Verdi: I lombardi alla prima crociata: Prelude to Act III, sc. iii
I lombardi was Verdi’s fourth opera, and in it he paid a special tribute to Eugenio Cavallini (1806-1881), who had directed the orchestra for the first three. This was before the innovation of the stand-up conductor had taken hold in Italy; leadership was still divided, in the style revived by Teatro Nuovo, between a maestro al cembalo - almost always the composer in the case of new operas - and a violinist.
For Cavallini Verdi wrote an essay in a very old Italian tradition: a scene prelude with a prominent instrumental solo, with bits of the prelude returning to punctuate the recitative, and a prominent role for the same instrument in the ensuing musical piece. The specimen most familiar to operagoers today is probably the harp solo-and-accompaniment in the heroine’s entrance aria in Lucia di Lammermoor, but examples of this form reach far back into the 18th century.
Cavallini was also a prolific composer for violin and viola; some of his works are planned for future releases in our “Professori d’orchestra” series. Meanwhile, 44 years later the young Arturo Toscanini directed a revival of I lombardi in Casale Monferrato, and paid his own special tribute to the concertmaster Enrico Polo (1868-1953), writing ornamentation and cadenzas for him. Polo’s copy was bequeathed to the Conservatorio G. Verdi in Milan at his death. Yet another early Toscanini concertmaster, Ariodante Coggi (1875-1958), had a slightly different version of these variations and actually made a primitive recording of them around 1904, which we have used for inspiration and guidance in our own rendition of the Prelude.