He had a unique chance to make opera more important in Italy, and succeeded in giving it a new impetus, even though in the beginning his popular things followed popular patterns. VERDI AND THE ORGAN GRINDER Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) was the son of an innkeeper and, as a little boy, showed marked musical talent. He was a good obedient little fellow, but always rather melancholy in character and never joined the village boys in their noisy amusements. “One thing only could rouse him from his habitual indifference, and that was the occasional passing through the village of an organ grinder. To the child, who in after years was to afford an inexhaustible repertory to those instruments for half a century all over the world, this was an irresistible attraction. He could not be kept indoors, and would follow the strolling player as far as his little legs could carry him.” (Grove’s Dictionary.) Who has not heard the _Miserere_ from _Il Trovatore_ played, all out of tune, by an Italian organ grinder who sends a little monkey around with a cup to gather in the pennies? We remember an organ grinder in San Francisco who ground out the _Miserere_. Each year or two that we returned there were more of the notes missing. Ten years later, the performance was quite “toothless” and sounded very funny. All his life, Verdi kept a little spinet that his father bought for him in 1820. We see him then, at seven, deep in musical study and at ten he was the organist of Roncole, going to school in Busseto, a nearby town. One night when he was walking the three miles to go back to Busseto after church, the poor little fellow was so weary that he missed the road and fell into a canal, narrowly escaping death! Is it not splendid that his village appreciated his talent and gave him a scholarship which made it possible for him to go to Milan to continue his musical studies! HIS OPERAS He did not compose an opera until 1839 when his _Oberto_ in the style of Bellini was produced in Milan with such success that he received orders to write three more from which he gained much good-will and fame. It must have been a thrilling time for opera writers, because Wagner was composing, too, and you know the great excitement he caused. Amidst this interesting whirl of opinion, Verdi wrote one of the operas ordered by the Milan director, and during this time he was sorely stricken by the deaths of his wife and two lovely children. Besides this, his opera failed and in his discouragement the poor young man made up his mind to give up composition. However, a rare good friend coaxed him back to his work after a little rest, and he produced his successful _Nebucco_ (_Nebuchadnezzar_) (1842), _I Lombardi_ the next year and his well known _Ernani_ (1844). In this, his first period, he used as models, Bellini and men of his type, not writing anything startlingly new.