Mark Weiss wrote:
> 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
One step beyond, then: why use the language of religion? I suppose
accessibility and an assumption, in the political climate of the early
1870s, that the audience could translate or perhaps dwell at two levels
at once.
k
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