MESSA PER ROSSINI
A REQUIEM BY VERDI AND 12 OTHER COMPOSERS IN MEMORY OF ROSSINI
The event is canceled due to the COVID-19 social distancing restrictions.
DC-Premiere of Requiem Mass by G. Verdi and 12 other Italian composers for symphony orchestra mixed choir and four soloists.
Within days of Rossini's death on November 13th, 1868, Verdi proposed to his publisher Ricordi that a Requiem Mass be assembled in Rossini's honor. It would be written by 13 leading Italian composers of the day, each allocated a movement with specific guidance as to key and the distribution of the musical forces. Verdi requested for himself the ''Libera me'', a movement that was to form the basis of the final section of his own Messa di Requiem five years later.
The complete Messa per Rossini was discovered by American musicologist David Rosen in 1970 and premiered in 1988 by the Gächinger Kantorei conducted by Helmuth Rilling at the European Music Festival in Stuttgart and later at other festivals, such as the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2001.