Verdi: Non t’accostare all’urna
Geoffrey Loff and Kyle Oliver
This is, technically speaking, Verdi’s very first published composition, in that it stands first in the album of six romanze issued by Giovanni Canti in Milan in 1838 while the young composer was still awaiting a firm engagement for his debut opera (Oberrto would appear at La Scala in the following year). The songs won favorable attention and it is easy to see why. Of Verdi’s many compositional gifts, the first to hit full stride was his sense of proportion in broad lyrical melody: always enough symmetry to feel coherent, never so much symmetry as to become predictable. This capacity is rarer than one might imagine, and it shines forth in all six of the songs.
Jacopo Vittorelli - Engraving by Angelo Balestra
Iacopo Vittorelli (1749-1835) was a widely appreciated poet attached to the Arcadian Academy in Rome. Though his life overlapped Verdi’s, there is no documentation of their having come in direct contact. The lyric chosen by the young composer to open his album was already one of the best-known Italian poems, set to music by Schubert and Bellini among many others.
Non t'accostare all'Urna,
Che il cener mio rinserra,
Questa pietosa terra
È sacra al mio dolor.
Odio gli affanni tuoi;
Ricuso i tuoi giacinti,
Che giovano agli estinti
Due lagrime, o due fior?
Empia! Dovevi allora
Porgermi un fil d'aita,
Quando traea la vita
Nell'ansia e nei sospir.
A che d'inutil pianto
Assordi la foresta?
Rispetta un'Ombra mesta,
E lasciala dormir.
Do not draw near the urn
that encloses my ashes;
this merciful ground
is sacred to my sorrow.
I despise your grief;
I refuse your wreaths of hyacinth.
What use to the departed
are a pair of tears or of flowers?
Evil woman! you should
have given me a thread of help
while I bore my life
in anxiety and sighs!
Why deafen the forest
with useless weeping?
Respect a dolorous shade,
and let it sleep.