Verdi's Requiem

The Italian writer Alessandro Manzoni, regarded in his native country as on a par with Goethe, was the impetus for this most dramatic of requiem masses. When Manzoni died in 1873, all of Italy mourned, and Giuseppe Verdi resolved to compose a substantial work in memory of his literary hero. One year later, on the first anniversary of the writer’s death, Verdi conducted the premiere of his Requiem in San Marco, Milan, to enormous public acclaim. Such was the work’s immediate success that three more performances quickly followed at La Scala, and this enduring, highly emotive work has been a mainstay of the repertoire ever since.