REQUIEM
GIUSEPPE VERDI: REQUIEM
Performers:
Miskolc Symphony Orchestra
Cantemus Choir
Soloist:
Létay Kiss Gabriella – soprano
Schöck Atala – alto
Heiko Börner – tenor
DaniDávid – bass
Conductor: Levente Török
At the age of sixty, Giuseppe Verdi, considered an ageing opera composer, surprised his contemporaries by writing an instrumental work: in 1873 he composed his String Quartet in E minor, and a year later, not an opera but a funeral mass was also produced. The Messa da Requiem was completed in 1874 and was immediately premiered in the Cathedral of San Marco in Milan, to great acclaim. The Italian premières were followed by a rapid series of European successes, and Verdi’s funeral mass has enjoyed unbroken popularity ever since. And for good reason. The master did not lie to himself. He strove for a direct, captivating, operatic expression, a melodicity that was easy to understand. “Another opera by Verdi, this time in a churchly guise”, Hans von Bülow wryly commented. “Such a work can only be written by a genius”, wrote Brahms in response to the previous comment. Both of them were right. The work was originally written for the death of Gioachino Rossini, a man Verdi greatly admired, in 1868, and the composer had intended that each movement of the requiem should be written by a different composer, without any payment. The great collaboration came to nothing because of jealousy and indifference between the composers. But Verdi did not give up. The final impetus to write the complete work came with the death of Alessandro Manzoni, one of the greatest poets of Italian Romanticism and a leading figure of the Risorgimento.
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