress, and especially to the Col- lection of Historical Sound Recordings at Yale University. The Yale archive, assembled for the most part by Laurence Witten, is almost certainly the most extensive repository in institutional hands of recordings by nineteenth-century singers. This collection has made it possible to survey the evidence widely and in depth, and thus to confirm the conclusions reached by study of the reissued material. I owe special thanks to Tulin Duda and to the curator, Richard Warren, for help with this project.

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The artists have been surveyed exclusively in Verdi, although their recordings of Donizetti and Bellini have more to tell of Verdian than of earlier practice.

Indeed the discs of the more progressive performers tell of a practice that is already post- Verdian. Verdi composed most of his operas before even the earliest of these singers was born. Although he heard and worked with several of them in his last years, they represent Italian singing as it was well after his influence had made itself felt, in a period of rapid change during which other influences (Toscanini's, Mas- cagni's, Caruso's, Wagner's) came to the fore. That change had been taking place during the pre-recording period is certain as well: one need hardly look farther than Chorley's account of Fraschini,6 whose singing he found quite un- pleasantly bombastic in 1847, but on whom he looked back ("Alas!") as a comparatively mod- erate Italian tenor as early as 1862. This study, then, documents in large part the displacement of the Italian style Verdi knew during most of his career.

The old discs also reflect turn-of-the-century appreciation of the Verdi canon, which means that much we would like to hear went unrecorded. The operas best served (that is, whose principal solos were extensively recorded by a wide variety of artists) were Aida, II Trovatore, La Traviata, and Rigoletto. Fair representation was achieved in Otello, Un Ballo in maschera, and (alone among the early works) Ernani. The attitude towards La Forza del destino in those days may be gleaned from the "program note" which backed the famous Caruso-Scotti duet of 1906:

This duet, together with the tenor solo in Caruso's list, are about the only numbers which remain of Ver- di's opera of La Forza del Destino, which was never a great success, its story being doleful and so crowded with horrors that not even the beautiful music could atone for the gloomy plot.7

The anonymous author overstates it a bit, since in Italy a decent amount of Forza was done (and "Tetrazzini's list" for Victor soon came to

include "Pace, pace"). But of Simon Boccanegra, Don Carlos, Les VWpres siciliennes, and especially the earlier operas-those in which ornamentation plays a more central role and in which there is such renewed interest today-only an occasional snippet was recorded.

The Verdian "full-stop" cadenza. Virtually all Verdi's cantabile arias up through Forza conclude with a brief, static tonic-dominant coda, a fermata over the V7 chord or a rest following it, and an unaccompanied vocal cadence.8 Verdi came to view this convention, though, as one that opera could afford to use more sparingly, if not to discard altogether. In the later works, the functions of the cadenza are increasingly inte- grated into a more controlled, continuous musical fabric (as in "O patria mia" and "Tu che le vanita").9

Verdi's full-scale cadenzas are generally composed of three basic functional units: A, the note(s) appearing directly over the V7 chord, B, a florid melisma or declamatory sequence, and C, a brief peroration resolving to the final tonic.' A simply defines the dominant-seventh function of the cadenza. It may be a short group of notes circling the dominant or outlining the

WILL CRUTCHFIELD Verdi Ornamentation

6Henry F. Chorley, Thirty Years' Musical Recollections, ed. Ernest Newman (London, 1926), pp. 190-91. 7Victor 89001 (1906).

8Although Verdi eventually emancipated himself from the obligatory cadenza, he still seems to have felt that at the end of a cantabile he had to arrive at the tonic and linger there a while. Interestingly, though, while the earlier arias wind down with a tonic/dominant alternation, the later ones ("Celeste Aida," "0 tu che in seno agl'angeli," "0 ma chhre compagne") tend to rest on the tonic alone. Could this have been a safety measure? In "Pace, pace" and "O patria mia," Verdi allowed the final cadences to resemble ever so slightly those of the old cavatinas-and in each case at least one celebrated soprano took the hint (probably unintended, but see also note 55) and sang a cadenza. This could never have been tried in "Celeste Aida": the signal is never sent. 9Since the present essay is concerned principally with Ital- ian singing, it seems most convenient to refer to the French operas and excerpts from them by the familiar Italian titles. Acoustic recordings by French singers of excerpts from Don Carlos, Les Vdpres siciliennes, and !Jrusalem exist, although not in great number, and are worth study. 10The "a due" cadenzas of duets were often of greater length, with two or more roulade-phrases for the B section; possibly these give a suggestion of the dimensions to which solo elaboration, impractical in duet, would typically have extended the cantabile cadenza in Verdi's time. On early recordings one occasionally finds them shortened (for example in the De Lucia/Huguet duets from Rigoletto and Traviata [G&T 054084 and 054081, 1906]). The peroration (C) is sometimes elaborated (as in exs. 9-10, which conclude an elaborate "a due" cadenza sung, in these cases, at full length).

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r A -IF B -FC-

I'ha re - - - - - - - - - ------- -- - so per me!

Example i: "I1 mio sangue, la vita darei," from Luisa Miller

r A r B C

lento3

mi-sere-re, ah! mi-se-re - re dun po-ve-ro cor!

Example ii: "Ma dall'arido stelo divulsa," from Un Ballo in maschera

rA-r1 B C r _dim.

ed allarg.

ma, ma, _se_al-fin ti tro-vo an-cor, ti tro-vo an-cor, Dio m'e-sau-di, Dio me -sau - di!

Example iii: "Di provenza il mar," from La Traviata

chord (often colored by a flattened ninth); its function can be filled by the last few notes of the final phrase of coda, or (in florid cadenzas especially) by a single sustained note from which B emerges. (The A section, generally written directly over the dominant chord, is often sung after the chord is played.)

The choice between a florid or a declamatory B creates two contrasting classes of cadenza. In the florid form, B is nearly always designed to be sung on one breath. The melisma is sometimes a simple scale pattern, but more often the figuration is quite inventive and attractive. The syllabic B is set to the final line(s) of the cantabile's text, which have invariably been heard several times already and are often given twice or more within the cadenza. Pitches are allocated one per syllable, though occasionally there will be slurred pairs of notes, or a gruppetto or other ornament on one of the syllables. Sopranos are nearly always given melismatic cadenzas. The male characters can be assigned either, with the syllabic form slightly more common in tenor arias than in those for the lower voices. It is not true that Verdi inclined more to the declamatory formula as time went on. He would often

drop cadenzas altogether, but of the four in Ballo, all three full-length ones are florid, as is that of Carlo in Forza.

C, almost always divided from B by a breath, is brief and functional. Just occasionally it is a single sustained dominant (when a florid B has ended on the submediant); more often there are three or more notes, usually with a syllable on each, resolving to the tonic by one of several for- mulas.

This pattern is flexible and frequently modified, most often by extending one or more of the three sections. Another modified type, found mostly in the early operas and in the male roles, might be called the "nominal" cadenza: B is omitted, and occasionally the A and C functions are elided into a single phrase.

The nominal form employs a restricted range; otherwise, the cadenza generally revisits the highest pitch required in the aria proper. (If that highest pitch is given in an ossia, it may not be required in the cadenza: see "D'amor sull'ali rosee" and "I1 balen.") Syllabic cadenzas rarely dip below the middle of the range, but roulades frequently extend to or beyond the lowest pitch otherwise sung.

6

A -I B

e so-loin ciel,_ e so-lein cielpre-de - der-ti la mor-te

me par - ra, la mor - tea_ me par - r!

Example iv: "Ah, si, ben mio," from II Trovatore

r A -

C

spa-ri-an, qua-si spa-rian per me.

Example v: "Dal pifi remoto esilio," from I due Foscari

r A+C a piacere

il no -memio fa - r6

Example vi: "Oh, de'verd'anni miei," from Ernani

The cadenza in performance (exs. 1-64). The solo cavatina was the most obvious and enduring locus of soloistic discretion in nineteenth- century opera, the point at which even Berlioz could say to singers "the composer is at your feet" (adding "we would be in bad grace to wish it otherwise")." This was still true during the first phase of Verdi's career, and it was true particularly of the closing cadence. Part II of the younger Garcia's Traits complet de 1'art du chant,12 with its copious and elaborate examples, was brought out in 1847; two years later, as Verdi was completing the fifteenth of his twenty-seven operas, Mme Cinti-Damoreau produced her Methode de chant,'3 which is of special interest partly because so many compos-

ers for whose works her changements were intended put their signatures to the compendium as members of the Paris Conservatoire's Com- mittee on Musical Studies. The notebooks of the Marchisio sisters, preserved in the Pierpont Morgan Library and partially published in Ric- ci's Variazioni, Cadenze, Tradizioni, vol. I,14 are similar in style and include several examples from Trovatore as well as from the earlier operas in which they sang together during the 1860s and '70s. These, and numerous scattered examples of cadenzas attributed to various other singers of the day, confirm that what we hear on early recordings does not by any means represent some latter-day flowering of soloistic liberty, but rather a stage in its diminution. What might be found surprising is just how gradual that diminution was.

The post-Verdian singer's choice and composition of cadenzas was governed by three sometimes conflicting influences: the traditional


"Revue et Gazette musicale IV (1837), 95ff., quoted in Caswell (see fn. 13). '2Manuel Garcia (the younger), Trait6 complet du l'art de chant, part II, trans. and ed. Donald V. Paschke (New York, 1975). '3See Austin Caswell, "Mme. Cinti-Damoreau and the Em- bellishment of Italian Opera in Paris: 1820-1845," Journal of the American Musicological Society 27(1975), 459-92.

'4Luigi Ricci, Variazioni, cadenze, tradizioni per canto, 2 vols. (Milan, 1937).

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concept of the cadenza as a locus for extended solo expression; progressive, modernizing values, in light of which florid vocalism and (to a lesser extent) the cadenza itself came increasingly to be seen as irrelevant;"' and modification of compass to suit the performer's range.

The first of these three principles is reflected in the all but universal assumption that nominal cadenzas were meant for elaboration (exs. 2- 4, 15-18, 57-59, 63). Full-length ones were often extended as well. The three-part functional division, though usually still present as an un- derlying framework, was no longer obligatory. Example 2 shows a nominal cadenza amplified simply by extending A and C rather than adding an independent B section, and in the elaborated full cadenzas the additions are often such as to obscure the sectional distinctions. A formula frequently employed, though, was to sing A as written, to continue either with Verdi's B or a typical B-gesture, and then to expand the pattern with another melisma, a syllabic sequence, or a free combination of the two.16 Here the principal opportunity for soloistic liberty comes at C, or in the gap between B and C (exs. 1, 5, 6, 18, 31, 32, 35-41, 43-45, 47, 49, 57 and 60, as well as several others in which the elaboration of the ending is less pronounced). Exam- ple 5 is typical: the roulade (B) is filled out with further figuration, and C is considerably extended. Nevertheless, the cadenza as a whole follows closely the outline of Verdi's own. Ex- ample 6, used in the same aria, bears some trace of that outline as well, but is essentially a replacement rather than a variant.

The growing preference for declamatory sing-

ing is felt in several ways. In the process of aug- mentation just described, syllabic sequences are often introduced to complement roulade (exs. 1, 6, 7, 12, 18, 25, 40-43, 45, 56, among others; Verdi does this in revising the florid Trova- tore cadenzas for Le Trouvere). The melisma itself can be reduced, especially in the male roles (exs. 32, 34, 39, 41, 42, 46, 60, 61) or replaced entirely by a declamatory B (exs. 13, 14, 19, 23, 24, 33, 54, 55, 62). In some cases, the pitch sequence of Verdi's melisma would be adopted for all or part of the syllabic cadenza (exs. 11, 14, 19, 61, 62).

At other times, and more often as the years passed, singers lacking agility (or doubting the artistic worth of coloratura) would simply omit a florid B (constructing a suitable A phrase if the original had been tied to the melisma), thus making a nominal cadenza of what had been a full-length one (exs. 8, 20, 26, 30). Similar reduction of Verdi's syllabic cadenzas is for all intents and purposes non-existent."7

The altered cadenzas often require more text than Verdi's. In these cases the words in the original may be reiterated, or the singer may reach farther back into the text, following the example of Verdi's own longer syllabic cadenzas.'8

Modification of range occurs in cadenzas of all types. Where Verdi does not match the cadenza's compass to that of the aria, the discrep- ancy is sometimes eliminated by artists whose voices more nearly suit the aria, especially where the cadenza goes a crucial step higher (exs. 27, 28, 52, 53, 55). But the opposite case is more frequently encountered: the cadenza matches the aria, but is adjusted to give scope to an upward extension otherwise unprovided for (exs. 4, 12, 13, 15-18, 21, 22, 29, 35, 37-39, 43- 45, 47-50, 58, 59, 63, 64). Top notes are almost

'5It is only recently that "fidelity to the composer's score" has begun to challenge this as a guiding principle for performance choices in Italian opera. Serafin and Toni's Stile, tradizioni e convenzioni del melodramma italiano del set- tecento e dell'ottocento (Milan, 1958) routinely recom- mends cuts to keep the drama moving for modem audi- ences, extra high notes to add excitement, and the omission of cadenzas "troppo florido. " 16We have some evidence of this procedure as observed during Verdi's early career. The cadenza of Fenena's prayer "puntata per la Zecchini" gives a two-octave descent from high C (the A and B functions joined, or simply an elaborate A?); in another hand, a further melisma is sketched in under Verdi's typically simple C phrase. See David Lawton and David Rosen, "Verdi's non-definitive revisions: the early operas," in Atti del III congresso internazionale di studi verdiani (Parma, 1974), pp. 189-237.

171t is just perhaps significant that the single example found--a very strange little version of Rigoletto's "Miei si- gnori" (Col. 1767) with spurious prelude and postlude and melody instruments doubling the vocal line-is sung by Al- berto de Bassini, who resisted his colleagues' syllabic cadenzas in Ballo, Trovatore, and Sonnambula. 18It is interesting to note that varying the text when it reap- pears in the cadenza did not seem to sit well with some singers. Where Verdi alters it in Luisa Miller for the sake of pre- serving a rhythmic figure, both Giuseppe Anselmi (Fono 62166) and Fernando de Lucia (ex. 22) contradict him; de Lu- cia, however, was ready enough to alter the text to arrange for his preferred vowel ("e") on the high notes.

8

always added where the printed cadenza fails to revisit the aria's highest note; further ones are sometimes inserted even when the cadenza already satisfies both the compass of the aria and the singer's range.

As can be seen from the examples, this extension of range often takes place in the course of the typical expansion of C. A 5 to 1 final resolution for C (ascending or descending) occurs a good deal more often in the variants than in Ver- di's originals; the juxtaposition of the major and minor sixth degree of the scale, common enough in Verdi's cadenzas, is also more prominent in the substitutes. While the leading tone of the key is almost never used by Verdi as the cadenza's top note, it is fairly popular in the interpolated ones. There is often a breath before the penultimate note; if the conclusion is 3-2- 1, or occasionally 4-3- or 6-5-1, a "Rubini"'9 cadence (reiteration of the antepenultimate note) may be employed (exs. 9, 13, 33, 55), and frequently a two-syllable word on the antepenultimate pitch will be sung with a prolonged weak syllable in imitation of the "Rubini" cadence (exs. 6, 8, 11, 42, 50, 57, 59).

Today, when certain variant cadenzas have become standard and are regularly heard in identical form from singer after singer, the di- versity of approach on the early records may come as a surprise. There were certain stock patterns-and one can see the fixed "traditional" cadenzas beginning to gel in some cases-but variety was still the rule.

Arias without "full-stop" (exs. 65-77). The full stop for cadenza and the brief, harmonically static coda introducing it are the most consistent features by which the cantabile aria is dis- tinguished from other solo forms in Verdi. Bal- late, canzoni, and romanze end without them.20 At or shortly before the final cadence, though, will often be found a fermata, an ad libitum marking of some kind, or a suspension of the ac-

companiment. These are seen as points for possible elaboration-not, as far as I am aware, with the kind of extended cadenza that would have served for a "full-stop," but occasionally with a brilliant flourish of some length (exs. 65, 67, 68). Much more often it is merely a matter of adding a top note or ornament to the final line (exs. 66, 69-77).

Ornamentation of internal cadences (exs. 78-133). A major concern of late nineteenth- century Italian practice was the heightening, through rubato, dynamics, phrasing, and ornamentation, of harmonic "corners." In a typical cantabile, the accompaniment is suspended and/or an ad libitum indication of some kind appears at one or more internal cadences, and many of them have ornamentation in the printed scores as well. Whether or not they are so marked, early recorded singers consistently apply to them at least a rallentando, and often ornamentation (or elaboration of existing ornamentation) as well. Spots likeliest to be so treated are the last cadence before an excursion into a new key (exs. 79, 80, 92, 93, 95, 106, 107, 113, 120-22, 124, 125, 127, 131), the return to the home key21 (or, in the minor-major format, the approach to the major) (exs. 81, 85, 86, 89, 99, 130), and the end of the last principal melodic period (before the "filler" coda, or before a ritornello leading to a repeat and thence to the coda) (exs. 83, 84, 88, 90, 94, 108, 111, 112, 116, 118, 123, 126, 132).

Opening solos of duets or ensembles and first stanzas of strophic pieces are often closed with light ornamentation along these lines (exs. 87, 98, 100, 101, 103-05, 109, 110, 115, 117, 133). Such solos, as well as the shorter aria forms, often receive internal-cadence embellishment as well (exs. 85, 86, 96, 97, 102, 114, 124, 125, 128, 129), although not as consistently as do the full- scale cantabiles.

Ornaments for these cadences were generally simple: a gruppetto (exs. 82, 83, 85, 91, 92, 95-


19This cadential ornament, named after its popularizer Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794-1854), is one of the most common and enduring ornamental traditions of Italian opera, persisting even into the period of Puccini. It is found notated by Donizetti, Rossini, and many other composers, but not, as far as I am aware, by Verdi-in almost every one of whose operas it was nevertheless routinely introduced. 20Exceptions occasionally come in cases like Medora's "Non so le tetre immagine," where a strophic romanza fills

the traditional cavatina function (i.e., entrance-aria); presumably the fermata at the end of Luisa Miller's similarly situated "Lo vidi e il primo palpito" would have been so amplified in performance. 21In this case the ad libitum moment may come on the last cadence of the old key, or after it, acting as a dominant seventh bridge, or both.

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MUSIC 97, 99, 102, 103, 110-16), passing tones (ex. 79), "Rubini" cadence (exs. 82, 88, 119, 121, 122, 127), syllabic reiteration (exs. 78, 90, 100, 101), or sometimes just a simple acciaccatura (exs. 80, 86, 106, 107, 117, 122, 128-33). If the score already has an embellishment, a few notes might be added to fill it out (exs. 78, 81, 87, 89, 93, 120-22, 128). This is all in contrast to the extended roulades inserted at such points during the careers of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and young Verdi. A holdover from that earlier practice survives in recordings of Oscar's "Saper vorreste" by Luisa Tetrazzini and Selma Kurz, both of whom sing full-scale cadenzas at internal fermatas.22

Melodic variants (exs. 134-72). In addition to these cadence-oriented ornaments, there are other occasional variations, notably including interpolated high notes. Trends are more difficult to identify here, but a few practices are consistent enough to warrant mention.

A typical Verdian melodic approach to the I chord is frequently altered either by interposi- tion of the supertonic (exs. 134, 147, 154, 167) or by substituting the mediant for the second melodic tonic (exs. 135, 144). Exact repetition of a phrase can elicit an added top note or an extra bit of figuration (exs. 136, 145, 150-53, 155, 157, 160-62, 166).

Acciaccature were added freely for decoration or emphasis (exs. 137, 148, 156, 159, 163, 165, 169, 170, among others), and there was ap- parent consensus that these (whether written out or inserted) were two-pitch ornaments, beginning on the principal note. The only exception comes when the note with acciaccatura is immediately preceded by the scalic note below. In that case, the acciaccatura may begin either on the principal note as described, or on the note below, or in the modern single-pitch fashion (the note of melodic approach substituting, apparently, for the first note of the ornament). Ex- amples crop up more or less wherever one looks, including the Otello records of both Tamagno and Maurel (exs. 171, 172). This convention makes a significant difference in some very familiar passages (see especially ex. 163)!

Verdi used a rising two-note embellishment ("slide," in English terminology) with some fre- quency (see, for example, "Abbietta zingara," the Rigoletto quartet, and Posa's romance). This decoration turns up on records occasionally (exs. 120, 140, 142, 146), but only with the tenor Fernando de Lucia (who uses it also in Puccini and Mascagni) does it seem to have been a basic stylistic device. A certain amount of freedom was exercised in substituting one written ornament for another and in the exact interpretation of Verdi's ornament signs (exs. 140, 141, 149, 159, 168, 176).

One embellishment conspicuous by its ab- sence from all this is the trill. For Garcia in 1847 the trill was still taken for granted as part of any singer's technical equipment: his discussion centers on details of approach and resolution. By the early twentieth century, most Italian sopranos could still trill, although they rarely introduced the device except as a leading-tone cadenza ending. Very few of the Italian male singers, however, seem to have been able to trill at all.23 In striking contrast, it is difficult to think of an extensively recorded Frenchman who does not trill, and a fair number of Ger- mans, Englishmen, and others give evidence that this ability was lost sooner in Italy than elsewhere.

Strophic variation and the problem of the cabaletta (exs. 173-83). Strophic forms are open to the variety of soloistic liberty likeliest to find at least theoretical acceptance today. In particular, most musicians will concede that the second statement of a cabaletta may be embellished. The phonographic evidence on this question, however, is extremely sparse, and as far as it goes it suggests that the convention had limited cur- rency by the beginning of the new century.

22G&T 053222 (1908) and 43738 (1906), among other versions by each.

23As far as I am aware, there are only four to be heard on acoustic recordings: bass Francesco Navarrini (in Rossini's "Pro peccatis," Fono 62024), baritone Eugenio Giraldoni (the first Scarpia, in "Per me giunto," G&T 52404), and the tenors Anselmi ("Un'aura amorosa," Fono 62393) and Caruso (not an outstandingly good one in Handel's Largo, Vic 88617; none where they are marked in "Ah, si, ben mio," Vic 88121). De Lucia, although he does not trill, shows an awareness of the lack: in two recordings (the famous "Pieta signore" of disputed authorship [Phono M 1879] and "Ah, si, ben mio" [ex. 108]), he employs a quick, measured alternation between leading tone and tonic which corresponds to Garcia's description of the "slow trill."

10

The cabaletta was held in such contempt by critics and reformers in the latter half of the old one that Verdi, who did much to weed it out, found himself more than once in the position of defending its occasional validity. The extent to which the progressives' view prevailed during the early recording era is suggested by the list of De Lucia's operatic records:24 among these are at least twelve solos for which there exist cabalettas-only one of which he recorded. The familiar practice of omitting dramatically nones- sential cabalettas (e.g., Leonora's "Tu vedrai" and the Duke's "Possente amor") was well-established by the period of acoustic recording. Even the collections of extended excerpts from a single opera (on inexpensive labels, using little-known singers), which included every con- ceivable snippet, omitted these cabalettas. The reduction of others to a single stanza prevailed as well, and not solely as a concession to side- length (as it might arguably have been when a cabaletta was squeezed onto the same side as its cantabile). Several records of cabalettas without cantabiles (e.g., Giacomelli's "Tutto sprezzo," Cigada's "Vieni meco," and Ruffo's "Per me ora fatale") contain a good deal of indifferently sung chorus music rather than the second stanza.

In the few examples of an uncut cabaletta by an Italian of this period (Ciaparelli in "Di tale amor," Battistini in La Favorita or I Puritani, a few versions of "Sempre libera" and "Per me ora fatale," and a very few of "Di quella pira"), there is generally little or no embellishment (except of course in the "coloratura" repertoire-a sepa- rate case, and not in this instance involving Verdi). Violetta's "gioir" sequence (but not the air itself) is sometimes varied in repeat; just possibly the decorations in Battistini's one-verse "Vieni meco" (partially shown in ex. 173) would have been reserved for a repeat in stage performances. But when "Di quella pira" is given complete the celebrated interpolation is just as likely to appear in both verses.25 In gen-

eral, the testimony of the gramophone is that by 1900 this tradition was dormant.

Though the paucity of recordings discourages generalization about other aspects of ornamentation in the cabaletta, a few points are worth noting. Rallentando or ornament is sometimes used to heighten demarcation of sections (exs. 173, 177, 187, 195).26 The fermata before the piu mosso ritornello or coda is a possible site for a cadenza (exs. 174, 175). The very last cadence generally involves the highest note on which compass and tonality can agree-a tradition which has proved hardy enough to render extensive transcriptions superfluous-and often an additional imposed rallentando (exs. 182, 183). Some "coloratura" sopranos will occasionally halt the action at the very end for a brief cadenza (e.g., Galli-Curci or Pacini in "Sempre libera"; Tetrazzini in "Di tale amor").

There remain the other strophic arias: bal- late, canzoni, and full-scale cantabiles like "Ah, fors'e lui"27 and "Quando le sere al placido." Here too the evidence is spotty, although at least one aria survives in a version that suggests extensive elaboration of the repeat: "Tacea la notte," sung in 1906 by Lillian Nordica. As it happens, this record is one of the most convinc- ing phonographic links to the more distant past. Trovatore was the first opera Nordica heard (with Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa, Boston, 1868); "Tacea" was the first aria she sang in public (1874) and also the one with which, shortly af- terward, she impressed the great Teresa Tiet- jens (1831-77), who may have coached her in it. Certainly she studied it with Appolonia Ber- tucca, who was at that time attached to Tiet- jens's touring company, and who years later dis-


24A complete list is in fact not yet available. I am grateful to Michael Henstock of the University of Nottingham for documentation of the late Phonotype recordings of this singer. 25This much-debated high C is often, and plausibly, de- fended as a second-strophe embellishment. It is equally possible, however, to see it as a variation of a musical repeat internal to the strophe.

26The ornamentation of "corro a morir" in ex. 177 also occurs at "la spegner6," just before the shift to minor. Acciacca- turas and trills are occasionally found at analogous points in such cabalettas as "Sempre libera" ("il pensier," just before the tenor interrupts) and "Di tale amor" (at "inebrio"). 27"Ah,

fors'6 lui" was probably not thought of as strophic by the turn of the century-although Lilli Lehmann's one- stanza recordings (Odeon 50353 and 80003) use not the first but the usually-cut second verse. It is also interesting to note that while Giuseppe Kaschmann's record of "Carlo, che e il sol" contains (like all later Italian performances until recent years) only the first stanza, the singer forgets himself at one point and sings two lines from the second (see ex. 128)-an easy slip to make, but only if he was accustomed to both.

11

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC cussed with Nordica "how Tietjens had phrased the cavatina, how Parepa-Rosa had embellished it, and many other interesting details."'28

The frequent attribution of Nordica's variants to Tietjens thus emerges as one of the more plausible claims for phonographic preservation of a pre-phonographic style. It is also worth noting that Nordica, in a letter to the critic Her- mann Klein, singled out this aria, and in particular this first part of it, as the most satisfactory of her generally disappointing records.29 The variations (exs. 178, 179) are sung in the first stanza, the second being omitted in favor of a similarly truncated cabaletta on the same side. I think it a safe conjecture that the ornamentation was normally intended for the repeat, where it is unusually appropriate to the images of the text.

Nothing this systematic, though, seems to have been widespread at the time. "Questa o quella" is usually given an extra chuckle and a bit of a cadenza the second time through; De Lu- cia goes farther in his delightful record (exs. 96, 138, 140), but almost all of his abbellimenti appear in the first verse as well! Caruso has an extra turn in the repeat of "La donna," Anselmi an added Bb in "Quando le sere," and Battistini a G0 in what would presumably have been the second verse of "Di provenza"-but all of these are interpolations of a sort found just as readily where no repeat exists, and even more readily where a line or phrase is repeated within a single movement.

Facilitations (exs. 184-96). The other changes occasionally found in the melodic line are more practical than decorative. Puntature (alterations of the vocal line so that it can be sung by a voice of different range but with the original accompaniment) were standard practice in Italian opera for most of the nineteenth century. Verdi was often criticized for uncomfortably high vocal writing, and he made or approved adjustments on several occasions to bring high roles into the

workable repertoire of singers who found them difficult as written.

It is striking testimony to the influence of Verdi's operas on the training and development of Italian voices that the puntature heard on early recordings are almost without exception designed to keep singers out of their lower regis- ters. The most prominent practitioner of this was the baritone Battistini, whose range during his recording career (begun at age 46) seems never to have extended past low B?, and who often sounds as though he is in difficulty on C and Db. But many other baritones followed his example in raising the low A of "Eri tu" an octave, and there are similar examples in the tenor, mezzo, soprano, and even bass repertoires (exs. 186, 187, 192, 195, 196; not shown are the simple octave transpositions which occasionally appear).

Simplification of fioratura was almost universal practice in II Barbiere di Siviglia, the single work of Rossini still in the basic repertoire by the turn of the century. The procedure was sometimes applied to Verdi as well (exs. 184, 188, 189, 191, 193); so, occasionally, was the re- moval of what apparently seemed excessive tex- tual reiteration (exs. 185, 190, 194).

Recitative (exs. 197-207). We know that ornaments and roulades were commonly introduced by singers into the recitatives of primo ottocento operas. In his early and middle-period operas, Verdi himself wrote a great deal of fioratura into the recitatives of cavatinas for soprano. As far as I am aware, recordings give no example of extensive embellishment along these lines where the score does not indicate it, but singers will occasionally add a turn of acciaccatura (exs. 201, 203).

At the very end of most recitatives, Verdi left soloists somewhat more to their own devices. The conclusion is usually a sustained dominant on two syllables, with an octave drop if the tessitura is congenial (or if the sentiments justify ex- tremes of range), or in the same octave with mi- nor-inflected decoration of neighboring tones. In the early years of the century, there was a clear assumption that one expression of this formula might be substituted at will for another-usually a more for a less complex one (exs. 197-200).

The conventions surrounding use of appoggiaturas in recitative remained pretty well in force. Verdi generally wrote them out, and sing-

28Ira Glackens, Yankee Diva: Lillian Nordica and the Golden Days of Opera (New York, 1963), pp. 26-29, 146. 29Letter of 15 May 1908 to Klein, quoted in William R. Moran, "Recordings and Lillian Nordica" (pub. as an appendix to Glackens, pp. 283-300).

12

ers would often add them where he did not (exs. 202, 204-07).

II. THE RECORDED EVIDENCE IN PERSPECTIVE

A brief and loose chronological segregation of the singers lends clarity to the proliferation of practices grouped here as "ornamental." It is easy enough to form the impression that a few singers, most of all the pair Battistini and De Lu- cia, practiced an anachronistic approach to ornamentation, harking back to the outmoded values of Bellini's or even Rossini's era. The view is clouded, though, by the fact that no other internationally celebrated Italian singer of their generation left nearly so extensive a phonographic legacy as they did. Because of their prolific recording activity and unusually long-lasting vocal health, Battistini and De Lu- cia can seem to be atypical members of Caruso's generation. In fact, they are representative members of an earlier one.

Battistini (b. 1856) made his Rome debut when Caruso was five. Compared to other baritones whose recordings competed with his in the early catalogues (e.g., Stracciari, b. 1875; De Luca, b. 1876; Ruffo, b. 1877; Amato, b. 1878), he seems very much the idiosyncratic, old-fashioned stylist. But the few, little known, and sometimes unsatisfying discs made by his el- ders and closer contemporaries draw a picture into which he fits more comfortably. Alberto De Bassini (b. 1847) prefers florid cadenzas for arias in which every later Italian uses declama- tion (exs. 34, 52, 53); Giuseppe Kaschmann (b. 1850) is fleet in the written fioratura, lingering and decorative in his internal cadences (exs. 90, 128); Francesco D'Andrade (b. 1859) pleads with a bold flourish as Rigoletto (ex. 145); and Anto- nio Magini-Coletti (b. 1855) is perhaps superior in roulade to Battistini himself. De Bassini, Kaschmann and D'Andrade recorded few Verdi excerpts: nine, three, and one, respectively, as far as available sources indicate, compared to Battistini's twenty-one. (Magini-Coletti made twenty-four, but mostly from the late, less ornamental operas.3o) More prolific were Ancona (b.

1860), Scotti (b. 1866), Bonini (b. 1865) and Cor- radetti (b. 1866), all of whom point ahead to a less florid, less delicate manner. With the group born in the 1870s, even though some of them preserve certain of Battistini's technical abili- ties, we are clearly in a new stylistic period.

At the simplest level, the shift is from a highly nuanced style, with some remaining link to the age of florid vocalism, to a more straightforward, louder one with only incidental interest in coloratura. (A broader study would docu- ment changes-though not always parallel ones-in rubato, phrasing and articulation, treatment of rests and slurs, concept of portamento, and other matters.31) Of course, shifts in musical style are neither sudden nor uniform. The tenor Giuseppe Anselmi (b. 1876) harks back, in his approach to ornamentation at least, to De Lucia (b. 1860), while any number of tenors born in between, including Caruso (b. 1873), seem more straightforward and modern. It is also true that female singers (especially the "coloratura" sopranos) maintained variety in their cadenzas considerably longer than did the men. (No female Verdians of Battistini's generation left sufficient recordings for us to be able to say whether they were more various yet in


30These figures do not count multiple recordings of the same excerpt, or the many Verdi arias De Bassini is listed as hav-

ing recorded on cylinders for the almost legendary catalogue of Gianni Bettini. A very few of these have recently come to light (lago's Credo and part of the Aida Nile Scene are reissued on Mark 56 826); further discoveries in this area can be expected to yield information of great interest. 3Ornamentation is only one, and usually not the most important, of many ways in which early Verdian performances differed from those to which we are accustomed. Tempo choices, phrasing and articulation, approach to rubato and dynamics, and certain aspects of vocal technique all reflect assumptions which differ from those held, and largely taken for granted, today. Still, because ornamentation involves changing "the notes," one encounters opposition to it on principle from many musicians who are willing to consider the other elements at least up to a point as legitimately within the province of taste. Most will be convinced of the inconsistency of such a view by playing side by side the recordings of Alfredo's "De' miei bollenti spiriti" by Fernando de Lucia (who takes 2 minutes 34 seconds over it and sings pianissimo for perhaps half the aria) and Jan Peerce under Toscanini (1'35' and quite loud all the way through). De Lu- cia's recording also has one unwritten gruppetto and an extra high note in the cadenza which Peerce could have adopted without appreciably changing the character and im- pact of his performance; if, though continuing to stick to "the notes," he had adopted instead De Lucia's broader and gentler approach, the difference would have been vast.

13

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC those years, as would seem likely.) Still, the trend is clear. Modern, progressive influences had been around for some time, gradually gain- ing ground.32 What the records suggest is that by the 1890s, they had achieved such dominance that a young singer starting out in those years was no longer likely to see the old-fashioned values as a plausible alternative.

These younger artists, in other words, were updating the earlier works in light of the performance values established by the later ones. But the older generation seems rarely to have clung to anachronistic procedures when faced with progressive music. Their approach accords with the chronology of the operas themselves: more ornamentation in the earlier, more florid operas; much less in the later ones (and for all intents and purposes none in Otello and Fal- staff). This says much about the sensitivity of Italian singers to the style of the work at hand. In a score as late as Forza, they would (given a "full-stop") make up their own cadenzas. But as early as Trovatore, faced with forward-looking experiments in music-drama like Azucena's racconto, they would refrain from any extrane- ous addition. In the final Shakespeare operas, ornamentation appears only at the stock cadence of "Ora e per sempre" and in Maurel's "concert ending" for his encores of "Quand'ero paggio."

The upshot is that as long as Verdi sent the traditional signals, the older artists responded in the traditional way, and that when he ceased to do so, the artists understood and followed his new lead. This was their attitude toward later composers as well: Puccini rarely sends the traditional cadence-signals, but where he does (as in "Recondita armonia" or "Donna non vidi mai"), recordings show that a fair number of singers thought ornamentation an appropriate response. Many of the older tenors decorated Turiddu's music with additional gruppetti in the siciliana or leading into the reprise of the brindisi (at the final cadence of which young Caruso sings a flourish up to top C).

Performance practice and composer's intent. What in fact were Verdi's own opinions on embellishment? There appears to be little evidence of them, but that scarcity is itself informative. Unless, against all expectation and likelihood, soloistic liberty was more extensive in the early twentieth century than in the middle of the nineteenth, Verdi heard the kind of ornamentation Battistini and De Lucia practiced, or more, as a matter of course. He was quick to voice his views on matters of performance that concerned him: he objects strenuously to cuts, substitutions and (eventually) transpositions-and most of all to routine, under-prepared, or weakly cast performances. But in his hundreds of published letters there is very little about ornamentation.

Occasionally there are more or less specific objections. His diatribe against the "massa- cred" Aida33 in Rome includes the complaint that "not only was the romanza ["Celeste Aida" or "0 patria mia"] transposed, but several mea- sures in it were changed." These changes may have represented further (or compensatory) adjustment of tessitura, or the provision of more convenient breathing places for Nicolini (no longer young)-or they may have been ornamentation of some kind.

Ornamentation of some kind was also probably behind his comment on Maria Malibran: "sometimes marvelous, but sometimes in bad taste,,"34 and his distrust of Sophie Cruvelli as one of "these caricatures of Malibran who have only her oddities without any of her genius."35 Certainly Jenny Lind's embellishment seemed excessive to Verdi's proteg6 Emmanuele Muzio (who nevertheless thought Lind "a marvelous artist in every sense of the word"): "She has an incomparable agility-indeed she is apt to show off her technique in fiorature and gruppetti and trills, the sort of thing which people liked in the

32The soprano Clara Novello, for instance, reports (and en- dorses) simplification of roulade by Giorgio Ronconi (Ver- di's first Nabucco) in the early 1840s. See Mackenzie- Grieve, Clara Novello (London, 1955), p. 121.

33Letter of 25 March 1875 to Giulio Ricordi, transl. in Hans Busch, Verdi's Aida: The History of an Opera in Letters and Documents (Minneapolis, 1978), p. 380. 34Letter of 27 December 1877 to Opprandino Arrivabene, in Verdi intimo: Carteggio di Verdi con il Conte Opprandino Arrivabene (1861-1886), ed. Annibale Alberti (Verona, 1931), p. 205. 35Letter to Brenna of 5 October 1850, in G. Morazzeni, Verdi: Lettere inedite (Milan, 1929), pp. 31-32; quoted in Budden I, 482.

14

last century, but not in 1847.'"36 This certainly squares with the image of a Verdi who was "content to hear simply and exactly what is written."37 At face value, it supports the approach of such conductors as Abbado and Muti: no variants, no interpolations, no cuts.

But nothing can be taken at face value when description of performance practice is in question. If Jenny Lind truly approximated the fashion "people liked in the last century" (Angelica Catalani's fashion, for instance), then a comment on her overgracing in Verdi has little or no relevance for a De Lucia. Even if Lind did no more than is preserved in the tasteful renditions transcribed toward the end of her career (long after its dazzling operatic phase), then she was much more decorative than the singers of the early recorded era.38 By contrast, Verdi might very possibly have thought Battistini's ornaments simple and legitimate inflective devices, like accents or crescendos, well within the bounds of "simply and exactly what is written." It is also possible that he would have made a dis- tinction between the earlier operas and the later ones: the "simply and exactly" letter dates from 1871, the year of Aida, and it mentions Forza. The traditional harmonic and melodic signals for embellishment, obscure to us but obviously clear to the singers, must have been for Verdi part of "what is written."

Among the many anecdotes and reports of Verdi's dealings with his interpreters there is much to suggest a willingness to recognize soloistic prerogative. Although he came to insist on absolute authority for a "single controlling intelligence," he never seemed to envisage the exercise of this power to suppress all departures from the printed page. Throughout his career he was ready to make, or to let others make, puntature in parts whose range did not suit that of the singer engaged for them.39 At the height of his

fame he demanded and got unprecedented authority for the premiere of Don Carlos, yet was flexible enough to expend considerable effort on adapting the role of Eboli for the voice, higher than anticipated, of its first interpreter. He even provided a cadenza (which he did not publish) for "O don fatal," and later approved modifica- tions, and suggested more, when a mezzo- soprano did eventually sing it.40 When conduc- torial authority along modern lines began to be asserted in Italy, Verdi wrote:

If things are as you say, it is better to return to the modest conductors of earlier times.. . . When I began scandalizing the musical world with my sins, there was the calamity of the prima donnas' "rondos"; today there is the tyranny of the conductors! Bad, bad! But the first is the lesser evil! !41

Nor did Verdi always condemn intentional alterations for expressive purposes, the famous denunciation of "creators" notwithstanding. Ricci reports that in Don Carlo he allowed baritone Antonio Cotogni to sing a phrase written pianissimo at top volume "as if exploding" with emotion. (Cotogni also introduced variant cadenzas as Rodrigo.42) Maurel is supposed to have won Verdi's approval for a striking rhythmic change in Rigoletto: "You have done something psychological, Maurel. When Rigoletto was written, our singers had nothing-well, psychological in them."43 The baritone Alexander Sved


36Letter to Antonio Barezzi of 16 June 1847, in L. A. Gari- baldi, Giuseppe Verdi nelle lettere di Emmanuele Muzio ad Antonio Barezzi (Milan, 1934), pp. 325-27; quoted in Bud- den I, 317. 37Letter of 11 April 1871 to Giulio Ricordi; trans. in Busch, p. 150. 38See Otto Goldschmidt's appendix to W. S. Rockstro, Jenny Lind (New York, 1894). 39Verdi readily proposed a puntatura as an alternative to transposing "Celeste Aida," and told Ricordi in 1881 he

would be happy to remove Fiesco's high notes as long as he could get a bass with a good low F. 40See Andrew Porter, "A note on Princess Eboli," Musical Times 113 (1972), 750; and Frank V. DeBellis and Federico Ghisi, "Alcune lettere inedite sul Don Carlos dal carteggio Verdi-Mazzucato," in Atti del H1 congresso internazionale di studi verdiani (Parma, 1971), pp. 531-41. 41Verdi to Giulio Ricordi, 18 March 1899, in Franco Abbiati, Giuseppe Verdi, vol. IV (Milan, 1959), p. 367. The particular conductor in question was Arturo Toscanini. 42Ricci, II, 11. 43Algernon St. John-Brenon, "Giuseppe Verdi," Musical Quarterly 2 (1916), 130-62. This account (p. 139) is compli- cated by the fact that it is almost impossible to imagine an alteration of the sort described ("an effective change in the rhythm," without "changing a word or a note") in the first phrase of the cabaletta "Si, vendetta." Furthermore, the author asserts that Maurel's alteration "is now traditional;" no alteration of this particular spot has come to light. Maurel's unusually slow tempo for the passage was the sub- ject of some debate on the occasion of his Roman performances of 1883 (see Verdi intimo, pp. 301-02): could this be what is meant?

15

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC claimed, on Tullio Serafin's authority, that Verdi had sanctioned replacement of the florid "Alla vita" cadenza with a syllabic one;44 according to the tenor Giovanni Martinelli, Tos- canini said that the composer had not objected to interpolated Bbs in Manrico's serenade and aria (see exs. 70, 153).45

Another anecdote, recounted by Martinelli among others, has the composer approving the celebrated high Cs of "Di quella pira" with the caveat that "they had better be good." A surer indication of Verdi's attitude is found in his be- havior when next he came to write for the ap- parent perpetrator of the crime, Enrico Tam- berlik. The occasion was the premiere of Forza at St. Petersburg, and for Tamberlik Verdi composed another martial C-major cabaletta with chorus, this time writing in the high C himself. Furthermore, when he came to prepare the score for publication and other performances, he did exactly the practical thing so often con- demned as an enormity in Trovatore: he transposed the cabaletta into Bb, not because the muses had urged another key sequence on him, but because "nobody will be able to sing what was written for Tamberlik."46 So much for "Di quella pira"! The ghost of Verdi, insofar as we can perceive him, frowns disapproval not on the vainglorious tenor but on the officious purist who stands between him and the desired effect of his cabaletta.

Interesting light on the "simply and exactly" question is shed by the composer's radically stringent proposal in 1847 of a contract forbid- ding "any insertions, any mutilations, any low- ering or raising of keys, in short, any alteration which requires the smallest change in the or- chestra part."47 The clause in (my) italics prompts a number of observations. First, Verdi did not always feel so strongly about this: both Abigaille's cabaletta in Nabucco and Alfredo's in Traviata contain alternate vocal readings that would create ugly clashes unless the dou-

blings were revised to match. More to the point is the implication that even at his most inflexi- ble Verdi could accept changes which did not require orchestral adjustment. The kind of ornamentation we have been discussing, with few exceptions, does not. Indeed Verdi's instrumen- tation seems at times to provide for it explicitly. Very often, especially in the early operas, orchestral doubling of the voice is suddenly re- moved at the last member of a florid sequence, as the line moves toward its cadence. From among many examples one might cite the descent from top A in Abigaille's cantabile, the scales that close each stanza of "Sempre libera," and the fioratura which follows the syncopated top notes in the coda of the same aria. Surely elaboration was anticipated. Even after half a century of reform it was still common in the Traviata aria (exs. 180, 181); a similar and similarly treated passage occurs in Ernani (exs. 83, 84).48

We also know that Verdi was perfectly ready to write "senza le solite appoggiature" when he wanted blunt phrase-endings in recitative for special effect. Given the prevalence of the convention we have been detailing, he could hardly have hesitated, had he wished, to emulate Beethoven's "non si fa una cadenza." And on at least one occasion he did so: Budden describes a score of Macbeth in which Verdi wrote at the beginning of the murder duet "Gli artisti sono pregati di non fare le solite cadenze."49 Budden takes this to be a safety precaution ("No cadences are in fact written; but Verdi wanted to make sure"), but here is another case where fa- miliarity with period practice suggests a different interpretation. The prohibition of appoggiaturas also strikes Budden as over-cautious, but it was not: as we have seen, singers were still quite ready to add unwritten appoggiaturas if the line in question seemed to want them. Ver- di's instruction was practical and necessary pre-

44See accompanying booklet to Metropolitan Opera's reissue of their 1943 Ballo broadcast with Sved. 45Martinelli, "Singing Verdi," Musical America, March 1963, pp. 14-15, 45. 46Letter to Tito Ricordi of April 1863, in Abbiati II, 732. 47Letter of 20 May 1847 to Giulio Ricordi (I copialettere, pp. 37-40).

48Sembrich's variant in this example may be seen as a facilitation-that is, a way of getting around the low B6-but whatever its origin, the result is clearly used in an ornamental way. This is confirmed by the records (e.g., Selma Kurz's, Grammophon 053354; and Rosa Raisa's, Vocalion 70039) where the BI is sung with no trouble the first time, and Sem- brich's variant or one like it employed as a repeat decoration.

49Budden I, 506fn.

16

a-gl'im pe - ti d'a-mor

Example vii: from I Lombardi

cisely because the appoggiaturas, like the cadenzas, were "usual." In the dramatic and novel Macbeth duet, he wished to suspend a convention which usually obtained, and which he usually saw no pressing reason to oppose. It is the exception that proves the rule.

It is thus hard to imagine that Verdi opposed the ornamentation of internal cadences. It is even less likely that elaborations and/or substitutions at the final cadenza disturbed him. He must have heard them constantly, but although he came to invite them less and less, there is no evidence that he found them inappropriate where he had done so. (The argument could be raised that some of the substitutes transcribed here are dull and trivial, but that is another matter.)

Finally, in the early arias which end with "nominal" cadenzas, the fermata or ad libitum indication clearly signifies not the stretch of tempo most performers take it to mean today, but that a cadenza of the singer's devising was expected. It went without saying: that conclusion is inescapable when one considers the arietta "L'abandonee," composed in the early years of Verdi's career for Giuseppina Strepponi. It is the merest display piece: arpeggio, staccato, "qualche trillo, qualche scala ascendente cre- dendo di imitare I'usignuolo."50 Strepponi and everyone else would have concluded it with a cadenza in the spirit of the piece. Yet over the final V7 chord Verdi writes a four-note cadential commonplace, and above this he instructs not "cadenza ad lib." but simply "a piacere. "

Why would Verdi write out a cadenza for some arias and leave others with a nominal cadence? Unfamiliarity with the particular performer's style? Confidence in it? Haste? The

je veux, je veux ta mort, je veux _ ta mort

Example viii: from Jerusalem"s

singer's status? (It seems to have been a special token of respect for a composer to give a prima donna tailor-made cadenzas or ornaments. Donizetti and Rossini did it constantly; Verdi did it at least for Gueymard and just possibly also for Patti. Perhaps he felt it was an obligatory courtesy for the sopranos of his premieres, while the men could be left to shift for themselves if need be.) One possibility, that for some reason Verdi felt the arias in question should end without cadenzas, can be ruled out. In I Lombardi, the first-act bass cantabile is left to end "nominally." But in J1rusalem (where the piece appears transposed a tone lower), an im- pressive cadenza is written to fill the gap (exs. vii-viii).

Recorded singers known to Verdi. All the foregoing is consistent with what we can glean from recordings by singers whose paths crossed the composer's. Of the singers cited in this article, seven worked with Verdi on roles they sang in premieres:52 Tamagno (Otello, Don Carlo [1884 version], Adorno in Boccanegra [1881 version]; exs. 70, 75, 105, 171, 176, 177), Maurel (Iago in Otello, Falstaff, Boccanegra [1881 version]; exs. 77, 172), Navarrini (Lo- dovico in Otello, Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlo [1884 version]; exs. 73, 118, 204), Pini-Corsi (Ford in Falstaff; exs. 196, 205), De Reszke (Fiesco in Boccanegra [1881 version]; ex. 11), Garbin (Fenton in Falstaff; exs. 156, 157), and Arimondi (Pistol in Falstaff; exs. 119, 202). Sev- eral others are widely said to have been admired


S5Verdi's description of the sort of salon/display-piece he did not like to write (letter of 1871 to Opprandino Arrivabene, Copialettere p. 620). The arietta itself is reprinted in Frank Walker, " 'L'abandonde,' a forgotten song," Bollettino qua- drimestrale dell'istituto di studi verdiani 1 (1960), no. 2, pp. 785-89 and 1069-76.

51The text of the cadenza is shown here as Verdi first wrote it. Later, perhaps advised that the word "veux" was no good for a high note, he scribbled in the autograph an incomplete replacement which the published score resolves unconvinc- ingly. Thanks are due to Martin Chusid and the American Institute of Verdi Studies for permission to consult the Insti- tute's microfilms of this and other autographs. 52The first four made records from the operas (and the first two from the actual roles) they sang with Verdi. De Reszke's aria is from Ernani; it was his performance in an Ernani re- vival that apparently persuaded Verdi to accept him for Boc- canegra (see Budden II, 267).

17

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC by him, among them Battistini (numerous examples throughout), Nordica (exs. 27, 109, 178, 179) and Bellincioni (exs. 43, 111, 158, 160). In the case of Bellincioni, who was the first San- tuzza and Fedora, the opera in which she impressed Verdi is both known and represented in her slender legacy for the gramophone: Tra- viata. This recording is highly typical of the style observed in the earliest generation of Ver- dians-frequent and pronounced rubato, phrasing and articulation based on generous portamento, ornamentation of a melodic repeat and of an internal cadence, and an extended cadenza at the end.

Of course, the performance on the record is not the one Verdi heard, and Verdi did not give his views on her ornamentation. On the other hand, it is most unlikely that he heard her sing less decoratively: it was after the performance and before the record that she "broke away from every outmoded tradition of the lyric stage, abandoning [her]self to recitar cantando.''53 His praise would seem to indicate at the least that he found in her style no blemish so marked as to be disqualifying (which could also be said of the artists engaged for the premieres).

The singer for whom Verdi's admiration is most persuasively documented, excluded until now because her few records include none of his music, is Adelina Patti, "Queen of Song" for some forty years throughout the civilized world. She is particularly important because she is the only singer recorded to any significant extent who belongs to the operatic world of Ver- di's middle period. Patti sang Rigoletto, Trova- tore, and Traviata in the world's great musical centers within a decade of their composition.

Traviata is one of the operas in which Verdi's admiration for her-keen, deep, and long- lasting-is documented. As with Bellincioni, we do not know his thoughts on the minutiae of her ornamentation. But he praises in her-in implied contrast to the more extravagantly florid Malibran-"the purest style of singing."54 To Giulio Ricordi he writes of her "marvelous execution" without a qualifying expression of

regret over the uses to which it was put-and since he saw her in Rigoletto, Sonnambula, and Barbiere, it is certain that he heard her most elaborate flights of fancy."" In the same letter, he specifically singles out her "Ah, fors'e lui" as "an incomparable performance." Over fifteen years later, at the time of her last operatic appearances, the composer came once again to hear Patti's Violetta and to voice his admiration. "It appears he said to Bevignani that my phrasing was too touching for words and that I sang divinely," the diva wrote to Hermann Klein in 1893.56

All this lends particular interest to the sur- viving scraps of information about her ornamentation, especially in this role. From H. Sutherland Edwards we learn that "In Mme. Patti's Violetta there is always something new to be observed, [including] new ornamentation in the cadences of the principal airs."57 Klein reports that she ended the cabaletta with the long (unwritten) leading-tone trill heard in the records of Melba, Lilli Lehmann, and others (ex. 182).58 An interpolation made by the German soprano Margarethe Siems (the first Marschal- lin) has been included here (ex. 200) mainly because Ricci attributes a similar one to Patti.59

But the best documentation of Patti's style is found in the pair of Bellini arias she recorded in

53Gemma Bellincioni, Io ed il paloscenico (Milan, 1920), quoted in J. B. Richards, "Gemma Bellincioni," Record Col- lector 16, nos. 9-10 (January 1966), 199-219. 54Letter of 27 December 1877 to Arrivabene, in Alberti, p. 205.

55Letter of 5 October 1877 to Giulio Ricordi, in Busch, pp. 406-08. See also p. 410, fn. 3, for discussion of a cadenza to "O patria mia" sung by Patti in New York (1883), which (the management claimed on Patti's behalf) was written by Verdi expressly for her. The idea is not as preposterous as it may seem when one realizes that Verdi apparently wrote a cadenza for "O don fatal" without intending it as a part of the published score. 56Patti's letter of 20 January 1893 to Hermann Klein, in Klein, The Reign of Patti (New York, 1920), p. 313. Against this must be set the unenthusiastic account of Patti's late Traviata performances left by Verdi's protege Emmanuele Muzio (Carteggi Verdiani IV, ed. A. Luzio [Rome, 1947], p. 223). Interestingly, Muzio notes that "the cadenza [of 'Ah, fors'e lui'] was good and simple: it was little applauded, because the public expected a tour de force." Apparently it was all right by Verdi's most enthusiastic supporter for Patti to have her own Traviata cadenza; obviously it was normal for the public to expect her to have one (of a different sort). Mu- zio makes special mention of the fact that she sang only one verse of "Addio del passato"; some sopranos must still have been singing both in 1886. 57H. Sutherland Edwards, The Prima Donna: Her History and Surroundings from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century, vol. II (London, 1888), p. 120. 58Klein, p. 287. 59Ricci, I, 83.

18

1906. These take careful listening: few voices are still functional after fifty years of hard public use,60 and other aging singers have shown more skill than she at disguising the inevitable weaknesses. (Patti, after all, could not listen to herself as her successors have been able to do.) Still, much remains, and what we hear in "Ah, non credea mirarti" and "Casta diva" is entirely consistent with the style of the earliest Verdian singers we have discussed: full-scale elaboration of a strophic repeat, ornaments of various kinds, especially at major internal cadences, and a highly inflected vocal line with trills, por- tamenti, and generous rubato. Clearly, it is possible to say with confidence that Verdi could hear the kind of singing documented here without feeling that any transgression worthy of note had occurred.

III. CONCLUSIONS

The idea of the composer and his score as the only legitimate authorities in matters of interpretation has been around for many years. It has been increasingly accepted both in theory and (with some time-lag and misunderstanding) in practice. Yet it ought not to be given uncritical endorsement as one of music's absolutes: an opera can never be a completed product in the sense that a painting or a novel is. The performance is an ever-changing ingredient, and the performer's creative role is essential to the vitality of the re-creative process on which the art-form depends.

It is essential, too, in its capacity to nourish and stimulate the compositional art it serves. In this sense, a composer is not strictly the sole author of his music. La Traviata is not only by Verdi, but by the institution of Italian opera, by the conventions and traditions of Italian singing. These inspired Verdi, and contributed much to his music, not only in form but in sub- stance. They have a claim on the conscientious performer's attention complementary to the composer's own. The no-cuts-and-come-scritto

approach favored in some quarters begs important questions to an unacceptable degree, and the phonographic evidence can aid attempts to address them.

For instance, to take an example outside the category of embellishment, few who have heard the old discs will disagree that we tolerate an unjustifiable neglect of piano singing nowa- days. Certainly, at least in the early operas, the nominal cadenzas require elaboration, and singers who wish to grace the major internal cadences should be encouraged to do so. The two- note realization of the acciaccatura ought at least to be tried. No singer should be barred from roles like Leonora, Azucena, Henri, or Stankar for lack of the odd extreme note.

This is not to say that period practice, as represented on records, should be adopted uncriti- cally. Although many departures from the written notation are purposeful and artistic, there is occasional evidence too of the sloppiness and exhibitionism that prompted reform. Nor are all the purposeful changes well judged: the smoothing-out seen in exs. 185, 190, and 194, for instance, erases one of the most typical fingerprints of Verdi's highly charged youthful style. And while the added appoggiaturas in exs. 204-07 make little difference one way or the other, the one in ex. 202 surely betrays a failure of perception.

On several other issues (updating of florid cadenzas, interpretation of rests and slurs, interpolations in the later operas, and so on), it is best to take an equivocal stance. But that is all to the good, since it implies experimentation, variety, and choice: an antidote to the growing, depress- ing tendency for musical interpretations to resemble one another. Cabalettas can be sung and ornamented in one performance and omitted in favor of verism at another. One production can be staged to discourage mid-scene applause and another to rekindle the electric interaction between stage and audience that was such a vital part of Verdi's operatic life. One Violetta can evoke the forward-looking psychological penetration of her scena and another the elemental thrill of the vocal/musical traditions out of which it sprang. Verdi's richness is revealed most fully by the capacity of these operas to bear and respond to the most various, creative and strong interpretations, to yield unguessed secrets to successive genera- tions of interpreters.


60Patti's career actually began at the age of seven with extensive child-prodigy tours of the United States; her operatic debut came at the age of sixteen. In that first season she sang sixteen leading roles in New York, and at eighteen began her reign at Covent Garden, where Verdi first heard her. When she made her Bellini recordings (G&T 03082 and 03084) she had been before the public for fifty-six years.

19

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC The rub comes when certain kinds of interpre-

tations, certain ways of approaching the execu- tant's task, come to have such dominance that other valid perspectives are obscured. It is in just such cases that we can usefully follow Verdi's maxim: "torniamo all'antico: sarcd un pro- gresso." C. S. Lewis put it well in advising students of theology to spend more time, on the whole, with old books than with new:

Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us.61

61C. S. Lewis, introduction to a translation of St. Athana- sius's Incarnation (New York, 1946).

Musical Examples

A Note on the Musical Examples. The obvious problem of transcribing recorded performances is how, and in how much detail, to notate what one hears. Rhythmic subdivisions within an adlibitum passage can be perceived in various ways. Many important aspects of dynamic shading, accentuation and rubato can be indicated only approximately. At times un- clear execution or a burst of surface noise can throw even the sequence of pitches into question.

For the present examples I have taken my cues where possible from Verdi's own notational and in- structional conventions and have not tried to specify the subtler dynamic and rhythmic nuances. Dy- namics have in fact not been indicated at all unless contrasts of volume are used for particular effect within the passage transcribed. Nor have fermatas, accents, crescendos and the like been written over every note that could arguably bear them, although when the devices that might call for such markings have seemed to me particularly prominent, the markings have been used. Portamento, when clearly audible at normal playing speed, is indicated by a slur mark; the slur is therefore not used in its conven- tional function of joining notes which share a syllable. No attempt has been made to distinguish between slight and pronounced portamento (at resolutions to the tonic in particular the voice will almost always settle firmly on the pitch of arrival before reaching the beat or beginning the syllable on which it stands). No attempt has been made to specify exactly how long a final note is held over the tonic strum of postlude. For convenience, examples are given in original keys even when they may have been sung in transposition. * Readers will understand that

all of these things could be notated in various ways, and that nothing is claimed for my solutions except that they will be found plausible by those who have access to the records and convenient by those who do not.

The examples are grouped according to the division of topics in the discussion section; obviously some items are relevant under more than one topic, and in somes cases there is some question as to which category is the appropriate one. (Is ex. 180 an ornament or a facilitation? Should ex.143 be inter- preted as a melodic variant or the embellishment of an internal cadence?) Each example (or group of examples, in the case of multiple variants) is preceded by Verdi's notation of the passage (as found in the Ri- cordi piano-vocal scores). Attribution is by artist's last name only; further details are provided in the ta- bles.

Many of the embellishments shown are shared by artists other than the ones to whose records I have as- cribed them here; it is impractical to attempt a listing of these. Comprehensiveness would be impossible (ex. 157 is shared in one form or another not only by the singers shown in exs. 160-62, but by Arnoldson, Arral, Barrientos, Bori [Edison], Bram- billa, Chalia, Ciaparelli, Garden, Huguet, Naval, Nezhdanova, Pacini, Sembrich, Siems, Zenatello, and no doubt dozens of others as well); so would a confident declaration that any of the more idiosyncratic variants is unique. (Several of them certainly seem to be, but ex. 65 turns out to be shared by the tenor Oxilia!) In the case of these shared variants it has also proved impossible to develop a satisfactory, consistent policy for deciding what singer to name. Should an ornament be cited from its earliest known appearance on records, or from the earliest singer to have employed it, or from the artist most closely as- sociated with the role, or with Verdi, or with a pre- phonographic Verdian interpreter... and so on. All these considerations have influenced choices at one point or another, but in the final analysis there has been no system, and consequently little if anything should be inferred from the relative prominence of this singer or that in the transcriptions.

In several of the "full-stop" cadenzas, the A section (unvaried) is not shown.

* "Urna fatale" from Forza is shown in its pre-revision key of F major, which seems for some reason to have remained standard in Italy for some time (several recordings appear to play at that speed, and Ricci gives his cadenzas for the aria in F). Some scores of the revised opera print the cantabile in F and the cabaletta in E, but Battistini (who includes the tran- sitional recitative) sings both in the same key. Recordings contribute a drop here and there to our knowledge of the status of Verdi's revised scores in the early twentieth century. Don Carlo's "Io la vidi," for instance, was recorded both from the four-act and five-act versions; more surprisingly, Giovanni Gravina's 1902 "Il lacerato spirito" (G&T 52367) follows the 1857 rather than the 1881 Boccanegra score.

20

Final Cadenzas ("Full-Stop")


Nabucco: "Dio di giuda" (complete cadenza shown)

a - do - rar - - ti o gnor sa -pr6

Ex. 1: Stracciari

a-do-rar - ti o - gnor a-do-rar-ti

a-do-rar - tip-gnor sa- pr6

Ernani: "Come rugiada" (complete cadenza shown)

allarg.

d'af-fan no iomo-ri - r6

Ex. 2: De Lucia

io_ mo-ri-r6 per te, per te, per te io mo-ri - r6

Ex. 3: Caffetto

F0 0 +

d'af-fan - no, d'af-fan-no io mor r

Ex. 4: Scampini

d'af-fan - no, d'af-fan-no, d'af-fan-no mo-ri - rb

Ernani: "Ernani involami" (complete cadenza shown)

I -

--,--_

"•"-,

un' e

- den que glian-tri a me

Ex. 5: Sembrich allarg.

un' e den dide-li-zia,

6I allarg.

ah, que gl'an - tri a me

Ex. 6: Caligaris

u- n'e den que- gl'an -

tria(?) me

Ex. 7: Talexis

u - n'e-(ah) den que-gl'an-tri a me

Ex. 8: Gabbi

u-n'e - den di de-li - zia ah si, que-gl'an-tri a me

21

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Emani: "Da quel di" (C shown)

vil per_ te

del tuo re

Ex. 9: Corsi / Battistini

vil per te

0 1

del tuo re

Ex. 10: Boninsegna / Cigada

vil per te

del tuo re

Emani: "Infelice, e tu credevi" (complete cadenza shown)

- w

1"-- - ----------------- - 7? ro

an-co ----- ra an-co-rail cor

Ex. 11: De Reszke

mi do - ve -vangli an - ni al-me - no far di

ge-loan co-ral cor, far di ge-lo an-co-ra ii cor

Ex. 12: Chaliapin

--" i Fi'ii ii i i i i -

an-co - ------ rajl cor,

p

an-co - rajlcor, an-co-rail cor

Ex. 13: Lanzoni

mi do-ve-van gl'an-nijal-me -no far di_ ge - lo

an- co - ra il cor

Ernani: "Lo vedremo" (complete solo cadenza shown) (A is begun in the interjected lines of another character)

sce-gli, al-tro scam po no,

no, no, no, non v'e

Ex. 14: Battistini

sce-gli, al-tro scam-po, al-tro scam-po piui non v'd, ah no,

no al-tro scam-po piti non v'6

22

Ernani: "O de'verd'anni miei" (complete cadenza shown)

a piacere

il no-memio fa - r6

Ex. 15: Battistini (presto)

il no -------- me mio,-

il no - me mi - o fa - r6

Ex. 16: Kaschmann

e vin-ci-tor_ de'se co - ii il no - me

mi - o, il no - memio fa - r6

I due Foscari: "O vecchio cor" (complete cadenza shown)

pian - gi, _ pian - gipur tu

Ex. 17: Corradetti

pian - gi,_pian-gi, pian gi pur tu

Ex. 18: Amato

pian --- - - - gi, pian - gi,

plan - gi pur tu

I due Foscari: "Questa dunque e l'iniquo mercede" (B and C shown)

Ah, ren-de --------- te,

ah ren-de-teil fi - glio a me!

Ex. 19: Corradetti

deh, ren-de - te, ren-de - te il fi - glioa me,

ren-de-tei1 fi-glio a_ me

Ex. 20: Bonini

Ah, si, ren-de-te, ren-de-teil fi-glio a me

Macbeth: "Pieta, rispetto, onore" (complete cadenza shown) p e legate

sol _ la be-stem-miajahi

las-so la ne - nia,

la ne-nia tua sa - ra

Ex. 21: Battistini / (presto)

sollabe-stem-mia ahilas-so la ne

nia, la ne-nia tua sa - ra


23

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Luisa Miller: "Quando le sere al placido" (B and C shown)

in suo-nqon-ge

- li-co "t'a-mo" di-ce - a

fS > •

> ----- 3P morendo

ahmi tra-di - a, mi tra-di - a

Ex. 22: De Lucia

K F F . . in suo-no an-ge-li-co "a-mo te so-lo" ah mi tra-di-a ahi-

mr,ahi-me, tu mi_tra-di - a

Rigoletto: "Parmi veder le lagrime" (B and C shown)

dolciss. allarg. A A A

ten.

ah! non in-vi-di6 per te

Ex. 23: Albani

le sfe - req-g1jin-ge-li, le sfe-re-g1-in-ge-li,

f

no, no, no, non in-vi-dib per te

Ex. 24: Anselmi

le sfe-re a-gl'an-ge-li, le sfe-rea-gl'an-ge -li,

non in-vi-dib6_ per te

Ex. 25: Caruso

ah - si, le sfe-re-g ian-ge - lii

no,nonin-vi-di6 per te

Ex. 26: Constantino

non in-vi-di6 per te

Trovatore: "Tacea la notte" (complete cadenza shown)

adagio ed eguale

(ter-) ra un_ ciel sem - br6

Ex. 27: Nordica

A,

(presto)

(ter-) ra ah

sem - br6

Ex. 28: Chelotti (presto)

(terra un) ciel la ter-raun ciel sem - br6

Ex. 29: Ciaparelli (presto)

(terra un) ciel ah si,

la ter-rasm ciel sem - br6

24

Ex. 30: Burzio

(un) ciel, un ciel sem-brb la_ ter - ranm ciel sem- br6

Ex. 31: Mazzoleni

P i

F, k ip I 1I| r_

F L_

(ter-) ra ah si

P 6v ,.- un ciel sem - br6

Trovatore: "Il balen del suo sorriso" (complete cadenza shown)

ah,

la tem-pe-sta del mio cor

Ex. 32: Campanari

sper-dail so-le d'un suo sguar - do la tem-pe -

sta, la tem-pe-sta del mio cor

Ex. 33: Corradetti

sper-dajlso-le d'un suo sguar-do la tem-pe-sta delmio co-re,

la tem-pe - s st del _ mio cor

Ex. 34: De Bassini

la del mio cor (sic) la tem-pe-sta del miocor

Trovatore: "Ah, si, ben mio" (B and C shown)

e so-loincielpre-ce - der-ti lamor-tea me

par - ra, la mor - teame par - ra

Ex. 35: Albani

e so-loin ciel pre-ce-der-ti la mor-te a me

par-ra, la mor-te, la mor-teome par - rA

Ex. 36: Biel

e so-loin ciel pre-der-ti la mor-tea me par-ra,

la mor - te, la mor-te a me par - ra

Ex. 37: Signorini

e so-loin ciel re-ce-der-ti la mor-tea me par-rd,

la mor - te, lamor-tea mepar - ra


25

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Ex. 38: Caruso

K F e so-loin ciel pre-ce - der-ti la mor-te a me

par-ra la mor - te a me, a me par - ra

Ex. 39: Gilion : Ipp f

e so-lQon cielpre-ce - der - ti la mor-teqa me

_ par-ra, la mor-te, la mor-te a me par - ra

Trovatore: "D'amor sull'ali rosee" (complete cadenza shown)

le pe

ne del cor

Ex. 40: Tetrazzini

PA-$ 0it.

le pe - - - - - - - - ne del mio

cor, ah si, le pe - ne del cor, ah

del cor

Ex. 41: Raisa

Ah,

ah,_ non dir-gli le pe - ne, le pe -

ne del mio_ cor

Ex. 42: Corsi

Ah, si,_ le pe-ne, ah,

del co-re, ah, si, le pe-ne del cor

Traviata: "Ah, fors'e lui" (complete cadenza shown)

ah! de - li-zia al cor

Ex. 43: Bellincioni

(presto)

ah si cro-ce de-li -

-zia, ah si de-li - zia al cor

Ex. 44: Sembrich (presto)

ah cro-cq de-li -

26

zia al cor, cro ce ede-li - zia al cor

Ex. 45: Tetrazzini

ah

si, cro-ceede-li - zia,de-li-ziaal co - re,

cro-ceqe de-li -zia al _ cor

Ex. 46: Melba

Ah

al cor

Ex. 47: Pacini

Al cor,

de - li-zia al cor,_ de-li - ziaal_ cor

Ex. 48: Huguet

Ah _ _ _

al cor

Ex. 49: Brambilla

Ah

al _ cor

Traviata: "De' miei bollenti spiriti" (complete cadenza shown)

f

...im-me-mo-re io vi-vo qua-sijn ciel,_ ah si, io vi -

dim. _-

vo qua-si in cie - lo, io vi-vo qua - siin ciel

Ex. 50: De Lucia

A rit.

...im-me-mo-re io vi - voin ciel, in cie - lo,

io vi-vojn cie-lo, ah, in ciel

Traviata: "Di provenza il mar" (complete cadenza shown)

f dim. ed. allarg.

ma, ma, _ se"l-fin ti tro-vQn-cor, ti tro-vQn-cor

Dio m'e sau-di, Dio m'e sau - di!

Ex. 51: Battistini

ma, _ seal-fin ti tro-voan-cor, ti tro-voan-cor

Diom'esau-di,ah! Diom'esau - di


27

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Ballo: "Alla vita che t'arride" (complete cadenza shown)

o-v'e la pa - tria

col suo splen-di-dqav-ve - nir

Ex. 52: De Bassini

(presto)

o-v'e la pa-tria Ah!

col suo splen-di-do av-ve - nir

Ex. 53: De Bassini

(presto) L

o-v'e la pa-tria Ah!

col suo splen-di-do av-ve - nir

Ex. 54: Battistini

o-v'? la pa-tria col suo splen-di-djav-ve-nir? Col_

suo splen-di-do av - ve - nir

Ex. 55: Scotti

o-v' la pa-tria, o-v'6 la pa-tria col suo splen-di-do av -

ve-nir, colsuo splen -di - do_

av - ve - nir

Ballo: "Ma dall'arido stelo divulsa" (B and C shown)

lento

ah!

3 3

mi-se-re-re-d'un po-ve-ro cor

Ex. 56: Burzio

(presto)

Ah Si-gnor _m'a - i - ta

Si - gnor_ pie-ti di me, _ ah, pie-ti si - gnor

Ballo: "Ma se m'e forza perderti" (complete cadenza shown)

S..f,-'-0 3

--

l'ul-ti - ma_ o-ra del no-stroja-mor se fos-se l'ul-ti-ma del

no-stro a-mor

Ex. 57: Caruso

l'ul-ti - ma, l'ul-ti-ma o-ra del no-stro a-mor co-me se fos-se

S~,, F I I , , l'ul-ti-ma o-ra del no-stroa-mo-re, o-ra del no-stro a - mor

Ex. 58: Gilion

l'ul-ti - ma_ o-ra del no-stroa-mor

se fos-se l'ul - ti-ma

o - radelno - stro a - mor

28

Ex. 59: Vignas 30 3 g I L IW ,

l'ul - ti - ma o-ra del no-stroai-mor se fos-se l'ul-ti -

ma elno-stroa - mor

Forza: "Urna fatale" (B and C shown)

mi_ con - ci - t6,

_ mi con-ci - t6

Ex. 60: Battistini S(presto)

mi_ con-ci - t6 di-sper-sa va dailimal_

pen-sie-ro che al-l'at-to in - de-gno mi con-ci - t6

Ex. 61: Magini-Coletti 41S, (presto)

mi con-ci-tb cheal-l'at tQjn - de

gno mi con-ci-t6 il pen - sier

Ex. 62: Bellantoni

mi con - ci-t che al-l'at-to in-de - gno mi

con-ci-t6 ah, an - cor

Forza: "Pace, pace" (complete cadenza shown)

in-van la pa - ce que-st'al - main-van spe - rar

Ex. 63: Tetrazzini*

in-van la pa - ce que-st'al - - ma

in-van spe - rar

*Before this is dismissed as an anomalous intrusion of "coloratura" practice, it should be noted that Tetrazzini sang Forza during the early career (not as a coloratura specialist) which brought her name to Verdi's attention, and that the German dramatic soprano Gertrude Kappel sang a somewhat similar cadenza in her 1924 recording of the aria (Grammophon 66100).

Don Carlo: "Per me giunto" (complete cadenza shown)

mor - raper te

Ex. 64: Giraldoni

mor - raper te


29

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC Final cadences without "full-stop"

Rigoletto: "Questa o quella"

(bel-) ta_ se mi pun - ge

_ u-na qual-che bel - t

Ex. 65: De Lucia (presto)

. ra il. f

' "P "

(bel-) ta se mi pun-ge

f,2f

a tempo

u-na qual-che bel - t,

Ex. 66: Caruso

(bel-) ti, ah si, se mi

u e-u- er pun - ge u - na qual-che bel - ta

Rigoletto: "La donna e mobile" con forza

e di pen - sier

Ex. 67: Bonci

S(presto)

e di pen-sier

Ex. 68: Caruso S np f

e di pen - sier

Ex. 69: Caruso (Presto)

e

di pen- sier

Trovatore: "Deserto sulla terra"

con forza ::: tr

mag-gior il tro-va - tor

Ex. 70: Tamagno

mag-gior il tro - - - va - tor

30

Ballo: "Di' tu se fedele"

nel-l'a - ni-me no - stre non en - tra ter - ror

Ex. 71: Albani rit. 7

-a tempo

nel-l'a - ni - me no-stre nonen - trater- ror

Ballo: "Saper vorreste"

f.

la la la la la tra la

Ex. 72: Tetrazzini

la la la la la ah!

Don Carlo: "Dormir6 sol"

a-morper me non ha

Ex. 73: Navarrini

a-mor per me non ha

Ex. 74: Luppi

3

a-mor per me_ non ha

Otello: "Ora e per sempre addio"

e que- stoj l fin

Ex. 75: Tamagno

e que - sto l fin

Ex. 76: De Negri

e que-sto il fin

Falstaff: "Quand'ero paggio"

va-go leg - ge -ro gen-ti - le, gen - ti - le, gen - ti - le

Ex. 77: Maurel*

va-go leg -

ge - ro gen-ti-le, gen - ti -

le, gen ti - le

va-go leg - ge- ro gen-ti-le, gen - ti - le, gen - ti - le

*Maurel sings the aria thrice through (as was his habit in the opera house as well!). The ending is as in the score the first time, and as transcribed here thereafter (and the third go- round is in French).


31

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC Internal cadences

Nabucco: "Tu sul labbro"

leg - ge sor - - ge - r

Ex. 78: De Angelis

leg - ge sor-ge-rA, latualeg-ge_ sor-ge - rA

Ernani: "Come rugiada al cespite"

d'a-morche mibe - 6

Ex. 79: De Lucia

d'a - mor che mi_ be - 6

Ex. 80: Caffetto

d'a-mor che mi be - 6

Ernani: "Come rugiada al cespite" adagio

E Ah! D

Ex. 81: De Lucia

Ahi - - me!

Ernani: "Emani involami"

dim> 3 3 pp

sa - ran_ que - gl'an-tri a me

Ex. 82: Wedekind

sa - ran_ que - gl'an - tri_ a me


un E - - - den

Ex. 83: Sembrich

un E - - - den


dim. allarg.

que - - gl'an - tri -a_

me

Ex. 84: Sembrich

M Lallarg

(saran) que - gl'an- tria me

Ernani: "Da quel di"

Ah! gio-ia e vi-ta

Ex. 85: Battistini

Ah, gio - - - ie vi - ta

32

Ex. 86: Parvis

Ah,_ gio iae vi - ta

Ernani: "Da quel di"

del tuo re

Ex. 87: Battistini

del tuo re

Ernani: "Lo vedremo"

no, no, non v'e

Ex. 88: Battistini

no no, non v'e

Ernani: "0 de'verd'anni miei"

Al piiuisu-bli - me tro - no_

Ex. 89: Ancona

Al piilsu-bli-me tro - - no

Ernani: "O de'verd'anni miei"

il no-me mi - o fa - r6

Ex. 90: Kaschmann

n:t. "

il no-me mi - o,il no-me mio fa - rb

Ernani: "O sommo Carlo"

A 3

del - le tue ge - - ste-mi - ta - tor

Ex. 91: Battistini f

del-le tue ges te i - mi - ta-tor

I due Foscari: "O vecchio cor"

l'a-vel t'a-vrk, l'a-vel t'a - vr

Ex. 92: Amato

rf fit. p

1'a-vel t'a-vrk, I'a - vel t'a - vra

Macbeth: "Pieta,3 rispetto, onore"

la tu - a ca - nu - ta•

e - t

Ex. 93: Battistini

la tu-a ca-nu - ta e- ta


33

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Macbeth: "Pieta, rispetto, onore"

lane-niatu-a sa - ra

Ex. 94: Battistini

la ne - nia tua sa - ra

Luisa Miller: "Quando le sere al placido"

lo sguar-do in-na-mo - ra - to

Ex. 95: De Lucia

ltPr~it. a tempo

lo sguar-do in-na-mo - ra - to

Rigoletto: "Questa o quella" con brio

de-gl'a-man- ti le sma - nie de - ri - do

Ex. 96: De Lucia

rit.

de-gl'a-man-ti le sma - ni - e de - ri-do

Ex. 97: Anselmi

de-gl'a - man - ti le sma - - nie

a tempo

de - - ri - do_

Rigoletto: "E il sol dell'anima"

sa r6 per te

Ex. 98: De Lucia

sa - - - ro per te

Rigoletto: "Parmi veder le lagrime"

ca - ra fan-ciul-laa - ma - ta

Ex. 99: De Lucia 3

cara fan-ciul la a - ma-ta

Rigoletto: "Tutte le feste al tempio"

(l'an) - - sia pii cru - del

Ex. 100: Boronat

rit.

ah) si nel-l'an-sia pi cru - del

Ex. 101: Barrientos

(l'an) - sia, nel-l'an-sia pifi•

cru - del

34

Rigoletto: "La donna e mobile" PP leggero

e di pen - sier

Ex. 102: Caruso

A rit.

e di pen - sier

Rigoletto: "Bella figlia dell'amore"

k M .

pe-ne, le mie pe-ne con-so - lar

Ex. 103: Caruso

pe-ne, lemiepe-ne con - so-lar

Trovatore: "Tacea la notte"

un tro-va-tor can - t6

Ex. 104: Chelotti

un tro-va-tor_

can - t6

Trovatore: "Deserto sulla terra" tutta

un coral tro-va - tor

unco- retal tro - va - tor

unco-real tro - va -tor

Trovatore: "I1 balen del suo sorriso" 3 3 3

nuo-voin fon - dea meco - rag - gio

Ex. 106: Parvis 3 3F

nuo-voinfon-de in me_ co - rag - gio

Ex. 107: Corradetti 3 33

nuo-vQin-fon - de a me cor - rag - gio

Trovatore: "Ah, si, ben mio" dim.

la mor - te a me par - rA

Ex. 108: De Lucia I-pp

la mor - te a me

ntf

par r

Trovatore: "Miserere"

1 3._

dim.

(cada) - ver_ fred - do sa - r

Ex. 109: Nordica

(cada) - ver gi_

fred - do sa - ri


35

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Traviata: "Un di, felice"

de-li-zia al cor

Ex. 110: Zenatello

de - li - zia al cor

Traviata: "Ah, fors'e lui"

de-li-zia al cor

Ex. 111: Bellincioni

de - li - zia al cor

Ex. 112: Tetrazzini

de li - ziaal cor

Traviata: "De' miei bollenti spiriti" -- =- - ppp

stent.

col pla-ci -do sor - ri-sodel-l'a-mor, del-l'a-mor

Ex. 113: De Lucia

n>PP rl col

pl-.-d

sr - ri- dl-l o •dl'

- tempo

col pla-ci-do sor - ri-sodel-l'a-mor, del-l'a - mor

Traviata: "Pura siccome un angelo" dim.

lie - ti,_lie-ti ne ren - de - va

Ex. 114: Battistini

lie - ti,_lie-ti ne ren - de - va

Traviata: "Pura siccome un angelo"

non vo-gliajlvo-stro cor, no, no

Ex. 115: Battistini

nonvo-gliail vo - strocor, ah, no

Traviata: "Di provenza il mar" ppp rai

dio m'e-sau - di

Ex. 116: Battistini

dio m'e-sau di dio m'e-sau -di

36

Traviata: "Parigi, o cara" f :=- pp

tut - toilfu - tu-ro ne ar - ri-de - rA

Ex. 117: De Lucia lunga f :::- PP

tut-toil fu - tu - ro ne ar-ri-de - ra

Simon Boccanegra: "I1 lacerato spirito" con espress.

re-saal ful-gor de-gl'an-ge-li, pre-ga, Ma-ria, per me

Ex. 118: Navarrini

re-sa al ful-gor de-gl'an-ge-li, pre-ga, Ma-ria, _ per me

Simon Boccanegra: "I1 lacerato spirito"

pre-ga per me

Ex. 119: Arimondi (at repeat)

pre-ga per me

Ballo: "Eri tu" f 3

del -l'a-mi-co tuo pri - mo la f

Ex. 120: Battistini

del - l'a-mi - co tuo pri - mo la f

Ex. 121: Scotti

accel. -_

del - l'a-mi - co tuo pri - mo la fe

Ex. 122: Sammarco

del-l'a-mi-co tuo pri - mo -a fe

Ballo: "Eri tu"

per - du - te! o spe-ran - ze d'a-mor

Ex. 123: Battistini

per-du - te, o spe-ran-ze d'a - mor

Ballo: "Saper vorreste"

nol ra - pi - ra gra - do o bel - tE

Ex. 124: Tetrazzini

nol ra - pi - ra gra - dopo bel - tA

Ex. 125: Trentini

Sgra - do bel

nol ra-pi - rb gra - do1o bel-t


37

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Forza: "Urna fatale" dolciss. 3

in - e gno mi con - ci tb

Ex. 126: Battistini

f

in - - - - gno mi con-ci - t6

Forza: "Pace, pace"

pa-ce mio Di - o

Ex. 127: Boninsegna rit.

r r

pa-ce mio Di o

Don Carlo: "Carlo, che e sol"

sa - riapii de - gno,_ah in-ver_ nol so

Ex. 128: Kaschmann

sa - riapiii de - gno in-ver nol_ so

Don Carlo: "Carlo, che & sol" f

(ri-) ve-da, se tor-ne - rA, se tor-ne-ra, sal-vo_ sa ri

Ex. 129: Kaschmann

f --rit.

3 3

(ri-) ve - da, se tor - ne - ri, setor-ne-ri,

3

sal-vo_ sa r-

Don Carlo: "Per me giunto"

la - gri - mar, la - gri-mar co-si_ per - che

Ex. 130: Battistini it. S

. , W

, *R- I , "

la - gri - mar, la- gri-mar co - si_ per - che

Aida: "Celeste Aida"

tu di mia vi-ta sei lo splen- dor

Ex. 131: De Lucia

tu di mia vi-ta sei lo_ splen -dor


PPPP

vi-ci-no al sol

Ex. 132: Caruso P -

vi - ci - noal sol

Aida: "Morir, si pura e bella"

trop-po sei bel - la

Ex. 133: Del Papa

trop-po sei bel la

38

Melodic variants


Lombardi: "La mia letizia"

do-ve mor - tal

Ex. 134: Venerandi

do-ve mor - tal

Ex. 135: Escalais*

do-ve mor - ta - le

*That this interpolation resembles rather closely one Verdi himself made for the French version of the aria suggests that such a device was already typical in the composer's day. Es- calais also recorded the aria with its French text, but kept to the Italian musical version except for the interpolated high notes.

Ernani: "O sommo Carlo"

3 3

del - le tue ge- ste i-mi - ta - tor

Ex. 136: Cigada (at repeat)

del - le tue ge - ste i - mi - ta - tor

Macbeth: "Pieta, rispetto, onore" dim.

non spar-ge-ran, non spar-ge - an

Ex. 137: Battistini

non spar-ge-ran, non spar-ge - ran


sol chi vuo - le si ser-bi fe - de le

_non v'haj - mor se non ve li-ber - t6

Ex. 138: De Lucia rit. p

solchi vuo-le si ser-bi fe - de-le nonYv'e a-

a tempo

mo - re se non v'e li-ber - t


se mi pun - ge, se_ mi pun - ge

Ex. 139: Caruso

se mi pun - ge, se mi pun-ge

Ex. 140: De Lucia

se mi pun - ge, se_ mi pun - ge

39

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Rigoletto: "Caro nome"

atr

ca - ro no me tuo sa - r

Ex. 141: Brambilla

ca - ro no - me tuo sa - ra

Rigoletto: "E il sol dell'anima"

cantabile

w r r ,F, F

EJ1 sol del - 'a - ni - ma, la vi-taa - mo - re

Ex. 142: De Lucia

- ,r F F Evjl sol del - l'a-ni-ma, la vi - taea - mo - re


da_ quel ci-glio

da_ quel ci glio


le sfe- re a-gl'an-ge-li

Ex. 144: De Lucia 3

le sfe-re a - gl'an ge-li

Rigoletto: "Cortigiani, vil razza" 3

ri-da - te a me la fi - glia

(Verdi's repeat) 3 3

ri-da - te a me la fi - glia

Ex. 145: D'Andrade (at repeat)

ri-da - te a me_ la fi - glia

Rigoletto: "La donna e mobile"

e dipen - sie - ro

Ex. 146: De Lucia

e dipen - sie-ro

40

Trovatore: "Di geloso amor"

allarg. a piacere --

un ac - cen-to pro-fe - ri - sti

Ex. 147: Pacini, G. accel. r ,

,

un ac - cen-to pro - fe - ri - sti

Trovatore: "Stride la vampa"

la te-tra fiam - ma

Ex. 148: Bruno

la te-tra fiam - ma

Trovatore: "I1 balen del suo sorriso"

dolce

d'un suo sguar-do

Ex. 149: De Bassini

d'un suo sguar-do

Trovatore: "Il balen del suo sorriso"

(At "la tempesta," the score gives an oppure choice between an unembellished and an embellished musical repeat of the phrase "nuova infonde a me coraggio.")

3 3

la tem - pe-sta del_ mio_

cor

dolciss. largo

la tem - pe-sta del_ mio_ cor

Ex. 150: De Bassini

C, I

la___ tem - pe - sta_ del rall.

mi- o, delmrnio_ cor

Ex. 151: Pacini, G.

la tem - pe - sta

_ del mio cor

Trovatore: "I1 balen del suo sorriso"

WZ19 - I - le fa-vel-liinmio fa - vo-re

Ex. 152: Corradetti (at repeat)

le fa - vel - linmio fa - vo - re


41

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Trovatore: "Ah, si, ben mio"

e so-loin cielpre - ce-der-ti

Ex. 153: Gilion (at repeat)

e so - lojn ciel pre - ce-der - ti


Leo-no-ra ad-dio, ad-di o

Ex. 154: Mieli (at repeat)

3 rit. 3

Leo-no - raad-dio, ad - di - o


di te, di_ te scor - dar-mi

Ex. 155: Talexis (at repeat)

di te,__ di _ te_ scor-dar-mi

Traviata: "Un di, felice"

quel-1 a - mor-che pal-pi-to

Ex. 156: Garbin

quel-l'a - mor che pal-pi-to

Traviata: "Un di, felice" (melodic repeat)

del - l'u-ni - ver - so

Ex. 157: Garbin nit.

del I'u - ni - ver - so

Traviata: "Ah, fors'e lui"

3 3,1" ;I*.-

3 -

de'suoico-lo-rioc - cul - ti, de'suoico-lo-rrioc - cul - ti


de' suoi co-lo-rioc - cul-ti,

de suoi co-o-ri oc -

cul-ti

Ex. 159: Pacini

____-. ___,

________- ______ etc.

de suoi co-lo-ripc - cul - ti

Traviata: "Ah, fors'e lui" (melodic repeat)*

del-l'u-n - ver-so


del - I'u - ni - ver - so

42

Ex. 161: Melba

(in tempo)

del - I'u- ni - ver - so

Ex. 162: Huguet rit.

del l'u - rn-ver - so

*The ornament shown in exs. 160-62 probably dates from very early in the opera's performing history. It is shown as an oppure in the first French piano-vocal score (Violetta, opera en quatre actes, musique de G. Verdi [Paris: Benois, c 18641).

Traviata: "Di provenza il mar" dolce

Di pro - ven-za 11mar, il suol, chi dal corti can-cel-lo

Ex. 163: Battistini

Di pro - ven - zajl mar,_ il suol, chi dal

cor_ ti can-cel-16

Traviata: "Di provenza il mar" S

- h

V' V I -PL ---- F

sejn me spe-me non fal-li

Ex. 164: Battistini

se jnme spe-me non fal-li

Traviata: "Di provenza il mar"

con forza

Dio m'e sau-di, Dio m'e sau-di

Ex. 165: Magini-Coletti

Dio m'e sua-di, Dio m'e -au-di

Ballo: "Alla vita che t'arride"

te per - du - to, te per-du-to o-v'~ la pa - tria

Ex. 166: Battistini (at repeat)

te per - du - to, teper-du-too-v'?la pa - tria


ah, te per - du - to

Ex. 167: Battistini

ah, te per - du-to

Forza: "0 tu che in seno" dolce

soc-cor - - ri - mi

Ex. 168: De Lucia

soc-cor - - - -- ri - mi


43

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC


le dol-ci brez-ze del pa - trio suol

Ex. 169: Anselmi

le dol-ci eb - brez-zo del pa - trio suol (sic)


er-ger-tin tro-no

Ex. 170: Bonci

er - ger - tiun tro-no

Otello: "Esultate"

lo vin-sel'u- ra - ga - no

Ex. 171: Tamagno

lo vin-se l'u-ra-ga - no

Otello: "Era la notte"

l'in-ti-mo in - can-to

Ex. 172: Maurel

i-ti-o in - can-to l'in-ti-moin - can-to

Cabaletta and strophic embellishments

Ernani: "Vieni meco"

P 3 legate 3

in-trec-ciar ti vo' la vi - ta vieni

Ex. 173: Battistini

3 rit 3 a tempo

-3 in-trec- ciar ti vo' la__ vi - ta,_ vie-ni

Ernani: "Vieni meco" stent.

che_ fe - li - ce fa - - - ra

Ex. 174: Battistini (presto)

che fe - li - ce, ah, che fe-li

ce fa - r

44

Ex. 175: Corradetti

che_ fe - li - ce che_ fe - li -ce_

ti fa - ra

*Corradetti, singing without Battistini's full complement of assisting soloists and chorus, jumps here to the soprano melody of the coda here rather than resolving his own line.

Trovatore: "Di quella pira"

pi ra fi bre vo stro

Ex. 176: Tamagno

pi ra fi bre vo stro

Trovatore: "Di quella pira"

o te -coal - me - no cor-roa mo - rir

Ex. 177: Tamagno o t6

o te-coal - me no cor-roa mo - rir


IKI .

1. e bel - lainciel se - re - no (2. qual d'uom che pre-gajd - di - o)

Ex. 178: Nordica

rall. 10

e bel-lainciel se - re - - - no


1. mo-stra-valie-tQe pie - na

2. un no-me, il no-me mio

Ex. 179: Nordica

mo-stra-va lie - - to e pie-na

Traviata: "Sempre libera"

(vo-) lar, ah!_ ah!b ah!_ ah!

dee


45

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Ex. 180: Melba

(ah)

Ex. 181: Galvany rit. presto

. rall

(ah)

a tempo

A" I - , .: --


il_ mio_pen-sier

Ex. 182: Melba r (lunga)

(ah) il pen-sier

Ex. 183: Boronat

(ah)

Facilitations

Nabucco: "Anch'io dischiuso un giomo"

in) torno

Ex. 184: De Frate

rit.

(in) tor - no

Ernani: "Come rugiada al cespite"

n>d-f A A allarg.

d'af-fan - no, d'af - fan - no, d'af-fan-noio_ mo- ri - r6

Ex. 185: De Lucia

d'af-fan no_ o mo-ri - ro

Ernani: "Ernani involami" 6 dim. allarg.

que - - gl'an - tri a me

Ex. 186: Ciaparelli

A- allarg.

que - gl'an- tri - a me

46

Ernani: "Emani involami" t p

Ah! vo - lap tem - po_ epres - to

PP 3 3

re - ca dimia fu - gaillie - to_ i - stan - te

Ex. 187: Sembrich

F t7 F '- iJ i 3i

Ah! vo laepres - to

rit. a tempo

re - ca dimia fu - ga_illie - to_is- tan - te

Ernani: "Da quel di" con forza

"> cor, no, no,_ non_ puo - te im - por - re

Ex. 188: Corsi

4,, 0,.. F

--E cor, no, no,_ no,_ nonpuo-te im - por - re

Ernani: "O de'verd'anni miei" leggeriss.

,crc - d----------

Ex. 189: Campanari

cre - de - - i

Ernani: "O de'verd'anni miei"

il no - me, il no-me mi - o fa - ro

Ex. 190: Casini

il no - - - memi - o fa - rb

Due Foscari: "O vecchio cor"

un fi --- glio

Ex. 191: Bonini

un fi - glio

Luisa Miller: "Quando le sere al placido"

tra - di - a, ah, mi tra-di a

Ex. 192: De Lucia

I ty, I

,--,-.L

tra di - a, ah, mi tra-di - a


(vo-) lar, ah!_ ah! ah!_ ah!

Ex. 193: Melba

(ah!)


47

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC


sue vit - ti-me, sue vit-ti-me a col - pir

Ex. 194: De Bassini

sue vit ti - me a _col - pir

Forza: "Egli e salvo"

di tuo pa-dre ti fe'il vol-to ros - seg-giar

Ex. 195: Battistini

di tuo pa-dre tife'il vol-to ros-seg-giar

Forza: "Toh, toh, poffare il mondo"

E la ra - gion? la ra - gion? Pro pec-ca-ta

ve-stra, pei vo-stri pec - ca-ti

Ex. 196: Pini-Corsi (parl.)

E la ra - gion? E la ra - gion? Propec-ca-ta

ve-stra, pei vo-stri pec - ca-ti

Recitatives

Macbeth: "Pieta, rispetto, onore"

in-a-ri - di - ta

Ex. 197: Battistini

in-a ri - di ta


di - let - - to

Ex. 198: De Lucia

di - let - - ta

Ex. 199: Caruso

6 • i . . I ,

di - let - - ta

Traviata: "Ah, fors'& lui"* f allegro

r I, del vi - ver mi o

Ex. 200: Siems

P h

den ich mich weih ----- te

*Verdi's autograph contains at least one and perhaps two canceled melismas, rising to B6, at this point.

48


di vo - lut-ta_ne' (vortici)

Ex. 201: Huguet

di vo-lut-ta gio-(ir) (sic)


A te l'e-stre-moad - di-o

Ex. 202: Arimondi

A te l'e-stre-moad - di-o


ra- pi -ta a le - i la ver-gi-nal co - ro-na

Ex.203: Navarrini

ra-pi-taa le - i la ver-gi -nal co - ro-na

Ballo: "Eri tu"

nel suo fra-gi-le pet-to

Ex. 204: Battistini

nelsuofra-gi-le pet-to

Forza: "Scena della finestra"

Quel san - t'uo-mo? ... il mo-ti-vo?

Ex. 205: Pini-Corsi

f p

Quel san - t'uo-mo? eh... il mo-ti-vo?


nul-laeine dis-se

Ex. 206: Battistini

nul-la e ne dis-se


Don Al-va-ro ilfe - ri-to!

Ex. 207: Battistini

Don Al-va-ro•A fe - ri-to!


49

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Table I

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA ON ARTISTS*

Dates: ** Birth-Debut in a major role-Death

Abbreviations: KR = Entry in Kutsch & Riemens (1975 edn.; see fn. 3). S = Entry in Scott, The Record of Singing (see fn. 3).

G6 = Entry in The New Grove.

Albani, Carlo (1872-?-?). Leading Italian tenor. KR. Amato, Pasquale (1878-1900-1942). World-famous Italian baritone. KR, S. G6. Ancona, Mario (1860-1889-1931). World-famous Italian baritone. KR, S, G6. Anselmi, Giuseppe (1876-1896-1929). World-famous Italian tenor. KR, S, G6. Arimondi, Vittorio (1861-1883-1928). Leading Italian bass. KR. Barrientos, Maria (1884-1898-1946). World-famous Spanish coloratura soprano. KR, S. Battistini, Mattia (1856-1878-1928). World-famous Italian baritone. KR, S, G6. Bellantoni, Giuseppe (?-?-?). Minor Italian baritone. Wagnerian roles at La Scala pre-World War I; a few impres-

sive Fonotipia recordings 1909-14. Bellincioni, Gemma (1864-1879-1950). Leading Italian soprano. KR, S, G6. Biel, Julian (1870-?-?). Career details scarce (a few Scala appearances, including Manrico). Recorded for G&T in

1903 (Milan). Bonci, Alessandro (1870-1896-1940). World-famous Italian tenor. KR, S, G6. Bonini, Francesco Maria (1865-1896-1930). Leading Italian baritone. KR. Boninsegna, Celestina (1877-1892 [as a student]; 1897-1947). Leading Italian soprano. KR, S, G6. Boronat, Olimpia (1867-1885 or 1886-1934). Leading Italian soprano. KR, S, G6. Brambilla, Linda (1859 or 1869-1890 or earlier-1933). Italian soprano. KR. Burzio, Eugenia (1872-1903[?]-1922). Leading Italian soprano. KR, S. Caffetto, Carlo (1870-?-1910). Italian tenor. Career details untraced. Early "budget-label" recording artist. Caligaris, Rosa (?-?-?). Italian soprano. Appearances at La Scala (incl. Trovatore) during Toscanini's first direc-

torate. Several records for G&T, Pathe. Campanari, Giuseppe (1855-?-1927). Leading Italian baritone. KR. Caruso, Enrico (1873-1894-1921). World-famous Italian tenor. KR, S, G6. Casini, Lelio (1863-1887-1910). Italian baritone. Career details scarce. Successful teacher (of Titta Ruffo, among

others). Chaliapin, Feodor (1873-1893 or earlier-1938). World-famous Russian bass. KR, S, G6. Chelotti, Teresa (1861-?-1927). Italian soprano. Career details scarce. Shared title role in first complete record-

ing of Aida (1907). Ciaparelli, Gina (1881-?-1936). Italian soprano (later records under the name of Gina Viafora). KR. Cigada, Francesco (1878-1900-1966). Leading Italian baritone. KR. Constantino, Florencio (1869-1892-1920). Leading Spanish tenor. KR. Corradetti, Ferruccio (1866-1892-1939). Italian baritone. KR. Corsi, Emilia (1869-1886 or 1887-1927). Italian soprano. Largely provincial career; one season at La Scala. Mem-

ber of famous singing family (cousin of Antonio Pini-Corsi). Many recordings for G&T and Odeon. D'Andrade, Francesco (1859-1882-1921). Leading Portuguese baritone. KR, S. De Angelis, Nazzareno (1881-1903-1962). Leading Italian bass. KR, G6. De Bassini, Alberto (1847-1870 [as tenor]-?). Italian baritone. KR. De Frate, Ines (1854-?-1924). Italian soprano. S. Del Papa, Dante (1854-?-1923). Italian tenor. Career details untraced. Recorded (in New York) for Bettini, 1898-

1900. De Lucia, Fernando (1860-1885-1925). World-famous Italian tenor. KR, S, G6. De Reszke, Edouard (1853-1876-1917). World-famous Polish bass. KR, S, G6. Di Negri, Giovanni (1850-1878-1925). Leading Italian tenor. KR, S. Escalais, Leon (1859-1883-1941). Leading French tenor. KR, S. Gabbi, Leonilda (1863-1882-1919). Italian soprano. Sister of the slightly more prominent soprano Adalgisa

Gabbi (b. 1857), who replaced Romilda Pantaleoni in early Otello revivals. She made a few records as "Signora Gabbi" and several under her married name (Leonilda Paini). The former group is listed in Bauer as "probably" by Adalgisa, but close comparison of the arias appearing in both groups leaves little question that only Leonilda made records.

Galvany, Maria (1878-1899-1941). Leading Spanish soprano. KR, S. Garbin, Edoardo (1865-1891-1924). Leading Italian tenor. KR, S.

50

Gilion, Mario (1870-1902(?)-1914). Italian (or Franco-Italian?) tenor. Career principally Italian, with some East- ern European seasons, but recorded in French and Italian for Fonotipia, 1906-14.

Giraldoni, Eugenio (1871-1891-1924). Leading Italian baritone. KR, S. Huguet, Josephina (1871-1888-1951). Leading Spanish soprano. KR, S. Kaschmann, Giuseppe (1847-1869-1925). World-famous Italian baritone. KR, S. G6. Lanzoni, Agostino (1853-?-1918). Italian bass. Mostly provincial career in leading roles; first Jehovah in Perosi's

Mose. Luppi, Oreste (1870-1892-1950). Leading Italian bass. KR. Magini-Coletti, Antonio (1855-1880-1912). Leading Italian baritone. KR, S. Maurel, Victor (1848-1867-1923). World-famous French baritone. KR, S, G6. Mazzoleni, Ester (1883 or 1884-1904 or 1906-?). Leading Italian soprano. KR. Melba, Nellie (1861-1885-1931). World-famous Australian soprano. KR, S. Mieli, Oreste (1870-?-1924). Italian tenor. KR. Navarrini, Francesco (1855-1878-1923). Leading Italian bass. KR, S. Nordica, Lillian (1857-1878-1914). World-famous American soprano. KR, S, G6. Pacini, Giuseppe (1862-1887-1910). Leading Italian baritone. S. Pacini, Regina (1871-1888-1965). Leading Portuguese soprano. KR, S. Parvis, Taurino (1878 or 1879-?-?). Leading Italian baritone. KR. Pini-Corsi, Antonio (1858-1878-1918). Leading Italian baritone and buffo. KR, S, G6. Raisa, Rosa (1893-1913-1963). Leading Italian soprano (Polish-born). KR, G6. Sammarco, Mario (1868-1888-1930). World-famous Italian baritone. KR, S, G6. Scampini, Augusto (1880-1905-1907). Leading Spanish tenor. KR. Scotti, Antonio (1866-1889-1936). World-famous Italian baritone. KR, S, G6. Sembrich, Marcella (1858-1877-1935). World-famous Polish soprano. KR, S, G6. Siems, Margarethe (1879-1902-1952). Leading German soprano. KR, S, G6. Signorini, Francesco (1860-1882-1927). Leading Italian tenor. KR. Stracciari, Riccardo (1875-1900 or earlier-1955). Leading Italian baritone. KR, S. Talexis, Amelia (1875-?-1911). French soprano. KR. Tamagno, Francesco (1850-1874-1905). World-famous Italian tenor. KR, S, G6. Tetrazzini, Luisa (1871-1890-1940). World-famous Italian soprano. KR, S. G6. Trentini, Emma (1878-1904-1959). Leading Italian soprano. KR. Venerandi, Pietro (?-?-?). Italian tenor. Career details untraced. Early budget-label recording artist. Vignas, Francesco (1863-1888-1933). Leading Spanish tenor. KR, S. Wedekind, Erika (1868-1894-1944). Leading German coloratura soprano. KR. Zenatello, Giovanni (1876-1898 [as baritone]-1901 [tenor]-1949). Leading Italian tenor. KR, S, G6.

* Most of these singers were prominent on what might be called the Italian circuit: i.e., the lesser Italian houses and the Italian- staffed and -organized seasons of opera held regularly throughout the Spanish-speaking world and, to a lesser extent, in leading cities of Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

* * When accounts conflict, the dates given by The New Grove are preferred. If there is no article in The New Grove, all relevant dates are given.

Table 2

DATA ON THE RECORDINGS Ex. Place/date* *

# Artist Opera Aria Original* recorded LP transfer **

1 Stracciari Nabucco "Dio di giuda" Col D12470 Milan, 1925 99-29 2 De Lucia Ernani "Come rugiada" Phono M 1811 Naples, 1917 GV 575 3 Caffetto Berliner 52462 Milan, 1900 4 Scampini GC 2-52611 Milan, 1908 5 Sembrich "Emani involami" Col 1364 New York, 1903 Y2 35232 6 Caligaris G&T 53326 Milan, 1904 7 Talexis Fono 92111 Milan, 1908 8 Gabbi Col 10124 Milan, 1903 9 Battistini/ "Da quel di" G&T 054103 Milan, 1907 CO 326, GV 100

Corsi Table 2 continues


51

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC

Ex. Place/date # Artist Opera Aria Original recorded LP transfer

10 Boninsegna/ G&T 054062 Milan, 1905 Cigada

11 De Reszke "Infelice" Col 1221 (take 2) New York, 1903 12 Chaliapin HMV 052389 St. Petersburg, 1912 13 Lanzoni Fonodisc Mondial 246 c. 1913 GB 1004/5 14 Battistini "Lo vedremo" G&T 054105 Milan, 1907 CO 326, GV 100 15 Battistini "O de' verd'anni" G&T 052141 Milan, 1907 CO 326, GV 100 16 Kaschmann G&T 052032 Milan, 1903 17 Corradetti Due Foscari "O vecchio cor" Odeon 37226 Milan, 1905-06 18 Amato Vic 88438 New York, 1913 GV 561 19 Corradetti "Questa dunque" Odeon 37227 Milan, 1905-06 20 Bonini Fono 39760 Milan, 1906 21 Battistini Macbeth "Pieta, rispetto" HMV 052369 Milan, 1912 CO 328, GV 79 22 De Lucia Luisa "Quando le sere" Phono M1792 Naples, 1917 GV 575 23 Albani Rigoletto "Parmi veder" Odeon 110136 1911-14 99-113 24 Anselmi Fono 62151 Milan, 1907 25 Caruso Vic 88429 New York, 1913 26 Constantino Col 30463 New York, 1910 27 Nordica Trovatore "Tacea la notte" Col mx.30134 (unp.) New York, 1906 SYO 6 28 Chelotti Fono 39913 Milan, 1906 29 Ciaparelli (as Viafora) Vic 74116 Camden, 1908 30 Burzio Fono 39934 Milan, 1906 31 Mazzoleni Fono 92539 Milan, 1909/10 32 Campanari "Il balen" Vic 81082 Camden, 1905 33 Corradetti Fono 92294 Milan, 1909 34 De Bassini Col 307 New York, 1902 35 Albani "Ah, si, ben mio" Odeon RO-2016 1911-14 99-113 36 Biel G&T 52692 Milan, 1903 37 Signorini GC 2-52669 Milan, 1908 38 Caruso Vic 88121 New York, 1908 ARM1-2767 39 Gilion Fono 39653 Milan, 1906 99-72 40 Tetrazzini "D'amor sull'ali" Vic 88426 New York, 1913 GEMM 220-227,

OASI 572 41 Raisa Pathe 60070 US, 1917 99-52 42 Corsi Odeon 110221 Milan c. 1910-12 GB 1006 43 Bellincioni Traviata "Ah, fors'e lui" G&T 053019 Milan, 1903/04 GV 568 44 Sembrich Col 1366 New York, 1903 Y2 35232 45 Tetrazzini Vic 88293 New York, 1911 GEMM 220-227,

OASI 572 46 Melba Vic 88064 New York, 1910 47 Pacini Fono 39237 Milan, 1905 48 Huguet G&T 53474 Milan, 1906 CO 373 49 Brambilla Phonodisc 145 Milan, 1906 50 De Lucia "De' miei

bollenti" G&T 052129 Milan, 1906 RS 305 51 Battistini "Di provenza" HMV 052317 Milan, 1911 CO 327 52 De Bassini Ballo "Alla vita" Col 1695 (Take 1) 1904-05 53 De Bassini Col 1695 (Take 3) 1904-05 54 Battistini G&T 052142 Milan, 1907 CO 326 55 Scotti Vic 81070 New York, 1905 56 Burzio "Ma dall'arido" Fono 39514 Milan, 1906 57 Caruso "Ma se m'e forza" Vic 88346 New York, 1911 ARM1-3571 58 Gilion Fono 92662 Milan, 1909 59 Vignas Fono 62083 Milan, 1907 60 Battistini Forza "Urna fatale" HMV 2-052251 Milan, 1924 CO 412/3 61 Magini-Coletti Fono 92620 Milan, 1910 CO 393 62 Bellantoni Fono 92729 Milan, 1910 OAS1 633 63 Tetrazzini "Pace, pace" Vic 88502 New York, 1914 GEMM 220-227,

OASI 572 64 Giraldoni Don Carlo "Per me giunto" G&T 52404 Milan, 1903 99-58

52


65 De Lucia Rigoletto "Questa o quella" Phono C 1761 Naples, 1917 66 Caruso G&T 52344 Milan, 1902 Sera. 60146 67 Bonci "La donna" Edison Ambreol 29001 1913 Mark56 725 68 Caruso Zono X1555 Milan, 1902 R 7 69 Caruso Vic 81025 Milan, 1904 VIC-1430 70 Tamagno Trovatore "Deserto sulla HMV 7-52277 Milan, 1903 GEMM 208/9

terra" 71 Albani Ballo "Di' tu se fedele" Vic 64082 1907 72 Tetrazzini "Saper vorreste" GC 053222 London, 1909 GEMM 220-227 73 Navarrini Don Carlo "Dormiro sol" Fono 74034 Milan, 1907 GV 14 74 Luppi Fono 39319 Milan, 1905 75 Tamagno Otello "Ora e per sempre"G&T 52675 Milan, 1903 GEMM 208/9 76 De Negri Zono 1556 Milan, 1902 77 Maurel Falstaff "Quand'ero Fono 62016 Milan, 1907

paggio" 78 De Angelis Nabucco "Tu sul labbro" Col D 18059 Milan, 1928-29 OASI 528 82 Wedekind Ernani "Emani involami" G&T 53464 Dresden, 1905 86 Parvis "Da quel di" Col 30032 New York, 1906 89 Ancona "O de verd'anni" Vic 88062 New York, 1907 R 5213 91 Battistini "O sommo Carlo" G&T 054107 Milan, 1907 GV 100, CO 326 97 Anselmi Rigoletto "Questa o quella" Fono 62148 Milan, 1907 CO 359 98 De Lucia "E il sol G&T 054084 Milan, 1906 RS 305

dell'anima" 99 De Lucia "Parmi veder" Phono C 1745 Naples, 1917

100 Boronat "Tutte le feste" GC 053186 Milan, 1908 99-3, SYO-9 101 Barrientos Fono 39543 Milan, 1906 103 Caruso "Bella figlia" Vic 96000 New York, 1907 ARM1 2766 106 Parvis Trovatore "Il balen" Col 10574 Milan, 1905 108 De Lucia "Ah, si, benmio" Phono M1791 Naples, 1917 GV 575 109 Nordica "Miserere" Col mtx 30135-2 New York, 1906 SYO 6

(unp.) 110 Zenatello Traviata "Un di, felice" G&T 52712 Milan, 1903 114 Battistini "Pura siccome" HMV 054395 Milan, 1912 CO 325, GV 100 117 De Lucia "Parigi, o cara" G&T 054081 Milan, 1906 RS 305 118 Navarrini Boccanegra "Il lacerato spirito"Fono 62025 Milan, 1907 GV 14 119 Arimondi Col. 30090 New York?, 1907 GV 95 120 Battistini Ballo "Eri tu" G&T 052146 Milan, 1907 CO 326 121 Scotti Vic 85044 New York, 1904 CO 363 122 Sammarco Fono 39270 Milan, 1905 125 Trentini "Saper vorreste" G&T 53153 Milan, 1904 127 Boninsegna Forza "Pace, pace" G&T 053088 Milan, 1907 GV 534 128 Kaschmann Don Carlo "Carlo, che e sol" G&T 052031 Milan, 1903 130 Battistini "Per me giunto" HMV 052404 Milan, 1913 GV 34 131 De Lucia Aida "Celeste Aida" Phono M 1763 Naples, 1917 GV 575 132 Caruso Vic 85022 New York, 1904 VIC 1430 133 Del Papa "Morir, si pura" Bettini 5 New York, 1898 Mark 56 826 134 Venerandi Lombardi "La mia letizia" Col 10446 Milan, 1905 135 Escalais Fono 39533 Milan, 1906 OASI 597 136 Cigada Ernani "O sommo Carlo" G&T 054078 Milan, 1906 141 Brambilla Rigoletto "Caro nome" Wotama 10101 Milan, 1906 145 D'Andrade "Cortigiani" Lyrophone d'A 10 Berlin, 1906-07 R 5204 146 DeLucia "La donna" G&T 52411 Milan, 1902 RS 305 147 Pacini, G. Trovatore "Di geloso amor" Fono 69004 Milan, 1905 99-84 148 Bruno "Stride la vampa" G&T 53227 Milan, 1902 151 Pacini, G. "Il balen" Fono 39003 Milan, 1904 99-84 153 Gilion "Ah, si, ben mio" Fono 92631 Milan, 1909 GV 96 154 Mieli "Miserere" Zono X2552 1902-03 155 Talexis Fono39347 Milan, 1905 RS309 156 Garbin Traviata "Un di, felice" G&T 52428 Milan, 1903

Table 2 continues


53

19TH CENTURY

MUSIC


165 Magini-Coletti "Di provenza" Fono 92000 Milan, 1907 168 De Lucia Forza "O tu che in seno" Phono M 1798 Naples, 1917 GV 575 169 Anselmi Aida "Celeste Aida" Fono 62561 Milan, 1910 170 Bonci Fono 39695 Milan, 1906 171 Tamagno Otello "Esultate" G&T 052101 Milan, 1903 GEMM 208/9 172 Maurel "Era la notte" G&T 2-32814 Paris, 1903 173 Battistini Ernani "Vieni meco" G&T 054106 Milan, 1907 CO 326, GV 100 175 Corradetti Fono 92310 Milan, 1909 176 Tamagno Trovatore "Di quella pira" G&T 52678 Milan, 1903 GEMM 208/9 180 Melba Traviata "Sempre libera" G&T 03026 London, 1904 RLS 719 181 Galvany GC 054209 Milan, 1908 OASI 574 183 Boronat G&T 53346 St. Petersburg, 99-3, SYO 9

1904 184 De Frate Nabucco "Anch'io GC 53554 Milan, 1908

dischiuso" 186 Ciaparelli Ernani "Emani involami" Col 3307 New York,

1906-07 187 Sembrich Vic 88022 New York, 1906 189 Campanari "O de' verd'anni" Vic 85087 New York, 1905 190 Casini Zono X 493 Milan, 1901 191 Bonini Due Foscari "O vecchio cor" Fono 39831 Milan, 1906 195 Battistini Forza "Egli e salvo" HMV 7-52194 Milan, 1921 CO 412/13, GV

101 196 Pini-Corsi "Toh, toh, poffare" G&T 2-52557 Milan, 1906 200 Siems Traviata "Ah, fors'& lui" Parlo P 250 c. 1912 201 Huguet "Sempre libera" G&T 54296 Milan, 1906 CO 373 204 Battistini Ballo "Eri tu" HMV 2-052254 Milan, 1924 CO 412/13 205 Pini-Corsi Forza "Scena della G&T 54349 Milan, 1907

finestra"

* As a practical aid to locating the records, issue numbers have been favored over matrix numbers, which are the only unique identifiers of recordings. Abbreviations: Col = Co- lumbia; Fono = Fonotipia; GC = Gramophone Company; G&T = Gramophone and Typewriter Company (predeces- sor of GC); Parlo = Parlophon; Phono = Phonotype; Vic = Victor; Zono = Zon-O-Phone/Zonofono.

**Places are unknown in several instances. Recent re- search has shown that a number of the Fonotipia recordings long thought to have been made in Milan were in fact made in London, but a listing which would make correction of this table possible is not available at the time of writing. Re- cording dates are often uncertain as well, and may in some cases refer to publication rather than recording. More specific information may be found in the discographies which appear regularly in The Record Collector and Recorded Sound, the journal of the British Institute for Recorded Sound.

***This list, again compiled with convenience in view, gives only reissues known by me to be available for sale at the time of writing. Several of the other records cited here have been reissued at one time or another and no doubt will be again. Prefixes: 99 = Club "99"; GV and RS = Rubini Records; Y = Odyssey records; GB = Bongiovanni records; GEMM = Pearl Records; CO = Court Opera Classics (Preiser); SYO = Sunday Opera Records; ARM1 = RCA's Caruso series; VIC = Victrola; Sera. = Seraphim; R = Ro- coco Records; OASI = OASI Records; RLS = a reissue series of British EMI.

79 see 2 80 see 3 81 see 2 83 see 5 84 see 5 85 see 9 87 see 9 88 see 14 90 see 16 92 see 18 93 see 21 94 see 21 95 see 22 96 see 65

102 see 68 104 see 28 105 see 70 107 see 33 111 see43 112 see 45 113 see 50 115 see 114 116 see 51 123 see 120 124 see 72 126 see 60 129 see 128

137 see 21 138 see 65 139 see 66 140 see 65 142 see 98 143 see 99 144 see 99 149 see 34 150 see34 152 see 33 157 see 156 158 see 43 159 see 47 160 see 43 161 see 46 162 see 48 163 see 51 164 see 51 166 see 54 167 see 54 174 see 173 177 see 176 178 see 27 179 see 27 182 see 180 185 see 2 188 see 9

192 see 95 193 see 180 194 see 52 197 see 21 198 see 99 199 see 25 202 see 119 203 see 118 206 see 195 207 see 195

54