"A introduction to Verdi as a man rather than as a composer. Suchet takes great pains not to get bogged down in boring details or obscure music theory. A book meant to stoke enthusiasm, ideal for someone who has seen a Verdi opera or two and wants to know more."
Description
Giuseppe Verdi remains the greatest operatic composer that Italy, the home of opera, has ever produced. Yet throughout his lifetime he claimed to detest composing and repeatedly rejected it. He was a landowner, a farmer, a politician and symbol of Italian independence; but his music tells a different story.An obsessive perfectionist, Verdi drove collaborators to despair but his works lauded from the start as dazzling feats of composition and characterization. From Rigoletto to Otello, La Traviatato to Aida, Verdi’s canon encompassed the full range of human emotion. His private life was no less complex: he suffered great loss, and went out of his way to antagonize supporters and his own family. An outspoken advocate of Italian independence and a sharp critic of the church, he was often at odds with nineteenth-century society.In Verdi: The Man Revealed, John Suchet attempts to get under the skin of perhaps the most private composer who ever lived.
Reviews
"Suchet is the rare scholar who knows his subject, writes like a dream, and wears his research lightly. This book is handsomely laid out with wide margins, ample illustrations, and sentences from the text dropped in the margins along the way to tantalize readers. Obviously, music lovers will want this volume, but the subject is so lively and the presentation so attractive that it will appeal to all who value a solid biography."
"A compact, sumptuously illustrated, insightful biography of the Italian composer. The author does a masterful job capturing the life and times as well as explaining the maestro's significant contributions to music history. Once again, Suchet hits his mark."
"Music lovers and opera aficionados will applaud Suchet’s skillfully orchestrated biography."