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Read Ebook: Verdi : The Story of the Little Boy who Loved the Hand Organ by Tapper Thomas
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Ebook has 64 lines and 7303 words, and 2 pages
CHILD'S OWN BOOK OF GREAT MUSICIANS VERDI
BY THOMAS TAPPER
Philadelphia Theodore Presser Co. 1712 Chestnut Street
Directions for Binding
Enclosed in this envelope is the cord and the needle with which to bind this book. Start in from the outside as shown on the diagram here. Pass the needle and thread through the center of the book, leaving an end extend outside, then through to the outside, about 2 inches from the center; then from the outside to inside 2 inches from the center at the other end of the book, bringing the thread finally again through the center, and tie the two ends in a knot, one each side of the cord on the outside.
THEO. PRESSER CO., Pub's., Phila., Pa.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
This book is one of a series known as THE CHILD'S OWN BOOK OF THE GREAT MUSICIANS, written by Thomas Tapper, author of "Pictures from the Lives of the Great Composers for Children," "Music Talks with Children," "First Studies in Music Biography," and others.
After this play-work is completed there will be found at the back of the book blank pages upon which the child is to write his own story of the great musician, based upon the facts and questions found on the previous pages.
The book is then to be sewed by the child through the center with the cord found in the enclosed envelope. The book thus becomes the child's own book.
This series will be found not only to furnish a pleasing and interesting task for the children, but will teach them the main facts with regard to the life of each of the great musicians--an educational feature worth while.
This series of The Child's Own Book of the Great Musicians includes at present a book on each of the following:
Bach Mendelssohn Beethoven Mozart Chopin Schubert Grieg Schumann Handel Verdi Haydn Wagner Liszt
Printed in the U.S.A.
VERDI
The Story of the Little Boy Who Loved the Hand Organ
This Book was made by
Philadelphia Theodore Presser Co. 1712 Chestnut Str.
BORN
..................................
DIED
..................................
Giuseppe Verdi
The picture on this page is of the house wherein a great composer was born. Of course, one is not born a great composer. He has to become that. So, at the moment this story begins there is, within this house, a little boy quite like any other boy. He loved to play and to make a noise and to have a good time. But most of all--what do you think he loved?
A hand organ.
Whenever the organ man came into the village of Roncole, in Italy , he could not be kept indoors. But he followed the wonderful organ and the wonderful man who played it, all day long, as happy as he could be.
When Giuseppe was seven years old his father, though only a poor innkeeper, bought him a spinet, a sort of small piano. So faithfully did the little boy practise that the spinet was soon quite worn out and new jacks, or hammers, had to be made for it. This was done by Stephen Cavaletti, who wrote a message on one of the jacks telling that he made them anew and covered them with leather, and fixed the pedal, doing all for nothing, because the little boy, Giuseppe Verdi, showed such willingness to practise and to learn. Thus the good Stephen thought this was pay enough.
Here is a picture of the little piano. In Verdi's language it is called a spinetta.
It was on this spinet that the little boy discovered one day a wonderful chord, for so it seemed to him. It was this:
The tones delighted him and he pressed the keys over and over again to drink them in. But the next day when he sought again the keys which made the lovely sound, he could not find them. This made him so impatient and finally so curious that he began to break the spinet to pieces with a hammer. Fortunately the noise he made brought his father into the room and the spinet was saved.
When Giuseppe was making his first attempt to find beautiful chords on the spinet he was, as we have said, seven years old. That was in 1820.
When he was ten years old Giuseppe became organist at the old church of Roncole. Truly a little boy for so great a position! One day he scratched his name on the woodwork. Here is a picture of the organ:
Here is the scratching of his name:
And here is the way he wrote his name, as a man:
Then there came the question of education--of reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic--for this music-loving boy. The Verdis wanted Giuseppe to grow up as he should; so it was arranged for him to go to school in the neighboring town of Busseto. A cobbler lived there who was a friend of the family, and with him Giuseppe went to live, having board, lodging and tuition at the school, and all for six cents a day.
Giuseppe still played the organ at Roncole, going thither afoot every Sunday morning and back after nightfall.
He must have been a weary little boy after the day's music-making at the church. One Sunday night when it was dark and he was too weary to notice where he was going, he fell into a ditch, from which he was rescued by an old woman, who, hearing his call for help, pulled the half-frozen boy out of the water.
Our little hero had another talent besides music. He knew how to win the friendship of people. So at Busseto a man named Barezzi offered to take him into his business. He sold spices, drugs and perfumes. But besides this he played the flute in the church. At his house Giuseppe heard lots of good music, for the town orchestra rehearsed there. Here is a picture of Giuseppe's friend:
Then Giuseppe made another friend who gave him a wonderful bit of advice. HE URGED HIM TO BECOME A COMPOSER!
So you see--all the wonderful operas that were to come were already on the way!
It has been written that Provesi was the first person to see and understand Verdi's real genius. The boy worked hard and advanced so rapidly that it was soon necessary for him to go to a larger city for lessons.
Now a good friend is always a good friend, so it is pleasing to tell that Barezzi sent Giuseppe to Milan, the lovely city of Lombardy, to study. And here a curious thing happened. He was refused a scholarship at the Conservatory of Milan; the reason given was that the authorities considered him to show no special talent for music. But this made no difference to the boy. He believed in his talent and kept at work to perfect it.
So, as the years went by, he kept on learning more and more, doing his work well and always preparing himself for better things. Then one day he was ready to begin to compose the operas that made him famous.
Some time when you read the full list of Verdi's operas you will learn that he wrote thirty. The first was performed in 1839, when he was twenty-six years old, and the last in 1893, when he was eighty. You will not need to remember the titles of them all, but you must know the names of the great ones, for one day you will see and hear them performed.
Here are the principal ones:
Ernani, La Traviata, Aida, Rigoletto, Sicilian Vespers, Othello, Il Trovatore, Masked Ball, Falstaff.
Another famous opera by Verdi, the scene of which is laid in a foreign country, is Aida. It was written for the Khedive of Egypt, and first performed in Cairo in 1871, when the composer was fifty-eight years old.
After Verdi had composed Aida he wrote no more operas for sixteen years. Then to the great surprise of all the world he wrote two others, the finest of them all--Othello and Falstaff.
Meanwhile he was a farmer. He planted, harvested, helped his tenants, urged them to cultivate the land carefully. He bought all kinds of American farming machinery to show the Italians how to cultivate the ground to best advantage.
The great man, who was once a simple little boy, died in 1901, on January 27, which day is the anniversary of Mozart's birth.
All his life long Verdi had succeeded, doing a little more and a little better each year, so that, at the end of his life, he was able to do a truly wonderful thing: namely, to build a home where musicians--who had not succeeded in life--could find a comfortable abiding place in their old age.
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