Repertoire

VERDI: Requiem

Artists

ORQUESTRA SIMFÒNICA DE BARCELONA I NACIONAL DE CATALUNYA (OBC)
Pablo González, conductor
Maria Luigia Borsi, soprano
Ildiko Komlosi, mezzo
Russell Thomas, tenor
Riccardo Zanellato, bass
Cor del Gran Teatre del Liceu
Cor de Cambra del Palau

Program

Pablo González conducts one of the favourite requiem operas of the general public to mark the bicentenary of Verdi’s birth.Despite being a rather sceptical believer, Verdi was a man of profound spirituality and he knew the religious repertoire well: he had been assistant to the organist at Busetto cathedral. Revising the original score before the première in Milan (22 May 1874), conductor Hans von Bülow defined this popular Requiem – with some sarcasm – as “Verdi’s latest opera, dressed in a cassock”, and certainly, the melodic texture of the work distances it from the canonical styles of Western religious music. Verdi, who after Nabucco and the popular trilogy (Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata), could justifiably call himself the most famous composer in the world, wrote it with an aesthetic freedom that brought it close to the opera genre. The origins of the piece date back to 1868, when, to mark the death of Rossini, Verdi proposed to the burghers of Bologna a mass for the dead written by the best Italian composers. The project did not come to fruition and the composer – who had written earlier drafts – ended up composing it on his own, also upset at the death of composer and father of the Italian nation Alessandro Manzoni, for whom he felt a true devotion. This explains the intensity of a titanic work, with genuine sparks of emotion and one that calls for the utmost vocal effort from soloists and chorus.

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