the fourth Verdi opera which may be taken completely seriously: and up to this point he had written fourteen. Another musical example has been noted by Budden (See "Composition history" above): that Verdi was unwilling to set a conventional stretta to end act 2 (but, at the same time, he accommodated the librettist who wanted the act to conclude with music that "should quicken towards an animated finish"). In musical terms, Budden notes that Verdi agreed and: Ended with an allegro in three mounting stages; but it is nothing like a conventional stretta. Nor is there any operatic model for this type of ending. Verdi had gone far beyond the example of his Italian predecessors in allowing the original drama to dictate his formal ideas. Recordings References Notes Cited source Baldini, Gabriele (1970), (trans. Roger Parker, 1980), The Story of Giuseppe Verdi: Oberto to Un Ballo in Maschera. Cambridge, et al: Cambridge University Press. Budden, Julian (1984), The Operas of Verdi, Volume 1: From Oberto to Rigoletto. London: Cassell. Chusid, Martin, (Ed.) (1997), Verdi’s Middle Period, 1849 to 1859, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Kimbell, David (2001), in Holden, Amanda (Ed.), The New Penguin Opera Guide, New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001. Osborne, Charles (1969), The Complete Opera of Verdi, New York: Da Capo Press, Inc. Parker, Roger (1998), "Luisa Miller" in Stanley Sadie, (Ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Vol. Three, pp. 80–82. London: Macmillan Publishers, Inc. Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane, Verdi: A Biography, London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1993 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. Kallberg, Jeffrey (1991), Luisa Miller, full score critical edition. Chicago & Milan: University of Chicago Press & G. Ricordi. (University of Chicago Press), (G. Ricordi & C.). Martin, George, Verdi: His Music, Life and Times (1983), New York: Dodd, Mead and Company. Parker, Roger (2007), The New Grove Guide to Verdi and His Operas, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. Pistone, Danièle (1995), Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera: From Rossini to Puccini, Portland, OR: Amadeus Press. Toye, Francis (1931), Giuseppe Verdi: His Life and Works, New York: Knopf Walker, Frank, The Man Verdi (1982), New York: Knopf, 1962, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Warrack, John and West, Ewan, The Oxford