St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra St Petersburg on 2 CDs Philharmonic SIGNUMCLASSICS Orchestra VERDI Requiem Yuri Temirkanov Carmen Giannattasio Veronica Simeoni Alexander Timchenko Carlo Colombara www.signumrecords.com Mikhailovsky Available through record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 Theatre Chorus ' VERDI Requiem VERDI Requiem Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) CD 1 1 No.1 Requiem 8.39 By the time Verdi came to compose Aïda in he did not quite follow Rossini’s example of 2 No.2 (i) Dies Irae 2.15 1870, it seemed as if his time as a composer laying down his pen for the latter part of his 3 (ii) Tuba Mirum 3.25 was nearing its end. With some 23 operas to adult life. 4 (iii) Liber scriptus 5.34 his name, he was the grand old man of the 5 (iv) Quid sum miser 3.45 6 (v) Rex tremendae 3.54 genre in Italy and was revered throughout his The death of the poet and novelist Alessandro 7 (vi) Recordare 4.27 homeland and much of the rest of Europe as Manzoni in 1873 spurred Verdi immediately 8 (vii) Ingemisco 3.47 one of the most important musical figures of back into compositional action. He proposed 9 (viii) Confutatis 5.20 the age. His first great operatic success story to the Mayor of Milan, via his publisher bl (ix) Lacrymosa 6.02 Total timings 47.10 was Nabucco, which had catapulted him to Ricordi, that he would like to compose a instant fame as a young man, 30 years before requiem for the great man to commemorate CD 2 1 No.3 Offertorio 4.38 Aïda and, after the incredible trio of Rigoletto, the first anniversary of his death. That 2 Hostias 6.15 Il Trovatore and La Traviata in the early 1850s, the proposition was so readily agreed is 3 No.4 Sanctus 2.43 4 No.5 Agnus Dei 4.42 Verdi’s star never looked likely to fade. But, testament not only to Manzoni’s popularity as 5 No.6 Lux aeterna 6.25 in the early 1870s and fast approaching the writer of Italy’s most widely read novel, 6 No.7 Libera me 13.58 60 years of age, the composer appeared I promessi sposi, but to his position as an Total timings 38.43 to be happy enough adopting the life of a ardent Italian nationalist and prime literary country squire, pottering about on his farm supporter of the movement for the liberation at Sant’Agata, outside Milan and overseeing and unification of Italy -il Risorgimento. Still St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra various productions of his stage works. He regarded as one of Italy’s most cherished Yuri Temirkanov conductor completed only two more operas in the last artistic treasures and, indeed, a paradigm 20 years of his life, but as these happened to for the modern Italian language, I promessi www.signumrecords.com be a pair of masterpieces, Otello and Falstaff, sposi was an instant and runaway success 2 3 from its first publication in 1827. It remains a national hero and sublime author, but by early April the following year. With throughout his adult life, and so only an the most popular historical novel in Italy also a stellar personality and humanitarian Rossini and Manzoni dead, he was now the event of the magnitude of Manzoni’s passing and has undergone numerous treatments without parallel. Such was his admiration only survivor of the revered Italian artistic could trigger the desire to complete the mass in film, opera and other media. While its that he appears to have deliberately avoided triumvirate. Verdi had suggested that a and record his personal debt to the writer. subject matter seems innocent enough - meeting Manzoni and when his wife, after requiem mass be commissioned from leading Lombardy under oppressive Spanish rule in a meeting with Manzoni, brought back a Italian composers a few years earlier, on The first performance of the Messa da the early Seventeenth Century – readers of portrait signed, ‘to Giuseppe Verdi, a glory of Rossini’s death in 1868. While the composite Requiem took place as planned on the the day were quick to seize on the parallels Italy, from a decrepit Lombard’ he returned work was finished by all parties, it was never first anniversary of Manzoni’s demise, on between the Spanish overlords and their the favour, inscribing his own portrait with performed due to various disagreements, 22 May 1874 in the church of San Marco, own eighteenth-century predicament under the words, ’I esteem and admire you as much and so Verdi’s contribution – the concluding Milan, with a chorus of 120, the female Austrian rule. Verdi was an enormous fan as one can esteem and admire anyone on Libera me - lay unsung in the archives of his choristers apparently gaining special of the novel and his earliest operas reflect this earth, both as man and true honour of publisher, Ricordi. Noticed a couple of years dispensation from the church authorities in as much – picking up on the growing our country so continually troubled. You are a later by a perspicacious conductor, Alberto order to sing in a clerical building. Fittingly, nationalist sentiment of the times. Even saint, Don Alessandro’. Verdi did eventually Mazzucato, Verdi was soon in receipt of a the work was performed at La Scala opera the redoubtable Sir Walter Scott, supplier overcome his shyness and the two Italian letter, Mazzucato describing the movement house three days later, and again the or inspirer of some of the most popular masters met in 1868 in Milan. The composer, as, ‘the finest, the greatest and the most mass was a triumph. Not everybody was song lyrics and opera libretti of the century, though, was still overawed, writing, ‘What vastly poetic piece of music that could be happy, though. The esteemed conductor thought I promessi sposi unrivalled as the can I say of Manzoni? How to describe the imagined’. At the time he was relatively and oftentimes colleague of Wagner, Hans finest romance of the day. extraordinary, indefinable sensation of that unmoved, claiming that while, ‘Your remarks von Bülow was in Milan at the time of the saint ... produced in me’. Verdi could not would almost have planted the desire in me initial performances and announced that Despite Manzoni’s advanced age (he was 88 bear to attend Manzoni’s funeral and instead to set the mass in its entirety at some later he should not be considered among the when he fell down some church steps to his visited the burial site alone at a later date to date ... It’s a temptation that will pass like ‘foreigners’ in the city to hear the work and, death), when Verdi heard of his death he was pay his respects. so many others. There are so many Requiem more infamously, in the Allgemeine Zeitung, distraught: ‘Now all is over, and with him ends Masses; there’s no point in adding one that the Requiem was ‘Verdi’s latest opera, the most pure, the most holy, the greatest of By late June 1873, Verdi was already at work more’. Never the most religious of men, Verdi in ecclesiastical robes’. Nonetheless, the our glories’. To Verdi he was more than just on the Requiem and the mass was complete veered between atheism and agnosticism Requiem met with major success in its many 4 5 subsequent European performances, and But the softer, poignant passages that founded to perform in the ‘imperial presence’ Serge Koussevitsky. In 1917 the Orchestra though the Italian press were scandalised abound in the piece are testament to the - at receptions and official ceremonies and became the State Orchestra and following by von Bülow’s remarks, he was swiftly put deep conviction with which Verdi was at the balls, plays and concerts at the the Decree of 1921 it was incorporated into in his place by none other than the mighty composing – not necessarily a religious Imperial Court. The pinnacle of this type of the newly founded Petrograd Philharmonic, Brahms: ‘Bülow has made an almighty fool conviction, but the fervour of a final farewell activity was the participation of the choir in the first of its kind in the country. Shortly of himself. Only a genius could have written to two beloved Italians - Rossini, and most 1896 in the coronation ceremony of Nicholas afterwards an unprecedented number of such a work’. especially Manzoni. As to whether the II. In 1897 the Court Choir became the great Western conductors began to come Requiem can truly ever escape the world Court Orchestra, its musicians having been to conduct the orchestra. Their names enjoy Of course, there are many who would still of opera when written by a man who spent transferred from the military and given the unquestioned authority in today’s musical claim that von Bülow has a point. The mass his life composing for the theatre, let’s same rights as other actors of royal theatres. world: Otto Klemperer (who also conducted does include extremes of dynamic markings leave the last word to Verdi himself: ‘One In the early 20th century the orchestra was the subscription concerts), Bruno Walter, (from the ppp with which the work opens and must not sing this Mass in the way that one permitted to perform at commercial concerts Felix Weingartner and many more. Soloists closes, to the fff, tutta forza of the famously sings an opera, and therefore phrasings and for the general public. The series of concerts Vladimir Horowitz and Sergey Prokofiev awe-inspiring Dies irae repetitions) and a dynamics that may be found in the theatre ‘Orchestral Collections of New Music’ saw (the latter performing his piano concertos) multitude of tempo indications producing won’t satisfy me at all, not at all’.