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Giuseppe
Giuseppe Verdi
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Verdi
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MUSICWORKS
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Giuseppe Verdi
18131901
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Giuseppe Verdi 18131901
Giuseppe Verdi was born Italy in 1813. His
musical career had a bit of a shaky start as
young Giuseppe wasnt offered a place to study
music at the Milan Conservatoire (apparently he
was rejected because of his poor piano
playing). Luckily he wasnt discouraged and
Verdi went on to become a hugely popular
composer. He is best known for writing operas,
and is considered to be one of the greatest
operatic composers.
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Opera
a drama set to music, with text thatis sung
to an instrumental accompaniment.A key feature
of opera is that the music defines the drama
rather than simply providing a soundtrack.
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In the 19th century Opera was written and
performed to havehuge public appeal. It was
aphenomenally popular entertainment and Verdi
really knew how to please an audience with his
music. Opera often deals with emotional
extremes and Verdi was a master in creating music
that brilliantly emphasised the drama on stage.
Falstaff was Verdis final opera, written when
he was 80 years old. However, it is one of the
most energetic and youthful comic operas.
Opera
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Falstaff is based on several playsby William
Shakespeare and brilliantly fuses them together
into a madcap plot.
As with many comic operas, the action is fairly
complex. However, Falstaff can be summarised with
just four adjectives its simply about
deception, jealously, love and revenge. It is
basically an Elizabethan soap opera! Falstaff
also contains a brilliant example of a fugue.
Falstaff
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Fugue
a complex musical composition written for
either instruments or voices a type of
contrapuntal music (music that is able to say
more than one thing at a time) a piece where
each voice or part enters in succession with a
theme (usually called the subject).
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The finale of Falstaff contains a good example of
a fugue in action. This presentation will look
specifically at the beginning of the fugue. Not
only is this where Verdi introduces the main
musical ideas, but it is also where the fugue
mechanics are most visible. The first section
of a fugue is called the exposition. This is
simply where the composer exposes the listener to
the main musical ideas. The first idea is called
the subject or fugue subject it is simply the
main theme.
fugue
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Subject
The subject is first sung by the character
Falstaff. He sings the lines Everything in the
world is a joke. Man is born a jester. Since
Verdi was Italian, his opera is of course sung in
Italian.
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FUGUE SUBJECT You can hear the excerpt below at
the beginning of Track 4 of the MUSICWORKS CD.
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Falstaff
Fenton
Mistress Quickly
Alice
Meg
Nannetta
Ford
Dr Caius
Eight different characters sing the fugue
subject.
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Falstaff
Fenton
Mistress Quickly
Alice
The first four characters play the most important
role in the exposition and clearly demonstrate
fugue structure. Here is how it works.
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Subject
The 1st voice enters singing the subject.
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Answer
Subject
Then a 2nd voice enters singing the subject but
transposed into a new key. This is called the
answer.
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Answer
Counter Subject
Subject
At the same time the 1st voice continues with an
accompaniment. This is called the counter
subject.
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Subject
Answer
Counter Subject
2
Subject
When a 3rd voice enters, the subject returns to
the original key and voice 2 moves to thecounter
subject.
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Answer
4
Subject
3
Answer
Counter Subject
2
Subject
1
When the 4th voice enters it is also transposed.
So the 4th entry is also called the answer.
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Answer
4
Subject
Counter Subject
3
Answer
2
Subject
1
At the same time, Voice 3 moves to the counter
subject.
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C
1
The 1st voice begins on the note C.
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G
2
C
1
The 2nd voice begins a 5th higher on the note G.

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3

C
G
2
C
1
The 3rd voice starts also on C,one octave higher
than the 1st voice.
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4
3
G

C
G
2
C
1
The 4th voice is also on G,one octave higher
than the 2nd voice.
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Falstaff
For the next four entries, Verdi usesa special
technique called stretto. Find these entries in
the score.
Fenton
Mistress Quickly
Alice
Meg
Nannetta
Ford
Dr Caius
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Stretto
an overlapping of fugal entries toincrease
the sense of excitement in the music.
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Voices 5 to 8 overlap theydont wait for the
previousentry to finish. This is stretto.
Stretto
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After the exposition is complete, Verdi develops
the musical material. He creates further
sections of music called episodes. Each episode
is based very heavily on the subject and counter
subject.
Episodes
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A key concept used in the episodes is imitation.
Short phrases are copied from one voice to the
next, or sometimes echoed by the entire
orchestra.
Imitation
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Giuseppe
Verdi