Verdi's "Hymn of the Nations": A Critical Edition and History

FAIN: FA-50196-04

Roberta M. Marvin
University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA 52242-1320)

My project presents the first comprehensive, documented study of the commission, composition, performance, and reception of Verdi's only surviving secular cantata and will produce the first critical edition of the music. The project has three basic components: a "history" of the commission and composition of the work and of its performances and reception in England and elsewhere in the nineteenth century; a discussion of the twentieth-century "revival" of the work by Toscanini and its use for political purposes during and after World War II; and a critical edition of the music. Drawing primarily on archival and other primary documentary and musical sources, I inquire into the mode of understanding this work according to the cultural codes of its time especially the role of music as political propaganda and as a tool for defining nation. My study extends our knowledge about music and politics in nineteenth-century Italy, Victorian England, and twentieth-century wartime America, thereby helping to illuminate larger socio-political issues.

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