VERDI: REQUIEM

Apart from Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 to open the season, Yordan Kamdzhalov will also be directing the concert on the occasion of the All Saints Day with our soloists Kristina Kolar, Ivana Srbljan, Alaž Farasiun and guest Johannes von Duisburg. Few are the works that offer both the operatic drama and exaltation provided by a symphony composed with virtuosity. Verdi’s Requiem is such and much more than that. “I’m one of those who think that religious music should be of a a pure style and character, but do not believe that Gregorian chant should be the only true expression of spiritual ideas. If music has made such advances from the Gregorian epoch to nowadays, having discovered so much, why disown it”, said Giuseppe Verdi himself. Verdi composed this exceptionally powerful and moving work, a challenge for the soloists, chorus and the orchestra, to honour the first anniversary of death of the great Italian poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni. Requiem was finished and performed on the occasion of the first anniversary of the poet’s death on 22 May 1874 in St. Mark’s Church in Milan.