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Donizetti: Music
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It is ironic that the tradition of western martial music which Donizetti introduced had itself been strongly influenced by Turkish military music. Turkish armies had had military bands since the middle ages and possibly earlier, and many of their percussion instruments had been borrowed by the west over the centuries. The bass drum, for example, was known as the Turkish drum and was played in Turkish style until well into the 19th century. The period of greatest impact was the 18th century, when bands modeled on the janissary bands were first established in Europe, and European rulers sent their bandmasters to study the art of military music in Istanbul.
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What Donizetti did not tell Ruffini was that he planned to reuse much of his earlier music. Thus, when the poet sent him verses, they did not fit the existing music, and Donizetti rewrote the text. In the end, so many changes were made that Ruffini refused to have his name used, and the printed libretto bore the initials M.A. as the author. This gave rise to the story, later corrected, that Michele Accursi was the actual librettist.
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Anna Bolena was Donizetti's first major hit, though he had already composed some 30 operas. It premiered in Milan in 1830. Its success earned Donizetti commissions from Italy's best opera houses, along with a newfound reputation in foreign musical capitals such as Paris and Vienna.
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CBC Radio's Saturday Afternoon at the Opera broadcast three Donizetti operas in August, including documentary features on the composer, but apart from this nod of recognition, very little has been planned in the music community. Neither L'Opéra de Montréal nor the Canadian Opera Company has included a Donizetti opera in this year's season. In New York, the Metropolitan Opera will present its familiar production of Donizetti's comic opera L'Elisir d'amore, in January, but no new production of any of the composer's masterpieces is planned.
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Okay, this pat ending is silly even for routine Donizetti. In his defense, he had tried to get Felice Romani to provide the better original ending he had previously scripted for composer Carlo Coccia, but he got no response. So, he had to use a new, less effective text from Girolamo Maria Marini. For all the quirkiness of the plot twists... the libretto does at least provide the means for some wonderful music.
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At that time the Hamparsum notation was used in Turkey (see picture to the left), and Donizetti first set about learning this system so as to teach the musicians the western notation system. With the help of an English naval captain, Adolphus Slade, who was then serving in the Ottoman Empire, new instruments were imported from Europe. In just five or six months Donizetti had trained his band so well that they were ready to perform before the sultan.
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