OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (TUCKER VERDI.) 



511 



1889, where, during the ensuing twelve years, he 

 appeared at the head of his own company, chiefly 

 in Shakespearian drama. Mr. Tearle was twice 

 married. After being divorced from his first wife, 

 he married (in Denver, Col., 1883) Minnie Con- 

 way, an American actress, formerly the wife of 

 Jules Levy, the cornetist, and daughter of F. 13. 

 Conway, 'the actor-manager of the Brooklyn 

 Theater. 



Tucker, William Hill, an English clergyman, 

 born Aug. 30, 1802; died in Brighton, Nov. 19, 

 1901. He was educated at Cambridge and was 

 admitted deacon and priest in 1847. He became 

 rector of Dunton-Waylett, near Brentwood, Es- 

 sex, in 1845, resigning the living in 1892. He 

 spent eleven years at Eton, and was all his life 

 an enthusiastic Etonian. Eton of Old, or Eighty 

 Years Since (1892), has been very popular. 



Verdi, Giuseppe, an Italian composer, born 

 in Roncole, Oct. 10, 1813; died Jan. 27, 1901. 

 His father, the keeper of the village inn and of 

 a small store in connection with it, encouraged the 



boy's early bent 

 and precocious tal- 

 ent for music, had 

 him instructed by 

 a strolling musi- 

 cian, and bought 

 an old spinet, and 

 soon the half- 

 grown youth was 

 able to take the 

 office of organist 

 in the village 

 church, in which 

 as choir-boy he 

 first learned to 

 love music, and in 

 his rapt attention 

 to the organ 

 strains provoked 

 the wrath of the 

 priest by neglecting the genuflections. A mer- 

 chant of the neighboring town of Busseto, to 

 whom he was apprenticed, being a great lover of 

 music, furnished means for him to go to Milan 

 to study, after he had gained what knowledge 

 he could from Giovanni Provesi, leader of the 

 Philharmonic Society. When the director of the 

 conservatory, as the result of the entrance exam- 

 ination, refused to receive him as a student on 

 the ground that he possessed no musical gift, al- 

 though the municipal council of Busseto had 

 added a contribution to aid him in completing his 

 musical education. His patron, whose name was 

 Barezzi, would not accept this verdict, nor did 

 young Verdi, now nineteen years of age, lose 

 heart, but took private instruction from Vin- 

 cenzo Lavigna, conductor of the orchestra of the 

 Scala Theater. He learned enough of composi- 

 tion with such poor help to essay some marches 

 and ecclesiastical pieces, then returned to Bus- 

 seto as conductor of the Philharmonic Society of 

 that place and organist in the church as succes- 

 sor to his old teacher, Provesi, who died just be- 

 fore his return. The clergy would not have him 

 as organist, but the town authorities voted him 

 a stipend. Barezzi had such faith in his future 

 that he gave him his daughter Margherita in 

 marriage, and three or four years later the young 

 couple removed to Milan, where, in November, 

 1839, Verdi's first opera, Oberto di San Bonifacio, 

 was brought out at La Scala. Its success was 

 not brilliant, but still it was so satisfactory that 

 lasting relations were established between the 

 composer and the music publisher Ricordi as well 

 as Merelli, the director of the theater. Un Giorno 



di Regno, produced a year lai'-r. did not [.lease the 

 public, and upon this disheartening biilure earne 

 a domestic Calamity, the snddf-n d 

 wife and children. Verdi declare! !< 

 pose no more music. Merelli, ho\ 

 to his contract to write the ><( 

 bretto of Nabucco, and this <>\ 

 his fame. It was produced on M;i 

 it led to his second marriage, with (i'm-ip 

 Strepponi, the singer of the part of Abi'j.i 

 remained until old age his tender and symnath 

 companion. I Lornbardi alia Prima Crofiata, 

 produced at La Scala on Feb. 11, 1843, was re- 

 ceived with stormy applause. It won the affec- 

 tion of the Italians of Lombardy, and from thin 

 time Verdi wrought into his music, and the patri- 

 ots of Italy found in it, the clarion notes that 

 inspired them in their struggle for national inde- 

 pendence and unity. The initials of his name 

 were taken as an omen when the movement be- 

 came ripe, foretelling the reign of Vittorio Eman- 

 uele Re D'ltalia. In the operas that followed 

 in Ernani, I due Foscari, Johanna d'Arc, Alzira, 

 and Attila he knew how to touch patriotic chords- 

 in a way that gave an effect and significance to 

 his works that none but Italians could appre- 

 ciate and feel. Macbeth, I Masnadieri, Jerusa- 

 lem, The Corsair, Legnano, Luisa Miller, Stifte- 

 lio, and other works written before 1849 are for- 

 gotten even in Italy. Verdi was a prolific and 

 hasty composer at this period, regardless of dra- 

 matic unity and fitness, and even of musical sym- 

 metry, able to turn out in a fortnight a com- 

 pleted opera that satisfied the popular taste of 

 the time, being written to suit the voices of the 

 singers and to enable them to exhibit their flow- 

 ery vocalization. He was inventive and versa- 

 tile, constantly trying new effects and different 

 styles. The melodious operas that he wrote after 

 1850 extended his fame to all parts of the globe 

 and made him the universal popular favorite 

 among musical composers, although stricter can- 

 ons and higher artistic aims had already made 

 of the musical drama in Germany a medium of 

 political expression almost on the plane of the 

 true drama, differing essentially from the arti- 

 ficial trivialities of the Italian school in which 

 tragedy was made grotesque and comedy extrava- 

 gant to furnish a humorous setting to a series of 

 graceful melodies, unless the melody itself was- 

 sophisticated to accommodate the bravura of the 

 singers. In graceful song of the purest Italian 

 refinement and elegance Verdi showed himself in 

 his newer development the supreme master, and 

 underneath the crudities, the broad and striking- 

 effects, the democratic simplicity that offended 

 musicians of the straiter order the more it cap- 

 tivated first of all Italians, then the profane 

 public of all countries there was a romantic 

 charm, a stirring vigor, a dramatic force in his- 

 music that places him among the great masters. 

 The books were made according to his desire to 

 agree with the musical themes that his genius- 

 evolved when he struck his true original vein. 

 That first great period was ushered in by Rigo- 

 letto, first presented in Venice in 1851. Though 

 fond of popular success, and gratified when he 

 achieved admiration and gain, he had the sin- 

 cerity of genius that despises professional trickery 

 and advertisement. He adopted, nevertheless, an 

 ingenious device to pique the curiosity of the 

 Venetians and insure the full effect of that catch- 

 ing air La donna e mobile by not giving it to the 

 tenor until the very evening of the first night. 

 II Trovatore was his next opera, and the next 

 after that was La Traviata, which by a curious 

 mischance was hissed in Venice. He knew the 



