MASCAGNI'S TRIBUTE TO VERDI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11692, 29 June 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

MASCAGNI'S TRIBUTE TO VERDI.

In lie music to Verdi, men and things always find a mirror; among the dear and familiar melodies thero is not one which does not reflect a remembrance, a joy, a sorrow, or an incident of some kind; for it is music which corresponds so marvellously to human feelings, it is music which reproduces ideally the past life; and thus the enthusiasm, emotion, and great popularity which accompanied his work in every country, all the world over. To Italians, however, the music of. the great master should represent something more than it does to other peoples. Foreigners admire the creative faculty of Verdi, his expression of sentiment, and his powerful genius, which continued and renewed musical art, spreading everywhere its rays of light. Italians ought to fix their gaze beyond that universal and spontaneous enthusiam, even beyond legitimate and national pride, on the mission which Verdi's art had during a period of more than sixty years. It was a mission doubly holy because his thoughts were turned solely, and with intensity, toward the affirmation of Italianism (Italianita) both in politics and in music. I will not speak of the spirit of patriotism in Verdi, because there is no one who does not know what a fascination his songs exercised over those oppressed people, who panted for the day of deliverance. But I must pause to consider that Italianism in music which he defended and supported up to the end of his long existence, and which is now abandoned to an unknown fate Verdi never neglected in all h'.s artistic life any study, any investigation, which would enable him to acquire any secret of the new theories, and of the recent reforms, from wherever they might have coma; and he who writes can affirm that no man was more cognisant of the artistic movement in Italy and in other countries thai: Verdi. But- through the whole of his life, during the whole period Tendered famous by his productions, he was always sincerely and admirably Italian. However, the artistic mission of the Maestro had not readied its end. Young men arose and he followed them anxiously, full of hope in their first steps. Alas! his great dream was not to be realised. The young one;* had taken the wrong way. He saw that the whole of his work had become almost barren ; he saw the real danger for the national theatre, so thought he would warn those who had lost their way, that he would call them back to the straight road, that ho would save them, and with them the future of Italian music. He knew he was old by the years he could count, but he felt still strong and vigorous, and that he could not overcome the fever for work. It was still his holy issiion, so at the age of eighty years, Verdi offered with "Falstaff" the most marvellous example of intellectual power, and gave to- the melo-dramatic theatre the newest, the boldest, direction. He will remain the strongest interpreter of human sentiment.Pietro Mascagni, in the