I stumbled upon Verdi last week as I ripped my family’s CDs to pack my iPod full of music. Since then, I’ve been listening to Verdi’s Requiem obsessively, almost daily. What other pieces would you recommend when I tire of the Requiem?
Ah, Giuseppe Verdi, the Joe Green of Italian composers.
He’s most famous as a composer of operas. La Traviata is the most famous and will probably be easy to find.
Let us not forget Aida and Rigoletto. My favorite, though, is Nabucco because the music is so moving. The Hebrews chorus was sung by the people who lined the streets for his funeral procession, and was practically the Italian national song. All this from someone who generally dislikes opera.
Pretty much all of the violin concerti are wonderful, IMNSHO.
I’m also especially fond of the Gloria in D, and the Concert for the Prince of Poland, both of which are somewhat off the beaten track.
except of course, that’s VIVALDI :smack: :smack: :smack:
Nevermind.
If you can find it, rent Franco Zefferelli’s La Traviata, which is a lushly filmed version of the opera, starring Placido Domingo and and Teresa Stratas. This is a favorite opera of mine, partly because Verdi’s music is fabulous, and partly because all the best arias are in the first third of the film. Therefore, if the opera gets a bit too long for you and you run out of gas halfway through, you’ve already heard the best! Although that gypsy aria at the end is gorgeous, too.