"Va pensiero" from Verdi's Nabucco

“Va, pensiero” has become an important piece of music at Sarasota Opera. Over the years we have performed it many times at many diverse events. Like all great music this chorus can be enjoyed on many levels, the most immediate being its unforgettable melody. But Verdi’s melodies grow from the words, and it is those words that help create the emotional depth that connects his music to humanity.
Go, thought, on golden wings;
Go rest on the slopes and the hills,
Where the sweet breezes of our native land
Smell soft and fragrant!
Greet the banks of the Jordan
And Zion’s fallen towers.
Oh my country so beautiful and lost!
Oh remembrance so dear and fateful!
Golden harp of the prophetic bards,
Why do you hang mute on the willow?
Re-kindle memories in our breast
Speak to us of times that were!
Mindful of the fate of Jerusalem,
Either give forth a sound of crude lamentation
Or let the Lord inspire you to a harmony,
Which infuses us with the virtue to bear our sufferings!
The Hebrews in captivity sing of their “Patria”, their homeland. But homeland is as much a community as it is a place. It is the memories we share that bring us together. They, and we, must remember our history and endure our hardships, so that we can survive.

[@LucienMarine]

Faithful to its biblical inspiration, Nabucco is an opera with shamelessly epic proportions. Governings defy their gods, love struggles against empire, and religious revelation goes hand in hand with divine retribution. Giuseppe Verdi's inspired treatment of Israelite slavery and Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar's dramatic conversion to Judaism captivated audiences of the time in a borrowed metaphor of freedom. The young composer gave voice to a bubbling Italian nationalism, which was soon to explode with incendiary force. The opera's most famous passage, being this one, became the unofficial anthem of the Italian independence movement, and the score is filled with musical ideas showing Verdi's ability to innovate the lyrical convention in the service of character development and psychological depth. Prefiguring his mature works, the opera Nabucco shows us a young composer who begins to grasp the full extent and power of his artistic vision. Musically, In a brief orchestral introduction, the initial sonorities, dark and mysterious, alternate with the sudden violence of the strings in tremolo on the bass arpeggios and the last measures, with the ornamentations of flutes and clarinets pianissimo, seem to evoke the dear places and distant places spoken of in the verses. Lyric opera for Choir and Orchestra : Nabucco in F-sharp major, Act III. Scene 4, Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate (Chorus of Slaves). All my gratitude to Giuseppe Verdi and the Sarasota Opera. *Lucien*

[@maxivillaresfernandez4910]

Creo que hace casi 60 que escuché por ves primera ésta pieza maravillosa, única, llena de añoranza por la patria perdida y sigue siendo un cántico inigualable que acompaña mi vida.