still found Verdi's music disagreeably violent and in making the tenor the focus of dramatic interest he failed to exploit popularity enjoyed in the city by Jenny Lind", but he goes on to state that "Verdi fashion[ed] his music as much to match the talents of his performers as the requirements of his dramatic theme." In Lind, it appears that Verdi found a voice that caused him to create "tinsel-like" music, since (according to Muzio, with which Budden presumes Verdi agrees) it is a voice with its trills and embellishments which is "the sort of thing which people liked in the last century [i.e. 18th century] but not in 1847." Referring to some of the conflicting elements of the libretto referred to above, Baldini quotes from Basevi's 1859 comment on the unsuitability of the music to the harshness of the text: Perhaps to demonstrate more clearly the inability of music to express absolute evil, Verdi therefore attaches to Francesco Moor's terrible words a melody which would eminently suit the tenderest of loves. He could have used abstruse harmonies, jagged rhythms etc. etc. but he chose not to; perhaps he would have done better not to set these unfortunate words at all. Recordings Audio recordings Video recording References Notes Cited sources Baldini, Gabriele (1970), (trans. Roger Parker, 1980), The Story of Giuseppe Verdi: Oberto to Un Ballo in Maschera. Cambridge, et al: Cambridge University Press. Basevi, A. (1859), Studio sulle opera di Giuseppe Verdi (Italian), Florence, 1859 and Carteggi verdiani (Ed. A. Luzio), (Italian) Rome, 1935–1947. Portions translated in Baldini by Roger Parker. Budden, Julian (1984), The Operas of Verdi, Volume 1: From Oberto to Rigoletto. London: Cassell. . Kimbell, David (2001), in Holden, Amanda (Ed.), The New Penguin Opera Guide, New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001. Parker, Roger (1998), "I masnadieri" in Stanley Sadie, (Ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Vol. Three, pp. 251– 252. London: Macmillan Publishers, Inc. Other sources De Van, Gilles (trans. Gilda Roberts) (1998), Verdi’s Theater: Creating Drama Through Music. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. (hardback), Gossett, Philip (2006), Divas and Scholar: Performing Italian Opera, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lumley, Benjamin (1864), Reminiscences of the Opera, London and Nabu Press, United States, 2010 (print on demand) Martin, George (1983), Verdi: His Music, Life and Times. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company. Marvin, Roberta Montemorra (Ed.), I masnadieri, full score critical edition. Chicago &