Va, pensiero

Martin Saints Choir under the direction of Mr. Brett Cuddy
Sister Marganne Drago, SSJ, accompanist
Immaculate Conception in Jenkintown, PA
May 25th, 2023

The name of Giuseppe Verdi is synonymous with Italy itself. The accomplishments of this composer were not without hardship; after failing to gain admission to the Milan Conservatory of music, he was met with the death of his two children and then his wife. After years of attempts to compose for the opera house in Milan, Verdi finally achieved success with his biblical opera, Nabucco (“Nebuchadnezzar”). This earned him national recognition and was the first of a long, productive output of extraordinarily popular operas. The joy that Nabucco brought Verdi reached beyond his career, as he would later marry the soprano who sang the opera’s leading role, Giuseppina Strepponi. (The relationship between Giuseppe and Giuseppinia would undoubtedly inspire much gossip in the streets of Milan.)
“Va, pensiero” is one of the most frequently excerpted choruses from this opera. It is also dubbed “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves,” as it is a lament from the perspective of the exiled Jewish people during the Babylonian Captivity. Verdi’s characteristic tune combined with the melancholic celebration of homeland have earned “Va, pensiero” an indelible place in Italian culture, akin to an unofficial anthem.

Go, thought, on golden wings
Go and rest on rises and hills
Where the sweet and soft
Air of the native land is to breath!
Greet the shores of Jordan River,
The destroyed towers of Sion.
Oh, my country, beautiful and lost!
Oh remembrance, so dear and fated.

Golden harp of the prophetic poets
Why do you hang, dumb, from the willow?
You renew memories in our breasts,
Talking about the time that once was.
Oh, alike Solima to the poets
You draw a sound of crude mourning,
May the Lord inspire you to a concert
That may give virtue to the suffering.

(English translation courtesy of Choral Public Domain Library)