Julian Budden - RIP

Surely the most important studies for those of us who love the works of Verdi are the three volumes by Julian Budden on his operas. He has left us now and the world is now poorer.

His three volume study was certainly the seminal bit of scholarship which led the way into taking the operas of Verdi as seriously as they deserve. The critical due they deserve is much more than they often receive and it was Budden's work that led the way to reversing that trend. They are not just important, they are indispensable.