Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): Messa da Requiem

    Giuseppe Verdi is one of the first names that comes to many peoples’ minds at the mention of Italian opera, as well he should be. A goodly number of the 26 operas he composed over the course of his long and highly successful career still hold a secure place in the repertoire of contemporary companies and singers. In Italy he had become a cultural idol by the time of his death, as evidenced by the throng of mourners, hundreds of thousands strong, who flocked to his funeral procession in 1901 singing the chorus “Va pensiero” from the early opera Nabucco. Many music fans would without hesitation consider him to be the greatest opera composer in Italian, if not world history.

    This reputation would be quite safe even if operas were the only compositions Verdi wrote, but his greatness is further apparent in the illustrious Messa da Requiem (Requiem Mass) of 1874.

    A requiem is a Latin funeral mass, containing all of the typical elements of the Roman Catholic mass (except the Apostles’ Creed) in addition to a number of death-themed passages such as the Dies irae (“Day of wrath”) and Lux aeterna (“Eternal light”). Many composers have set the requiem mass, but among the best-known examples are those of Mozart, Brahms, Berlioz, Fauré, and the present work by Verdi.

    It is somewhat anomalous in Verdi’s output, although not as much as the Beethoven-influenced String Quartet in E minor from the previous year, which is his only surviving chamber music work. The Requiem, at least uses his typical opera materials of soloists, chorus and orchestra, although not in his usual fashion. Both of these works were written between 1873 and 1887, during what was something of a hiatus from the intensely opera-focused earlier phase of his career. The years 1839 – 1871 saw the genesis of all but 2 of Verdi’s operas and it is understandable that he may have desired a vacation from writing them, even if that vacation ended up lasting 22 years! Verdi would briefly revisit composing for the stage with his two great valedictory Shakespearian operas, the progressive and tragic Otello (1887) and the sublimely comic Falstaff (1893), both to finely crafted libretti by fellow composer and writer Arrigo Boito, and both full of musical and dramatic treasures. From this last creative period also comes the Quattro Pezzi Sacri (Four Sacred Pieces), a collection of sacred choral music written for various combinations of choir and orchestra, which, along with the Requiem, represents Verdi’s entire mature output of sacred music.

    The Requiem began its life, appropriately, with the death of Giacchino Rossini, another god of Italian opera whom Verdi especially revered, in November of 1874. Verdi contacted his publisher Ricordi about the idea of creating a grand requiem mass in Rossini’s memory with music composed by him and 13 of Italy’s other most prominent composers of the day. Of this group Verdi’s is the only work that has withstood the test of time. The music was completed, with Verdi setting the closing Libera me, but was never performed due to logistical difficulties. This work was, in fact, premiered and recorded as recently as 1988 (!) under the baton of Helmut Rilling and is available on the Hansler Classics label.

    Verdi seemed determined not to let his contribution fade away, and found the opportunity to unveil it, clothed in his complete setting of the requiem mass several years later with the passing of the Italian novelist Alessnadro Manzoni, whose work Verdi held in high esteem. Manzoni died on May 22nd, 1873, and Verdi’s Messa da Requiem was premiered a year later to the day, on May 22nd, 1874, under the composer’s baton at St. Mark’s cathedral in Venice, itself an Italian musical landmark, having fostered the creation of so much glorious antiphonal choir music by the Gabrielis during the early Baroque era. The work was performed 3 more times shortly after at La Scala in Milan, and its initial success prompted Verdi to take the work on a miniature European tour with stops in Paris, London, Vienna, and Cologne. The Messa da Requiem was well-received by all of its first audiences.

    The Requiem provides a valuable opportunity to glimpse other sides of Verdi not immediately apparent in his operatic output. At times the work seems unabashedly operatic. This is understandable, written, as it was, by a composer who had been channeling his creative energies almost exclusively into composing operas for 25 years. Its first soloists were veterans of opera and Verdi’s solo parts often have a distinctly dramatic flavor. Critics have been quick to point this out as a character flaw, indicating that a work of this nature is not entirely appropriate for a liturgical setting. In May of 1874, shortly after its premiere, the German conductor Hans von Bülow criticized the Requiem as an “…opera in ecclesiastic garb…” and, while Bülow eventually recanted his jab, becoming an ardent admirer of the work, his initial label has proven difficult to shake. It is important to point out first that Verdi was not the only composer who was ever guilty of flavoring his sacred music with secular spice. Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Handel were all known to do this at times as well. Indeed, I would argue that it is truly impossible for sacred music to ever remain entirely holy (that is “other”) and we should always expect an inevitable degree of cross-fertilization between the realms. Second, the Requiem shows Verdi’s competence in composing a more ecclesiastical manner of music as well, which may have been directly inspired by Italy’s legacy of sacred composers including the sublime polyphonic masses of Palestrina from the 16th Century and the mighty antiphonal choral music of the composers of St. Mark’s cathedral from the 17th. At the time of the Requiem’s composition Verdi was known to advocate the importance of familiarity with Italy’s music heritage for emerging Italian composers, recommending a strict diet of counterpoint in the old style during conservatory training. Verdi has acquired the reputation of being unlearned, a people’s composer providing popular music, and this perception may be more of a public persona than a reality. No artist could leave as deep and strong a mark on history as Verdi without thorough application of the technical aspects of his craft. Passages in the Requiem, such as the expansive double fugue of the Sanctus, scored for double choir, the glorious choral writing of the opening and closing setting of Requiem aeternam, and the tightly imitative weaving of soloists on Quam olim Abrahae, indeed demonstrate that Verdi was no slouch in this department. Interestingly, the only other works in which we truly experience this type of writing from Verdi are the finales of the String Quartet and the opera Falstaff, both of which are fugal. True enough that in the Requiem it is polyphony tinged with melodrama but we should not begrudge Verdi for synthesizing the ecclesiastical with his typical modus operandi. And the Requiem’s general dramatic curve is very much unlike anything typically found in opera; it seems to have given Verdi the chance to shape a different kind of theatrical scene than he would likely do for the stage.
   
    The operatic and ecclesiastical coexist and interact in Verdi’s Requiem, interacting on the broad, vivid canvas of the orchestra, which may paint some of the clearest programmatic pictures of any 19th Century symphonic work. Verdi continually displays highly imaginative and inventive ways to paint orchestral pictures in often-unexpected ways, and this is truly what makes the Requiem so entertaining. You certainly won’t miss the orchestral hammer strokes of the recurring Dies irae that literally shatter the tranquility of the Requiem aeternam, and everything else they follow, but also listen for the antiphonal offstage trumpets that lead the brass into the terrifying Tuba mirum fanfare, the shrieking upper register woodwind and string punctuations of the bass solo in the Confutatis maledictis that feel like tongues of flame licking the feet of the condemned, the manic ascending and descending chromatic scales that sweep through the entire orchestra at the end of the Sanctus, and the ethereal string coloring throughout the Offertorio that begins with the arching cello melody launching us heaven-ward into the starry firmament and features a solo played by not one, but two violins, creating timbre that is unconventional but highly effective.
   
    Verdi was not a markedly religious man, professing no particular faith, but in this respect he is in the company of both Beethoven and Brahms, neither of whom ever declared allegiance to any religious orthodoxy, but both of whom could create beautiful and uplifting art. As it is, great art is a spiritual experience and no great artist is without his or her own perspective and relationship to divinity. As such, Verdi’s Messa da Requiem presents an intriguing picture of the End Of Days and Eternal Life as only a master of Italian dramatic music could create. Full of great singing and evocative orchestral colors, by turns infernally hellish and melodiously heavenly, Verdi’s Requiem is an experience that is somehow both entertaining and transcendent, providing a rare glimpse of an already great composer’s hidden side.