Giuseppe Verdi: Misa da Requiem
MusicaAeterna

Renowned for its audacity and modernity, the talented Greek director Teodor Currentzis presents his version of Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem Mass, performed on the same stage in which the work was first heard in 1874: the Church of San Marco in Milano. Inspired by the death of a dear friend, the writer Alessandro Manzoni, hero of Italian unification, the work was described at the time by Hans von Bülow as “an opera in ecclesiastical costume”. Indeed, the imposing instrumentation and dramatic effects affirm the close links of this Requiem with operatic art, of which Verdi was a specialist. The score defies traditional conventions, highlighting the grandiose Dies Irae with an apocalyptic tone, or the incredible diminuendo of the finale Libera me.

Currentzis asserts that most of Verdi's works are written very differently from how they are performed on recordings known to the public. This is what happens with this Requiem Mass, whose scores indicate something very different from what is usually heard. "My obligation as a conductor is not to recreate a recording, but to interpret what the composer really meant from the score," he says. In the case of this work, the director maintains that Verdi was very precise in writing it. And that the Italian composer composed this Requiem so that it would end in a soft pianissimo. "Deliberately, Verdi wanted to end on a meditative note so that, once the message was delivered, silence would float." This magical silence is what remains beating at the end of this unparalleled performance by the vocal and instrumental ensemble MúsicaAeterna.

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