Verdi Hymn of the Nations

[alberto]

Exists middle age Verdi unsung? I would say that the Hymn of the Nations (1862) is the answer.
The Hymn comes back in Chandos 10659, together with "Libera me" from collective Mass for Rossini (1868), an alternative version of an aria with chorus from Force of Destiny, and the (recorded several times) Four Sacred Pieces. G.Noseda conducts Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro Regio, Torino.
I concentate on the Hymn, really unsung (I could attend just an actual performance in 1981). It is an occasional Cantata for a London exhibition. The verses of Arrigo Boito (twenty-years old!) appear today old fashioned and rhetorical (but what else to expect from texts for occasional cantatas for exhibitions in 1862?).
The recording history of the Hymn is, in my knowledge, quite short.
Toscanini resurrected the work in wartime 1943 (interpolating "The Star Spangled Banner" and "The Intenationale" as homages to US and USRR, and adding them to the quotations of "God save the Queen", "La Marsellaise" and "il Canto degli Italiani", and changing the text dedicated to Italy).
I listened a lot of times to the recording (with tenor Jan Peerce a rather inflated and rhetorical soloist).
The Toscanini's recording raised polemics in US when, some years ago, it was sold in video format cutting "The internationale".
After decades of neglect, there were a good version with Pavarotti, Levine and Chicago forces (I have it in a box of 74 CDs: Verdi's complete output); an average version by Fabio Armiliato, Marcello Panni and French Nice forces (Real Sound;I think not  much circulated outside Italy).
Now we have this version with a tenor of very good timbre and scant, as far as possible, rhetoric.
I rate the piece, if a kind of oddity, playful and tuneful : its timing is 12' 46".
Intriguing may be also the "Libera me" for soprano (B.Frittoli) chorus and orchestra (Verdi contribution to the collective Mass for Rossini and first version of "Libera me" for his own complete Requiem Mass).
I wonder if anybody wants to write something about that champion of the unsung: the Mass for Rossini (1868) composed, one piece for each, by
Antonio Buzzolla
Antonio Bazzini
Carlo Pedrotti
Antonio Cagnoni
Federico Ricci
Alessandro Nini
Raimondo Boucheron
Carlo Coccia
Gaetano Gaspari
Pietro Platania
Lauro Rossi
Teodulo Mabellini....and Giuseppe Verdi.
I have got the Rilling recording (Haenssler, 1989), very seldom -I must condfess-listening to it.
   

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks for mentioning Verdi's The Hymn of the Nations, Alberto. I'd never come across it, but the track is now nestling cosily on my hard drive and has had a couple of listens. It's always good to hear new Verdi and this is a suitably grand piece d'occassion!