The great Maestro Daniel Barenboim will conduct two performances of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem on the evenings of November 18th, and 20th at the Teatro all Scala. Artists scheduled for the offering are Miss Barbara Frittoli, Miss Sonia Ganassi, Mr. Jonas Kaufmann, and Mr. René Pape.

The mass was written by Maestro Verdi as a tribute to the composer Gioacchino Rossini. Guiseppina Streponi, Maestro Verdi’s wife considered her husband an atheist, which perhaps answers the vexing question as to why he would write a mass as opposed to an oratorio. Not to mention both Cherubini and Rossini had also set a precedent in honoring departed public figures via the use of a mass.

The tone is set at the very opening, in which soloists challenge the calm choral serenity of the Requiem aeterna with emphatic individual entreaties. The ensuing Sequenz, whose 11 sections occupy nearly half the work’s total length, is suffused with human drama that explores a wide range of emotion while preserving an overall sense of musical continuity. Based on a rhymed 13th century Latin poem, it begins with a heaven-storming eruption of the Dies irae (“Day of Wrath”), intensified by syncopated thwacks on a huge bass drum, and proceeds through the sun-blasted brass and tympani of Tuba mirim; a chilling bass solo drained of even a shred of melody (Mors stupendit); the mezzo’s dire warning of the book in which deeds are recorded (Liber scriptus); a desperate quest for a path to salvation (Quid sum miser) in which, a full choral promise of divine judgment that sounds far more imperious and intimidating than inviting and just (Rex tremendae); fervent yet tender arias of a sinner’s confession and a plea for absolution (Recordare and Ingemisco); an abject appeal for contrition (Confutatis); and then an abbreviated return of the terrifying Dies irae that sweeps all of these aside in a wave of utter fear. Finally, there remains only a heart-rending simple plea for mercy (Lacrymosa).

The ensuing major sections comprise an Offertory in which the solo quartet sweetly but ardently asks for deliverance, a swift and giddy Sanctus in which the choir is stereophonically divided to trade leaping phrases of unabashed joyous praise, and a shimmering a capella prayer for eternal rest featuring the soprano and mezzo soloists in tight parallel motion (Agnus dei). But then the respite is broken and the purity and affirmation of these longings are darkened in the Lux aeterna by an ominous challenge of deep brass figures and by increasing tension between orchestra and chorus, creating a division between text and presentation, highlighted by the soprano’s attempts to soar toward the light, at first boosted by feathery flute and violin, but then weighted down by the rest of the instruments.

While Maestro’s Mozart, Cherubini and Berlioz had completed their requiems with the peaceful supplications of an Agnus dei or Lux aeterna, Maestro Verdi added a further section to conclude on a note not of consolation but discomfiting trepidation. Indeed, the Libera me not only serves as the culmination of the entire work but as its summation and emotional core, as if, having dutifully respected the traditional components of a requiem mass, Maestro Verdi at last steps out to have a final, deeply personal say. While the movement mostly follows the version he had prepared for the Rossini mass, Maestro Verdi enhances the first portion of the Dies irae outburst with a more intense orchestral role, darkens the texture, and shifts emphasis from the universality of the chorus to the personal plea of the solo soprano.

The structure of his Libera me is one of disconcerting clashes of styles and a succession of moods that dispels any comfort the text might suggest. It begins in the naïve pure faith of hushed monotone Gregorian chant, soon challenged by trembling fear of the soprano’s premonition of the day of reckoning. The tranquility is shattered by a reprise of the uproar of the Dies Irae outburst from the second movement, followed by a reflection of the Requiem aeterna that opened the work, but this time, rather than setting an initial reverential mood and reference point, it barely dispels the preceding turmoil; indeed, its temporizing aura of universal order is soon challenged by the soprano, this time embellishing the soothing choral lines with a reminder of the skeptical human dimension. Then, after she turns fearful once again, there erupts a stern fugue, that most venerable, staid and intellectual of musical forms, suggesting a final effort to restore order and revert to historical precedent, but in this context it seems more an insistent demand than an appealing supplication. Soon, its universal abstraction, too, ultimately cedes to the increasingly desperate human quest of the lone soprano. Indeed, it seems that Maestro Verdi, like Jesus, has humanized the relationship between mankind and deity concerning death, the one mystery of life that we all must confront regardless of social rank or religious outlook.

After a final climax that utterly exhausts the chorus, the soprano offers a line of chant in a nearly conversational tone (marked in the score “senza misura” – “without strict time”) and then, as softly as possible (marked “pppp“) at the very bottom of her range (middle C) and utterly drained of feeling (the score specifies “morendo” – “dying”) with final breaths barely manages to growl two final pleas of “libera me” as if, having tried all the standard approaches to prayer, she is left stripped of any armor religion might provide to confront the worst fear of all for a culture steeped in faith – that at the very end of life’s struggle there is no salvation at all but only eternal silence. And so Maestro Verdi’s Requiem ends in a gesture that’s musically and philosophically both thoroughly modern in its theology and utterly devastating in its emotional impact.

Offertory Teatro alla Scala 1967 Conductor Maestro Herbert Von Karajan. The principals for this performance: Miss Leontyne Price, Miss Fiorenza Cossotto, Mr. Luciano Pavarotti, Mr. Nicholai Ghiaurov.