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Auckland, New Zealand

Aorangi Symphony Orchestra

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In Search of Peace

Verdi Requiem

with Anna Leese (soprano), Kristin Darragh (Mezzo-soprano), Amitai Pati (Tenor) and Wade Kernot (Bass). The Aorangi Singers and Aorangi Symphony Orchestra, Sarah Bisley (Conductor). 
Live recording by Franco Viganoni, in our fourth World War One commemorative concert entitled "In Search of Peace - 100 years on", honouring the Treaty of Versailles (1919) which marked the end of the Great War.

After Gioacchino Rossini's death in 1868, Verdi suggested that a number of Italian composers collaborate on a Requiem in Rossini's honour. He began the effort by submitting the concluding movement, the Libera me. However, on 4 November, nine days before the premiere (which was scheduled for 13 November 1869, the first anniversary of Rossini’s death), the organising committee abandoned it. In the meantime, Verdi kept toying with his Libera me, frustrated that the combined commemoration of Rossini's life would not be performed in his lifetime. 
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 travelled 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. 
While the Requiem is essentially a dramatic work, an inevitability considering the composer’s intimate links with the theatre throughout his career, this in no way detracts from the emotional sincerity that is in fact one of its outstanding characteristics - together with its general vitality, the skill of the choral writing and the vivid orchestral colours. It seems probable that today, the value of Verdi’s Mass is greater than that claimed for it in the year 1874, when it received its first performance at the Church of St Mark, Milan.

The selection of highlights is as follows:
I.Requiem - II. Dies Irae - Mors stupebit - Quid sum miser - Rex tremendae majestatis - Ingemisco - Confutatis - Dies Irae - Lacrymosa 
III. from the Offertorio: Hostias - quam olim Abrahae - Libera animas
V. Agnus Dei - V. Lux aeterna - VII. Libera me

Verdi Requiem Highlights

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