Continue the journey…
We suggest further works to explore after Verdi’s Requiem
Begin by taking a listen to the work for which Verdi intially wrote the Libera Me of his Requiem – the Messa per Rossini of 1869. None the 12 composers invited by Verdi to collaborate on the work comes close to enjoying his level of fame today, and some might reason that this mass demonstrates exactly why this is so. The recording of it put together by conductor Helmuth Rilling and his Stuttgart forces in 1989 (Hänssler HAEN98402) is nonetheless well worth a listen, if only for curiosity’s sake.
After the Requiem, Verdi’s best known choral music is his Four Sacred Pieces (Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia/pappano; Warner 984 5242), composed individually, but published together in 1898. Two of the four pieces – Ave Maria and Laudi alla Vergine Maria – are a cappella, while the larger-scale Stabat Mater and Te Deum are accompanied by orchestra. With its brass fanfares, double-choir climaxes and subdued ending, the stirring Te Deum comes closest to the Requiem in style, though without that all-pervasive sense of doom.
No other Requiem quite matches Verdi’s for blood and thunder either, though in terms of scale and ambition, a notable precedent can be found in Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts of 1837. Scoring the work for vast orchestra complete with 16 timpani, tam-tams and ‘brass choirs’ stationed at north, south, east and west points of the building, Berlioz didn’t exactly hold back, and the results are often thrilling (Gabrieli Consort/paul Mccreesh; Signum SIGCD280).
Written nearly a century after Verdi’s Requiem and with the Latin mass interspersed with poetry by Wilfred Owen, Britten’s War Requiem of 1962 isn’t the most obviously comparable work. The furiously pounded timpani and raging chorus of the Dies Irae chorus, however, suggests that
Britten did have at least one ear on the Italian’s masterpiece (LSO et al/ Hickox; Chandos CHAN8983).
Finally, for a near-ish contemporary of Verdi’s work, there’s Stanford’s
Requiem of 1896 (RTÉ Philharmonic Choir et al/pearce; Naxos 8.55520102). The Irish composer may not have had quite the same fire in his belly when tackling the subject of death, but the work has its fair share of exquisite choral writing.
Berlioz didn’t exactly hold back when scoring his Grande Messe des Morts