The Politics of Verdi's Cantica

Roberta Montemorra Marvin

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367669461
• eBook ISBN: 9781351541442
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

The Politics of Verdi's Cantica treats a singular case study of the use of music to resist oppression, combat evil, and fight injustice. Cantica, better known as Inno delle nazioni / Hymn of the Nations, commissioned from Italy's foremost composer to represent the newly independent nation at the 1862 London International Exhibition, served as a national voice of pride and of protest for Italy across two centuries and in two very different political situations. The book unpacks, for the first time, the full history of Verdi's composition from its creation, performance, and publication in the 1860s through its appropriation as purposeful social and political commentary and its perception by American broadcast media as a 'weapon of art' in the mid twentieth century. Based on largely untapped primary archival and other documentary sources, journalistic writings, and radio and film scripts, the project discusses the changing meanings of the composition over time. It not only unravels the complex history of the work in the nineteenth century, of greater significance it offers the first fully documented study of the performances, radio broadcast, and filming of the work by the renowned Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini during World War II. In presenting new evidence about ways in which Verdi's music was appropriated by expatriate Italians and the US government for cross-cultural propaganda in America and Italy, it addresses the intertwining of Italian and American culture with regard to art, politics, and history; and investigates the ways in which the press and broadcast media helped construct a musical weapon that traversed ethnic, aesthetic, and temporal boundaries to make a strong political statement.

1

Introduction

In a question-and-answer session at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, on December 14, 2009, then Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton responded to a comment concerning the role of the arts in promoting and preserving human rights globally: “[A]rts and artists are one of our most effective tools in reaching beyond and through repressive regimes, in giving hope to people. […] [A]rtists can bring to light in a gripping, dramatic way some of the challenges we face.”¹

History has repeatedly borne witness to the truth in these words. As a marker of national identity, art has often been put to use to resist oppression, combat evil, and fight injustice. Throughout the centuries visual artists, poets and novelists, dramatists, and composers have intentionally created works for such purposes, and existing works have been appropriated to serve such needs at various times and in various places. With regard to music, that from the “popular” sphere has frequently been created and put to use in these ways: as just a few of the more obvious examples, the anthems of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the anti-war and tribute songs of the Vietnam War era, the anti-apartheid songs in South Africa from the second half of the twentieth century. In the “classical” realm we find memorable examples in the living past of music being appropriated to make poignant statements: Leonard Bernstein’s 1989 performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall; or the lesser-known but equally moving performance of the Mozart Requiem in June 1994 conducted by Zubin Mehta in the burned-out ruins of Sarajevo’s National Library.² An especially compelling situation involves the World War II era composers, performers, and music scholars whose stories of resilience in the concentration camps of the Nazi regime still so move us. From that period we can also easily identify compositions written expressly for such purposes, including, for example, Olivier Messiaen’s Quatour pour la fin du temps (1940–41) and Dmitry Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony (No. 7, 1941). In each such instance, the music and its creators, and even its executants, conveyed an effective, emotion-packed, and enduring message about the situation.

The subject is broad and daunting, and my goal in this volume is a modest one. I present here a case study, albeit a rather unusual one, of the phenomenon of politicized interpretation and reinterpretation constructed around and imposed upon an artistic object. I tell the story of Verdi’s Cantica, better known as Inno delle nazioni or Hymn of the Nations, a musical composition that served as a nationalistic voice for Italy in two very different situations across two centuries. My story is about two iconic figures who could never be counted among those that the Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer Archibald Macleish labeled as “the irresponsibles” (men who failed to oppose the oppressors who sought to destroy civilization)³—the composer Giuseppe Verdi and the conductor Arturo Toscanini. These two Italian musicians, in the collective historical consciousness of both Italians and Americans, became cultural heroes, by taking a visible and unflagging stance for their principles and using their art in various ways to speak to and for the people of their homeland. This tale, therefore, becomes one of many tales about how the public face of music and its creators can be and was manipulated to propagandistic and political purpose.

The story begins in 1861 when Verdi accepted a commission to write a musical composition to represent the newly liberated Italy at the 1862 London International Exhibition. The result of this charge was his Inno delle nazioni, or Cantica as it is titled in the autograph score, a setting for chorus, solo tenor, and orchestra of verses by a young Arrigo Boito. Labeled by one Victorian commentator as a work “rife with modern Italian patriotism and modern Italian inspiration,”⁴ the composition was intended to represent the newly free and (nearly) unified Italy as a player in the Western European cultural (as well as industrial and political) world. The premiere of the work was to have taken place on May 1, 1862, at the Exhibition’s Inaugural Concert, but intriguing circumstances resulted in Verdi’s music being refused by those who had commissioned it. The cantata was not left to languish, however, for the impresario James Henry Mapleson arranged for its performance at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London, where it had its premiere on May 24, 1862, with Verdi present. After a few performances in England, France, and Italy, the work fell into oblivion.

Inno delle nazioni was nonetheless destined to become an impassioned “voice” for Italy at other crucial historical junctures in the country’s history, when Toscanini revived it to make political statements during World War I and, of greater significance, during World War II. With much ado, in January 1943 the conductor resurrected Verdi’s music for a radio broadcast, an all-Verdi program designed to convey a message about Italy and the war. That broadcast led to the making of a United States government propaganda film featuring Toscanini and Verdi’s composition. Through carefully constructed discursive and visual strategies that demonstrated relevant correlations between Verdi and Toscanini as men, between Italy’s oppression in the mid-nineteenth century under Austrian rule and in the early to mid twentieth century under the Fascist regime, and between the supposed political meanings of and responses to Verdi’s music in the past and in the present, Verdi’s work was cultivated as a “weapon of art” that Toscanini could use to make artistic political statements in various situations. Within the communications networks of the World War II era, this was not difficult to accomplish.

There is no doubt that Verdi and Toscanini were, and are, legendary in the history of music; that stature seems also to have made each man—in his own time, and beyond—a figure in Italian political history. And it is precisely the legends surrounding them that account for the story told here. The basic profiles of the two main players are important to this historical narrative.

Verdi was, what I will call, a cultural patriot, a composer whose life and work were intertwined with the political climate and events of his era in various ways. Our current understanding of the extent and nature of the relationships in the Ottocento between Verdi’s civic philosophy, his music, and the political aspirations and accomplishments of pre-and post-unification Italy continues to evolve. Yet, despite new sources of information and the accretions of observations on these relationships left by decades of scholarship and recent scholarly debates,⁵ there can be no doubt that Verdi’s activities and works left ample evidence on which to build such historical political narratives. (As discussed further below, whether those narratives were/are correct is not the issue here: rather, the knowledge of the time—history as it was then “remembered”—was at play.) The composer’s words and actions-his enthusiasm, as expressed in his letters to colleagues and friends, concerning the 1848 revolutions;⁶ his adherence to the ideas of and his lifelong admiration for Italian Risorgimento heroes Camillo Benso di Cavour, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and Giuseppe Mazzini;⁷ his service in Italian political bodies, including a term in parliament following Italian independence—all point to his belief in a unified and autonomous Italian nation. His service to his profession, with regard to reforming the music conservatory system, advocating for composers’ rights, improving theatrical working conditions, and even supporting the institution of uniform musical pitch, shows him as an activist for his art.⁸ His philanthropic activities—the building of the Ospedale in Villanova sull’Arda and of the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti in Milan—demonstrate his humanitarian concerns.⁹ Verdi’s cultural patriotism was manifest in his compositional endeavors as well: his choices of overtly nationalistic subjects (e.g., La battaglia di Legnano,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Music Examples
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations and Sigla
• A Note on Translations, Titles, and Bibliographic Citations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Verdi’s Cantica: Behind the Scenes
• 3 The Public Face of Verdi’s Cantica
• 4 Toscanini’s “Weapon of Art”
• 5 Toscanini’s Film: Voices of Protest and Veiled Messages
• Appendix A Texts for Verdi’s Works on Toscanini’s Programs
• Appendix B Film Scripts and Commentaries
• Bibliography of Sources Consulted
• Index