The Politics of Verdi's Cantica treats a singular case study of the use of music to resist oppression, combat evil, and fight injustice. Cantica, better known as Inno delle nazioni / Hymn of the Nations, commissioned from Italy's foremost composer to represent the newly independent nation at the 1862 London International Exhibition, served as a national voice of pride and of protest for Italy across two centuries and in two very different political situations. The book unpacks, for the first time, the full history of Verdi's composition from its creation, performance, and publication in the 1860s through its appropriation as purposeful social and political commentary and its perception by American broadcast media as a 'weapon of art' in the mid twentieth century. Based on largely untapped primary archival and other documentary sources, journalistic writings, and radio and film scripts, the project discusses the changing meanings of the composition over time. It not only unravels the complex history of the work in the nineteenth century, of greater significance it offers the first fully documented study of the performances, radio broadcast, and filming of the work by the renowned Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini during World War II. In presenting new evidence about ways in which Verdi's music was appropriated by expatriate Italians and the US government for cross-cultural propaganda in America and Italy, it addresses the intertwining of Italian and American culture with regard to art, politics, and history; and investigates the ways in which the press and broadcast media helped construct a musical weapon that traversed ethnic, aesthetic, and temporal boundaries to make a strong political statement.

This book is the first collection of multi-disciplinary research on the experience of Italian-Jewish musicians and composers in Fascist Italy. Drawing together seven diverse essays from both established and emerging scholars across a range of fields, this book examines multiple aspects of this neglected period of music history, including the marginalization and expulsion of Jewish musicians and composers from Italian theatres and conservatories after the 1938–39 Race Laws, and their subsequent exile and persecution. Using a variety of critical perspectives and innovative methodological approaches, these essays reconstruct and analyze the impact that the Italian Race Laws and Fascist Italy’s musical relations with Nazi Germany had on the lives and works of Italian Jewish composers from 1933 to 1945. These original contributions on relatively unresearched aspects of historical musicology offer new insight into the relationship between the Fascist regime and music.

This book presents a study of the Italian monarchy and its impact on Italy's history, from Unification in 1861 to the foundation of the Italian republic after World War II.