Brahms.
Verdi was indeed, and militantly, an atheist. The requiem was a political
act--Manzoni was a father of unified, independent Italy and virtual
inventor of its lingua franca; the "Libera me" has to be heard in that
context. Three years after the risorgimento, the requiem is an account of
the national struggle and triumph.
Mark
At 03:27 PM 5/19/2005, you wrote:
>Actually, Ken, Fauré was not so religious as all that; I quote from a
>convenient website
>(http://members.macconnect.com/users/j/jimbob/classical/Faure_Requiem.html):
> >Fauré spent much of his life in the service of the church, but his
> personal views on religion were unconventional at best, downright cynical
> or agnostic at worst. These are his thoughts on spirituality in the
> /Requiem/:"Everything I managed to entertain in the way of religious
> illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from
> beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest."<
>Nox est perpetua una dormienda. And Verdi was an atheist, I believe.
>Berlioz wasn't too croyant, either, so that more or less wraps up 19th C
>requiems of genius...(Well, OK, Cherubini, Dvorak...)
>mj
>Ken Wolman wrote:
>
>>Jill Jones wrote:
>>
>>>Thank you Stephen. I hope that, and am sure that, the things that need
>>>to be said get said.
>>>
>>>I wish it had been like that yesterday. At least we had the Paradisum
>>>section of Faure.
>>>
>>>Best,
>>>Jill
>>
>>
>>Comment deferred is not comment denied. It's just hard for me to say
>>anything coherent and not a brain-dropping about something so lovely.
>>Whatever. Is it okay to describe the tone as "plaintive"? Indeed, it
>>reminds me of the Faure music: sadness, sweetness, and consolation hold
>>each other in balance. This keeps coming back at me:
>>
>>"but of the things
>>no-one can know
>>can we sing?"
>>
>>I suppose the answer is yes, otherwise only the dead would have voices.
>>I'm tempted to try to get into the issue of how deeply our (or any?)
>>culture struggles with coming to terms with death. Not "understanding"
>>it--just struggling to cope with the absolute Unknown. The New York
>>Times today has a story on Stanley Kunitz, who is about to turn 100. He
>>seems unafraid: "I don't want to think about anything, except to become
>>language."
>>
>>Faure faced it in the way of religious consolation. How many others
>>have composed music based on the Latin Requiem Mass? And there are
>>poets: *Timor mortis conturbat me*--and it goes back how far before
>>that? I don't know how effectively the written or simply spoken word
>>actually gets us over timor mortis or a sense of loss, even Donne's
>>defiant sonnet which has its eyes on the 2nd birth in which people may
>>or may not believe. Maybe song is the only way to surmount fear or
>>grief? Ben Jonson has those two wonderful brief elegies on his son and
>>daughter that almost have the music built in, and I'd not be surprised
>>to find that they've already been set as art songs or choral pieces.
>>Though music itself is no guarantee; it too can present answers that
>>seem all but intolerable. Arrigo Boito, the Italian poet/composer who
>>created the libretto for Verdi's *Otello*, created a "Rule of Life" for
>>Iago, a solo that parodies the Credo, expounding his belief in a "cruel
>>God," concluding with "And after all this illusion...death. And then?
>>And then? Death is nullity, and Heaven is an old lie." Verdi's 1874
>>Requiem for Alessandro Manzoni, unlike Faure's, seems to have to fight
>>its way to consolation and hope: the Dies Irae is a raging brass-driven
>>vision of terror and Hell that modulates over its length into a
>>desperate plea ("Libera me, Domine!").
>>
>>I've joked that I wanted the Faure Requiem at my funeral, not the
>>Verdi. As it is I'll settle for a few Barbara Cook recordings.
>>
>>Ken
>>
>>--
>>Kenneth Wolman
>>Proposal Development Department
>>Room SW334
>>Sarnoff Corporation
>>609-734-2538
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