Verdi: Two Stornelli
The Stornello
Stornello is a catch-all term for several forms of Italian folk poetry. The word may come from the Provençal estorn, meaning contest, since it was often improvised in competitions like the “poetry slam” of today. Or it may come from stornare, to turn around or detour, as a way of describing its rhymes.
Hannah Ludwig and Will Crutchfield
In any case, the term was widely in use at the time of Italian unification in the 19th century, when patriotic currents were strong in the arts. Traditional texts were collected and published; modern poets wrote their own new stornelli in popular style; and composers showed new interest in setting both kinds to music.
The prevalent type of stornello during this period of revival was a love-poem in eleven-syllable lines, endecasillabi, and this was interesting for musicians, because that line was traditionally used in opera for recitative, not for melody. In discovering ways to use it melodically, composers drew nearer to one strand of folk music, and at the same time took a step forward in their ability to weave “recitative” and “aria” together into a continuous musical flow.
The protagonist in all of this was Verdi. He composed two independent stornelli, both heard here. They are perhaps slight, but delightful. Not at all slight was the development in which they play their little part: the nearly seamless music-drama of Aida, Otello and Falstaff owes a lot to Verdi’s late-career mastery of the endecasillabo.
Il brigidino
Francesco Dall'Ongaro - engraving for "L'illustrazione popolare," 1872
The first of the songs recorded here has a text by Francesco Dall’Ongaro (1808-1873), written in 1847 to celebrate the colors of the three-colored flag of Italian unification (and of present-day Italy). In 1847 the Risorgimento was still gathering steam. What the poem describes - the addition of live greenery to a red-and-white cocarde - may have been an actual practice when overt display of the tricolore was still a forbidden provocation in territories under Austrian rule.
Verdi set it to music in 1861 in Torino, where he had agreed to serve in the Chamber of Deputies, the parliament summoned by King Victor Emanuel to govern the now almost-united nation. “Il brigidino” exists in two versions, and the origin of the second one is not yet clear. The first has no piano prelude, and the accompaniment is simpler throughout. Verdi wrote it on stationery of the Chamber, with hand-drawn musical staves (Teatro Nuovo will record this version later in our series). It was not officially published in his lifetime, but circulated in manuscript, and the composer may have had several occasions for writing out new copies; we know, for instance, that Dall’Ongaro himself wrote asking for one.
The score heard here was published only in 1948, by the Casa Musicale Sonzogno, without specification of the manuscript source on which it was based. None has come to light thus far, but the revisions (almost all in the piano part) are so subtle that it is unlikely they come from anyone but the composer. They are typical of the details Verdi tended to discover when he made a second pass over a piece: the texture is more varied, and there are some delicious touches of chromaticism and voice-leading like the ones added in the re-make of Don Carlo’s entrance aria.
Stornello (Tu dici che non m’ami)
Francesco Maria Piave, undated photograph
Verdi’s second stornello was written in 1868 for a project the composer himself organized. His longtime collaborator Francesco Maria Piave (1810-1876), librettist of a dozen Verdi operas stretching from Ernani to La forza del destino, was felled by a stroke at the end of 1867, and his family was without financial resources. The composer proposed an album of songs, to be published by Ricordi with the proceeds going directly to the Piave family, and solicited contributions from Auber, Thomas, Mercadante, Cagnoni, and Federico Ricci. Verdi’s own contribution was the present stornello.
This time the composer turned to an anonymous traditional poem, found in a collection published by the folklorist Giuseppe Tigri in 1861, but with the addition of a second strophe that may have been invented by the composer himself.
Il brigidino
E lo mio damo se n'è ito a Siena,
M'ha porto il brigidin di due colori.
Il bianco gli è la fé che c'incatena,
Il rosso l'allegria de' nostri cuori.
Ci metterò una foglia di verbena
Ch'io stessa alimentai di freschi umori.
E gli dirò: che il rosso, il verde, il bianco
Gli stanno bene con la spada al fianco.
E gli dirò: che il bianco, il verde, il rosso
Vuol dir che Italia il suo giogo l'ha scosso.
E gli dirò: che il rosso, il bianco, il verde
Gli è un terno che si gioca e non si perde!
Stornello
Tu dici che non m'ami? anch'io non t'amo...
Dici non vi vuoi ben, non te ne voglio.
Dici ch'a un altro pesce hai teso l'amo.
Anch'io in altro giardin la rosa coglio.
Anco di questo vo'che ci accordiamo:
Tu fai quel che ti pare, io quel che voglio.
Son libero di me, padrone è ognuno.
Servo di tutti e non servo a nessuno.
Costanza nell'amor è una follia;
Volubile io sono e me ne vanto.
Non tremo più scontrandoti per via,
Né quando sei lontan mi struggo in pianto.
Come usignuol che uscì di prigionia
Tutta la notte e il dì folleggio e canto.
Son libero di me, padrone è ognuno.
Servo di tutti e non servo a nessuno.
My beau has been to Siena,
And brought me a two-tone brigidino.
The white is the faith that binds us;
The red is the happiness of our hearts.
I will add a leaf of verbena
That I myself nurtured and grew.
And I’ll tell him: red, green, and white
With his sword at his side will look just right.
And I’ll tell him: white, green, and red
Say Italy her yoke has shed.
And I’ll tell him: red, white, and green
Is a hand you can play and always win!
You say you don’t love me? I don’t love you either.
You don’t want me? I don’t want you.
You’ve cast your net for another fish?
I’m gathering roses in another garden.
Let’s agree on this as well:
You do as you like and so will I.
I’m on my own, free to choose any padrone;
“At your service” to all, but I serve no-one.
Constancy in love is madness;
I’m variable and proud of it.
I no longer tremble when I see you in the street,
Nor do I weep when you’re away.
Like a nightingale out of its cage,
All day and night I play and sing.
I’m on my own, free to choose any padrone;
“At your service” to all, but I serve no-one.