Abstract
Deutsche bewegung (Prussian way) and “classical liberalism” are two opposite concepts; and in the gap between them Verdi’s concern about the “germanesimo” is to be placed. Verdi meets the German culture very early: in 1834 he conducts Haydn’s Die Schöpfung and in 1838 writes two songs on Goethe’s Faust Italian translations. But at that time Goethe and Haydn are considered as universal culture and not as particular “german” expressions. German culture will be seen as an foreign entity, as a potential colonizer, only with the rise of Prussian nationalism, after French débâcle at Sedan. Then everything changes, and Verdi raises his voice complaining that “now all is German”; but now in Haydn’s place there is Wagner; in the place of Goethe there is Heine. What worries Verdi is not only the artistic situation, but a more general, radical and deep danger. Actually under the government of Francesco Crispi Italy is starting on a new “Prussian way”, e Deutsche bewegung, a “movement” more political and economic, than artistical. The approaching to the Bismarck model is a consequence of the worsening of relationship between Italy and France (until the so-called Guerra doganale, “Tariff war”. The Triplice Alleanza is so one of the main origins of Italian Wagnerism; and Verdi’s dismay doesn’t follow from the artistic situation (or better, not only), but from the real wave which submerged the whole everyday life, endangering the process of national consciousness. Verdi is one of the first who understood to what extent the “Prussian way” was unsuitable to a nation grounded on classic liberalism ethical, before than political principles.
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