Potpourri on Il Trovatore (Verdi/Sussmann)

In the 19th century, Operas were immensely popular, particularly in Italy. Sometimes you’d rather call it a lunacy. People spent the night at the doors of the Scala Theatre in Milan to get tickets for their beloved operas. Opera themes by composers like Verdi, Rossini and Bellini spread all over the world.

In those days people had no radio, TV or Internet. The only way to hear for example an aria from Il Trovatore by Verdi without visiting the theatre was to play it yourself. Numerous composers and arrangers made arrangements of popular opera melodies for their ‘own’ instrument. Paganini and Sor wrote arrangements of Nel cor piu non mi Sento by Giovanni Paisiello for guitar, while Beethoven did the same for piano.

There was a particular way of arrangement: The Potpourri. Originally the Potpourri is a Spanish stew, but it is particularly known as a pot with fragrant herbs and petals to improve the atmosphere in the living room. A musical Potpourri is a summary of a larger work, it only contains the most popular themes. The challenge for the arranger is the transition between one theme and the other, because a Potpourri is often played as a continuous piece.

In this way in the 19th century Herr Süssmann wrote a Potpourri on Il Trovatore by Guiseppe Verdi. The ‘Summary’ includes abbreviated versions of the cavatina Abietta Zingara, the canzone Stride La Vampa and finally the aria Di Quella Pira.

It requires only a rough comparison to Verdi’s original compositions (long live Youtube) to assess that Süssmann took almost unacceptable liberties. Only fragments of the well-known themes are there in rather simplified form. The ornamentation in sixteenths from the original are virtually absent and the transitions between the sections are uncertain. Generally speaking, the Potpourri resembles the original with specific limitations.

Nevertheless, Süssmann’s Potpourri’s served a clear purpose, considering the fact that he made a full catalogue of opera arrangements based on works of composers like Verdi, Donizetti, Bellini, Meyerbeer, Von Weber and Mozart.

Therefore, I include a funny example of the same principle which is applied with many pop songs these days: marketing a simplified version. In those days it was the only way to bring the music to the masses of the musical amateurs.

Successfully, I guess!

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