The Auberge de Castille will resound to the music of Verdi tomorrow, as the first concert in the Intimate Letters series is held.

Verdi and his music played a central part in Italy’s public life, particularly the period of the risorgimento. However, the man himself was a private person, keen to keep his personal life hidden.

This may be because it was often so tragic. At the start of his career he was to lose both his wife and his two children, and he vowed to give up composition. It was only much persuasion that he took up his musical career to write Nabucco.

His artistic career was shadowed by that of his great rival Wagner, and he would vent his frustration about this on friends and family.

All this and more is revealed in tomorrow’s concert, which is also dedicated to the three arias for bass and Verdi’s only chamber work, the string quartet in e minor.

The concert, which will start at 8pm, will be followed by a New Year reception at St James Cavalier and is being presented thanks to the support of partners Novartis as well as Bank Of Valletta, Camilleri Wines, Go Mobile, Vascas Jewellers and Portomaso.

The Intimate Letters concerts is a monthly series of concerts that will bring together the music and letters of six important composers: Verdi, Shostakovich, Brahms, Janecek, Schumann and Handel, performed in some of the most beautiful chamber rooms in Malta.