Editing Giuseppe Verdi (section)

====Final works====
[[File:Verdi conducting Aida in Paris 1880 - Gallica - Restoration.jpg|thumb|alt=Drawing of Verdi conducting an orchestra|upright|Verdi conducting the [[Paris Opera]] premiere of ''Aida'' in 1880]]
Verdi's three last major works continued to show new developments in conveying drama and emotion. The first to appear, in 1874 was his Requiem, scored for operatic forces but by no means an "opera in ecclesiastical dress" (the words in which [[Hans von Bülow]] condemned it before even hearing it).{{sfn|Parker|2001|loc=§7}} Although in the Requiem Verdi puts to use many of the techniques he learned in opera, its musical forms and emotions are not those of the stage.{{sfn|Rosselli|2000|pp=161–162}} Verdi's tone painting at the opening of the Requiem is vividly described by the Italian composer [[Ildebrando Pizzetti]], writing in 1941: "in [the words] murmured by an invisible crowd over the slow swaying of a few simple chords, you straightaway sense the fear and sadness of a vast multitude before the mystery of death. In the [following] ''Et lux perpetuum'' the melody spreads it wings...before falling back on itself...you hear a sigh for consolation and eternal peace."{{sfn|Budden|1993|p=320}}

By the time ''Otello'' premièred in 1887, more than 15 years after ''Aida'', the operas of Verdi's (predeceased) contemporary Richard Wagner had begun their ascendancy in popular taste, and many sought or identified Wagnerian aspects in Verdi's latest composition.{{sfn|Taruskin|2010|pp=602–603}} Budden points out that there is little in the music of ''Otello'' that relates either to the ''[[verismo]]'' opera of the younger Italian composers, and little if anything which can be construed as a homage to the [[New German School]].{{sfn|Budden|1993|p=281}} Nonetheless, there is still much originality, building on the strengths which Verdi had already demonstrated; the powerful storm which opens the opera ''[[in medias res]]'', the recollection of the love duet of Act I in Otello's dying words (more an aspect of ''tinta'' than ''[[leitmotif]]''), imaginative touches of harmony in Iago's "Era la notte" (Act II).{{sfn|Budden|1993|pp=282–284}}

Finally, six years later, appeared ''Falstaff'', Verdi's only comedy apart from the early, ill-fated ''Un giorno di regno''. In this work, Roger Parker writes that:
:"The listener is bombarded by a stunning diversity of rhythms, orchestral textures, melodic motifs and harmonic devices. Passages that in earlier times would have furnished material for an entire number here crowd in on each other, shouldering themselves unceremoniously to the fore in bewildering succession".{{sfn|Parker|1998|p=229}} Rosselli comments: "In ''Otello'' Verdi had miniaturized the forms of romantic Italian opera; in ''Falstaff'' he miniaturized himself...[M]oments...crystallize a feeling...as though an aria or duet had been precipitated into a phrase."{{sfn|Rosselli|2000|p=182}}
{{Clear}}