Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Messa da Requiem (1874)

Requiem aeternam - Kyrie 
 

Sequentia 

• Dies irae 

• Tuba mirum 

• Liber scriptus 

• Quid sum miser 

• Rex tremendae 

• Recordare 

• Ingemisco 

• Confutatis 

• Lacrymosa 

Offertorio: Domine Jesu Christe 

Sanctus - Benedictus 

Agnus Dei 

Lux aeterna 

Libera me  

End of concert approximately 9:45 p.m. (Friday) or approximately 4 p.m. (Sunday). 

Anja Bihlmaier conductor 

Studies Musikhochschule Freiburg, Mozarteum Salzburg. 

Current position Chief Conductor Residentie Orkest, regular guest conductor Lahti Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights Recently she has conducted the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Symfónica de Barcelona, Basque National Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid and MDR-Sinfonieorchester. In recent seasons she also conducted several opera productions in Vienna (Volksoper), Trondheim and Malmö. Was permanently attached to the opera houses of Kassel and Hannover.

Guanqun Yu

Chinese soprano Guanqun Yu sang various opera roles in the most important opera houses worldwide such as in New York, Vienna, Hamburg and Zurich, worked with conductors such as Bertrand de Billy and Zubin Mehta and won prizes at the Belvedere International Singing Competition and the Operalia, The World Opera Competition.

Oksana Volkova

Mezzo-soprano Oksana Volkova won first prizes at the International Glinka Vocal Contest and the Dvořák Singing Competition. Debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2013, was heard and seen worldwide in the role of Carmen, sang opera roles at La Scala in Milan, Royal Opera House in London and the Salzburg Festival, among others. Worked with conductors such as Mariss Jansons and Carlo Rizzi. 

Matteo Lippi

Tenor Matteo Lippi studied voice with mezzo-soprano Laura Bullan and at the CUBEC-Academia di Belcanto in Modena. Sang at La Fenice in Venice, San Carlo in Naples and on the Glyndebourne Festival Tour. Sang Verdi's Requiem previously at the Auditorium Milano.

Milan Siljanov

Swiss bass/baritone Milan Siljanov studied in his native Zurich and in London. Won in the prestigious Wigmore Hall/Kon Foundation International Song Competition in 2015 and the previous year several prizes at the International Vocalist Competition ('s-Hertogenbosch). Is an ensemble member of the Bayerischen Staatoper in Munich, sang in various operas and oratorios under conductors such as Vladimir Jurowksi, Kirill Petrenko and Joshua Weilerstein. 

Laurens Symphonic

The Laurens Symphonic is Rotterdam's young, large choir. The choir has reaped many successes since 2010 with its bright choral sound and remarkably fresh approach. The talented singers are led by conductor Wiecher Mandemaker. Together with other choirs, the choir falls under the umbrella organisation Laurens Vocaal. 

Residentie Orkest The Hague 

Founded The Hague, 1904 

Current chief conductor Anja Bihlmaier 

Permanent guest conductors Richard Egarr and Jun Märkl 

Chief conductors Henri Viotta, Peter van Anrooy, Frits Schuurman, Willem van Otterloo, Jean Martinon, Ferdinand Leitner, Hans Vonk, Evgenii Svetlanov, Jaap van Zweden, Neeme Järvi, Nicholas Collon. 

To be seen at Amare, Paard, The National Opera, Royal Concertgebouw, De Doelen, TivoliVredenburg among others . 

Education Annual outreach to over 40,000 schoolchildren, adults and amateur musicians in educational projects. Part of this is The Residents, through which the orchestra brings hundreds of children from districts in The Hague into contact with classical music. 

Verdi 

Rossini and Manzoni 

In late 1868, Gioacchino Rossini died in Passy, a suburb of Paris where he had lived for many years. His death caused a wave of commemorations and in memoriam concerts. Giuseppe Verdi even drummed up a collective of 12 composers to work together to compose a requiem in his memory. The work was completed in 1869 and a performance was scheduled to take place exactly one year after Rossini's death. However, due to bickering among themselves and the questionable quality of the potpourri-like mass, nothing came of it. Only in 1988, as a curiosity, did it come to a first performance in Stuttgart. Verdi temporarily put away his part, the responsorium Libera me . It reappeared in 1873 when the writer, poet and national hero Alessandro Manzoni, much admired by Verdi, died. As a tribute to him, Verdi composed a complete requiem in which the Libera me was given a place. 

The performance had quite a few difficulties. Verdi had intended it as a true concert piece, but the premiere took place in the San Marco in Milan, much to the composer's annoyance during an official celebration of mass. The choir was mixed and half consisted of women who, however, were not allowed to sing in church. The archbishop had to grant special dispensation and did so only if the women would sing dressed entirely in black, with voiles behind a screen. Three days later, the performance went much better in the Milanese scala before a frenzied audience. It became the beginning of a veritable triumphal march around the world of the Requiem. 

Opera in the church 

It is almost an open door to consider Verdi's Messa da Requiem an opera. On the one hand, Verdi was at heart an opera composer, and he did not deny that in this religious piece. On the other hand, the style of church music in Italy had been closely intertwined with that of opera for centuries. Even the religious music of such luminaries as Vivaldi, Rossini and Donizetti seemed to come straight out of opera. It was in keeping with the view that the emotionality of faith and that of opera were an extension of each other, so that the same means of musical expression could be used. Unmistakably, Verdi's Requiem is full of opera. The Dies irae sounds like a spectacular mass scene of a grand epic opera, complete with appropriate trumpet blasts a moment later in the Tuba mirum. The Confutatis maledictus with its chilling text is a truly classic aria of revenge. But the work also has moments in which Verdi does clearly evoke a religious atmosphere. It is inspired by a whole new style of religious music, stimulated from the Vatican, which was inspired by the music of the Renaissance and was very popular in the second half of the nineteenth century, especially in Germany and Italy. Just listen to the Te decet hymnus from the Introïtus where Verdi has the choir sing polyphonically without accompaniment. Beautiful hybrid is the Lux aeterna in which opera and the style of sixteenth-century Palestrina blend seamlessly. 

Personal outpouring 

But to qualify Verdi's Requiem purely as a theatrical composition does an injustice to the work. Given his objection to the church premiere, Verdi did not consider it liturgical music, but it does have religious intent. Verdi considered himself agnostic and was critical of the Catholic religious teachings of his day, but he was certainly not an atheist. And he knew the text of the Requiem all too well from bitter experience. Early in his career, when he had just completed his first opera and was working on a second, he lost his wife and both children in a short time. Even though it was 35 years ago, he could not help but still carry this great sorrow in his heart. It will have helped determine how he approached the text in a very personal way. In doing so, he made convincing use of his great talents as an opera composer. But that does not make the Messa da Requiem an opera. Verdi did realize and took into account the differences in intention between an opera libretto and a religious text. In this way, he created a purely human religious composition unparalleled in music history.  

Kees Wisse