Sicilian Vespers

He gave the world one beloved masterpiece after another.

Today we bring you the overture to his opera The Sicilian Vespers.

The story is set in Sicily in the year 1282, drawn from a real event, an uprising, in which the islanders, crushed under French rule, rose up all at once at the signal of the evening bells from an ominous introduction where strings and timpani trade uneasy blows the music swells toward a grand sweeping melody charged with the foreboding of tragedy to come The opera itself is rarely staged, but this overture is often performed on its own, as one of Verdi's finest.

The evening bell and the storm it foretells.

Today, on Verdi's birthday, we bring you the overture to the Sicilian Vespers, for wind band.

You'll find a link to listen in the show notes.

Today's episode was about Verdi's birthday and the overture to the Sicilian Vespers.

Tomorrow, another piece to match the day.

Was it typical of the empire? Doubtless in all the great cities, such as Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Carthage, the baser sort would be quite ready to shout, Away with the Christians.

But it is to be remembered that we find no trace anywhere in this persecution of a massacre on the scale of that of St. Bartholomew or the Sicilian Vespers.

On the contrary, we see that though the prisons were full, the relations of the Christians were usually allowed to visit them, take them food, and listen to their exhortations.

Pamphilius of Caesarea, who was in jail for two years, not only received his friends during that period, but was able to go on making copies of the scriptures.

None, neither priests nor women nor little children, were spared.

Two thousand French were said to have perished in the Sicilian Vespers, and these were flung for burial into an empty pit.

From Palermo the excitement spread to the whole island.

All Sicily was in arms, and in a month no Frenchmen were left in their lost territory.

Philip made a triumphant entry into the conquered land, accompanied by his wife and the Flemings decked in their best, made so fine a show before their new lord that Queen Joan grumbled that she found six hundred queens where she expected to be the only one.

Flanders was rich through her own industry and enterprise, and her townsmen were not to be ill-treated with impunity.

Bruges, most important of her towns, was ordered by the governor to lose its privileges and to have its fortifications pulled down, with the result that early one morning while most men were still in bed the artisans rose and fell upon the sleeping French, who perished in a massacre so wholesale that the matin of Bruges have often been compared to the Sicilian Vespers.

Indignant France hastened to avenge the outrage.