Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem

Alessandro Manzoni died on May 22, 1873. Giuseppe Verdi cries alone in his villa at Sant'Agata, for the loss of a friend. A year later, on May 22, 1874, Verdi conducts a grand orchestra with 110 musicians and a chorus of 120 voices in the Basilica of San Marco in Milan. It is the first performance of his Requiem Mass, composed in memory of the great writer.
The version proposed is a transcription made by French composer Renaud de Vilbac: This is the version of 1874, as performed for Manzoni in Milan, with a different number than the final version.

Program

Giuseppe Verdi
Messa di Requiem, version for 4 handed piano, soloists and chorus - transcription by Renaud de Vilbac

Artists

Choir director
Lorenzo Fratini

Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

GIUSEPPE VERDI

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was born in Le Roncole di Busseto, near Parma, on October 10, 1813. He learned the rudiments of music by playing the organ in the local parish and in 1832, thanks to the patronage of Antonio Barezzi he moved to Milan, despite not being admitted to the Conservatory. Oberto conte di San Bonifacio, his first opera, is staged with moderate success at La Scala in 1839 but it is Nabucco, three years later, that is his first great triumph. After many masterpieces, including Ernani (1844) and Macbeth(1847), between 1851 and 1853 is born the so-called "popular trilogy": Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. He reiceived important commissions from abroad: Les vêpres siciliennes (Paris, 1855), La forza del destino (St. Petersburg, 1862), Don Carlos (Paris, 1867) and Aida(Cairo, 1871). After the Requiem Mass (1874), Otello(1887) and Falstaff (1893), he died in Milan on January 27, 1901.

Season 2014/2015

Concert

Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem

Program

Artists

GIUSEPPE VERDI

Dates

Prices

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