Verdi: Requiem

Verdi’s Requiem stands alongside Mozart’s in a class of its own: written by a genius (as Johannes Brahms put it), overwhelmingly grand yet surprisingly intimate, traversing the entire spectrum of human emotion.

Throughout his life, Giuseppe Verdi remained an agnostic, neither mocking nor dismissing religion: “To have faith is good, but not to rely on faith is better.” Yet, it was this very man who created one of the most famous religious works in history—a tour de force sparked by the death of the great Italian poet Alessandro Manzoni. Verdi deeply admired the writer, who, like himself, upheld the ideals of humanity and justice. Such a man deserved a tribute. That tribute became the Requiem.

The Requiem is the greatest opera Verdi never wrote; the most dramatic sacred music ever composed. From the ominous, thundering Dies Irae to the achingly beautiful Requiem Aeternam, its scale and scope are immense, its emotional expression breathtakingly wide. And despite its liturgical framework, Verdi succeeded in making the two core themes of every requiem—fear and hope—tangible and accessible to believers and non-believers alike.