Guiseppe Verdi-Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (1842)

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was born 10 Oct 1813 in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto, in the then Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, Italy. The 'Verdi' in his surname he supposedly adapted in honour of Victor Emmanuel II, the first Italian King of a united Italy (V.E.R.D.I. - Victor Emmanuel, Re d'Italia), whom he was an admirer of, perhaps due to his birth place being annexed by French troops for most of his life and him witnessing the occupants kicked out and his Fatherland finally united under his reign.
Guiseppe was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera, and the most influential of the 19th century. Being an atheist, his work has at the time, sometimes been criticized for using a generally diatonic rather than a chromatic musical idiom and for being essentially melodrama during his early years.
Nabucco, which he wrote in 1842, is an opera in four acts, based on the Biblical story and the play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois & Francis Cornue, six years earlier. It was Guiseppe’s third opera and the one which is considered to have permanently established his reputation as a composer. The opera follows the plight of the Jews as they are assaulted, conquered, and subsequently exiled from their homeland by the Babylonian King Nabucco.

The historical events are used as background for a romantic and political plot. It was first performed on 9 Mar 1842 at La Scala in Milan under the original name of Nabucodonosor. It became Nabucco at a performance at the San Giacomo Theatre of Corfu, Greece, in Sep 1844. Guiseppe composed Nabucco at a difficult moment in his life: his wife and children had all just died, and contracted with La Scala. He felt that 'this is the opera with which my artistic career really begins'.
The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves is a chorus from the third act, with words by Temistocle Solera, inspired by the bible Psalm 137.
Much like Germany's Richard Wagner, Guiseppe has often been seen as fuelling nationalism, a claim which was later refuted. True, both Mussolini and Hitler idolised the respective composers, but that occurred a long time after, and under much different circumstances - let alone one of the fellow dictators should have been more than dis-impressed by Guiseppe's works...

Guiseppe Verdi - Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (1842)



Lyrics:

Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate;
va, ti posa sui clivi, sui colli,
ove olezzano tepide e molli
l'aure dolci del suolo natal!

Del Giordano le rive saluta,
di Sionne le torri atterrate...
Oh mia patria sì bella e perduta!
Oh membranza sì cara e fatal!

Arpa d'or dei fatidici vati,
perché muta dal salice pendi?
Le memorie nel petto raccendi,
ci favella del tempo che fu!

O simile di Sòlima ai fati
traggi un suono di crudo lamento,
o t'ispiri il Signore un concento
che ne infonda al patire virtù

English Translation:

Fly, thought, on wings of gold;
go settle upon the slopes and the hills,
where, soft and mild, the sweet airs
of our native land smell fragrant!

Greet the banks of the Jordan
and Zion's toppled towers...
Oh, my country so beautiful and lost!
Oh, remembrance so dear and so fatal!

Golden harp of the prophetic seers,
why dost thou hang mute upon the willow?
Rekindle our bosom's memories,
and speak to us of times gone by!

Mindful of the fate of Jerusalem,
give forth a sound of crude lamentation,
or may the Lord inspire you a harmony of voices
which may instill virtue to suffering