The Messa da Requiem is a musical setting of the Catholic funeral mass (Requiem) for four soloists, double choir and orchestra by Giuseppe Verdi. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi admired, and is therefore also referred to as the Manzoni Requiem. The first performance, at the San Marco church in Milan on 22 May 1874, conducted by the composer, marked the first anniversary of Manzoni's death. It was followed three days later by the same performers at La Scala. Verdi conducted his work at major venues in Europe.
Verdi composed the music for the last part of the text, Libera me, first, as his contribution to the Messa per Rossini, which he had begun after Gioachino Rossini had died.
Considered too operatic to be performed in a liturgical setting, the Requiem is usually given in concert form; a performance lasts around 90 minutes. Musicologist David Rosen calls it "probably the most frequently performed major choral work composed after Mozart's Requiem".
Composition history
After Gioachino Rossini's death in 1868, Verdi suggested to his publisher Ricordi that a number of Italian composers collaborate on a Requiem in Rossini's honour. this episode marked the beginning of the end of their friendship. The composition remained unperformed until 1988, when Helmuth Rilling premiered the complete Messa per Rossini in Stuttgart, Germany, presented at festivals and recorded.<!-- Verdi kept toying with his "Libera me", frustrated that the combined commemoration of Rossini's life would not be performed in his lifetime. needs ref-->
thumb|upright|[[Alessandro Manzoni, in whose honour Verdi wrote the Requiem]]
On 22 May 1873, the Italian writer and humanist Alessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi had admired all his adult life and met in 1868, died. Upon hearing of his death, Verdi resolved to complete a Requiem—this time entirely of his own writing—for Manzoni. Verdi traveled to Paris in June, where he commenced work on the Requiem, giving it the form we know today. It included a revised version of the Libera me originally composed for Rossini.
As Aida, Amneris and Ramfis respectively, Stolz, Waldmann, and Maini had all sung in the European premiere of Aida in 1872, and Capponi was also intended to sing the role of Radames at that premiere but was replaced due to illness. Teresa Stolz went on to a brilliant career, Waldmann retired very young in 1875, but the male singers appear to have faded into obscurity. Also, Teresa Stolz was engaged to Angelo Mariani in 1869, but she later left him.
The Requiem was repeated at La Scala three days later on 25 May with the same soloists and Verdi again conducting. It won immediate contemporary success, although not everywhere. It received seven performances at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, but the new Royal Albert Hall in London could not be filled for such a Catholic occasion. In Venice, impressive Byzantine ecclesiastical decor was designed for the occasion of the performance.
Its first performance in the United States was in Boston in 1878, by the Handel and Haydn Society.
It later disappeared from the standard choral repertoire, but made a reappearance in the 1930s and is now regularly performed and a staple of many choral societies. ref not accessible-->
Since the 1990s, commemorations in the US and Europe have included memorial performances of the Requiem in honor of the Terezín performances. On the heels of previous performances held at the Terezín Memorial, Murry Sidlin performed the Requiem in Terezin in 2006 and rehearsed the choir in the same basement where the original inmates reportedly rehearsed. Part of the Prague Spring Festival, two children of survivors sang in the choir with their parents sitting in the audience.
The Requiem has been staged in a variety of ways several times. Achim Freyer created a production for the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2006 that was revived in 2007, 2011 and 2013. In Freyer's staging, the four sung roles, "Der Weiße Engel" (The White Angel), "Der Tod-ist-die-Frau" (Death is the Woman), "Einsam" (Solitude), and "Der Beladene" (The Load Bearer) are complemented by choreographed allegorical characters.
In 2011, Oper Köln premiered a full staging by Clemens Bechtel where the four main characters were shown in different life and death situations: the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a Turkish writer in prison, a young woman with bulimia, and an aid worker in Africa.
In 2021, the New York Metropolitan Opera performed the Requiem for the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
In 2025, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony Chorus, under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, will perform the Requiem as part of the 2025 American Choral Directors Association National Conference.
Versions and arrangements
For a Paris performance, Verdi revised the "Liber scriptus" to allow Maria Waldmann a further solo for future performances. Previously, the movement had been set as a choral fugue in a classical Baroque style. With its premiere at the Royal Albert Hall performance in May 1875, this revision became the definitive edition that has been most performed since, although the original version is included in critical editions of the work published by Bärenreiter and University of Chicago Press.<!--
Versions accompanied by four pianos or brass band were also performed. needs ref-->
Franz Liszt transcribed the Agnus Dei for solo piano (S. 437). It has been recorded by Leslie Howard.
Carus-Verlag published a version in 2013 for a small ensemble of horn, double bass, gran cassa, timpani, marimba and piano, edited by Michael Betzner-Brandt, in order to make the music accessible for more choirs.
Structure
Verdi structured the liturgical text in movements as follows;
The Dies irae begins, evoking Last Judgment in "thunderous chords, a jagged rising phrase, a wailing chant lurching backwards and forwards, giant bass-drum blows on the offbeat, precipitous woodwind scales, strings tremolando, uprushes of violins, and rapid rhythmic figures splayed out by the trumpets". In Verdi's Requiem, two of the four soloists were women, and the chorus included female voices. This may have slowed the work's acceptance in Italy.
Reception
At the time of its premiere, the Requiem was criticized by some as being too operatic in style for the religious subject matter. According to Gundula Kreuzer, "Most critics did perceive a schism between the religious text (with all its musical implications) and Verdi's setting". Some viewed it negatively as "an opera in ecclesiastical robes",