Giuseppe Verdi could only compose in the country

"Somehow there everything comes at once, quite without effort, and I am more contented."

Welcome to the latest issue of Subtle Maneuvers. Last week, we reviewed Grace Jones’s contract rider. This week: the Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi.

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Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)

Verdi spent at least half the year in the country, on his villa at Sant’Agata, in northern Italy. He found that he couldn’t compose anywhere else. He once told an interviewer, “I do all my writing in the country; somehow there everything comes at once, quite without effort, and I am more contented.”