My transcription of Eboli’s exhilarating aria from the opera Don Carlo by Giuseppe Verdi. Advanced-professional level.

From the moment I heard a spectacular live performance of this aria by the titanic Tatiana Troyanos on YouTube, now many years ago, I knew that I wanted to compose a virtuosic transcription of it. Verdi’s music lends itself quite naturally to the pianistic idiom; no wonder it was such fodder for the transcriptions and paraphrases of Liszt and other great 19th-century virtuosos. Here are a few explanations of my thought process while transcribing:

In the first chunk (mm. 1-33), Eboli cries out in anguish as she realizes the devastating effects of her lies and adultery. This section is really punchy, and I’ve tried to especially capture the sharpness of Verdi’s brass “hits.”

In the second chunk (mm. 34-66), Eboli becomes penitent and prayerful as she contemplates her misdeeds. Here, Verdi’s orchestration leans string-heavy, in a texture that, when reproduced literally on the piano, is somewhat banal. I opted for a more extravagant texture à la Thalberg, where the melody is passed back and forth between hands amidst a wash of arpeggios.

In the final chunk (mm. 67-100), I pulled out all the pianistic stops I could imagine to capture the exhilarating, heroic quality of Eboli’s quest for redemption.

This transcription was originally written as an appendix to my doctoral dissertation at Rice University. Thanks go to my dissertation advisor Karim Al-Zand for his many helpful suggestions, as well as to Joanna MacGregor (herself a master transcriber), who also gave many insightful comments at the Banff Centre Art of Piano Residency in summer 2024.