Music

Guiseppe Verdi, described by the Italian parliament as 'one of the highest expressions of the national genius' died on January 27th, 1901, aged 87.

Denis Stevens describes a unique system of social support in 18th-century Venice that brought great economic, social and cultural benefits.

The great opera premiered in Rome on January 14th, 1900.

Jayne Rosefield looks at the interaction between the composer and the dictator. Winner of the 1998 Julia Wood Prize.

Isaac Watts died on November 25th, 1748, aged 74, in Stoke Newington, Hackney.

Ivor Wynne Jones on how a dusty garage in Cairo was once the unlikely setting for keeping up British morale with 'Music for All'.

Richard Cavendish and the leitmotiv of lost innocence at Elgar's birthplace and museum near Worcester.

Elizabeth Manning looks at how an Enlightenment ruler enlisted opera in his struggle to homogenise and reinforce the Habsburg empire.

Kenneth Asch on Berlin's opera house, the Deutsche Staatsoper.