Giuseppe Verdi: Requiem

From the Edinburgh International Festival

Recorded live from Usher Hall, Edinburgh, this memorable performance features the highly distinguished soloists Jessye Norman (soprano), Margaret Price (soprano), Jose Carreras (tenor) and Ruggero Raimondi (bass). Claudio Abbado conducts the London Symphony Orchestra.

Verdi was no Christian and often treated the clergy unfavorably in his operas, but this Requiem, for the Italian author and patriot Alessandro Manzoni, a man he respected deeply, is perfectly convincing in its devotion.

In 1868, Verdi proposed that the anniversary of Rossini's death should be commemorated by a Requiem to which several composers should contribute movements.He himself wrote the Libera Me, which is not actually part of the Requiem, but which he took, as his favorite part, from the Burial Service.Yet the project as a whole never reached the performing stage.Five years later, Verdi learned of Manzoni's death, and this prompted him to make a full-scale setting of the whole Requiem Mass himself, incorporating the Libera Me he had already composed.The work was first performed in a Milan church in May 1874 and then repeated at La Scala.