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- title:
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- Verdi Requiem
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- year:
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- 2001
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- record company:
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- Philips
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- order number
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- 468 079-2
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- Gergiev's Verdi
Requiem
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- Tracklist with Audiofiles
(click on track to
listen)
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- to watch the
promotion video click here:
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Philips celebrates the Verdi centenary in 2001 with a
stunning performance of the Requiem; a mighty reflection
on life and death that Bernard Shaw said would prove
more enduring than any of Verdi's opera
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- Recorded in London by
Fleming, Borodina, Bocelli, D'Arcangelo and Gergiev's
Kirov Orchestra and Chorus
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"Shortly before I took part in the recording of
the Requiem, I had recorded Verdi arias, but the work that
Verdi wrote in honour of the great writer Manzoni, of
course is much more intimate and is much more profound.
Manzoni was an extraordinary religious man and after his
death he was given a State funeral. When I sang the
Requiem I thought of God and of my father. " Andrea
Bocelli
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- THE RUSSIAN ACCENT
Valery Gergiev who is artistic director of the Kirov
orchestra, opera and ballet - and Principal Guest
Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera - knows that the
choice of the Kirov's unique resources has brought a new
ingredient to the performance of the Requiem.
"I know," he says, "that when you think
about Russian conductors or Russian singers like Olga
Borodina, Verdi is not the first name that springs to
mind. But Russian opera demands the same sort of dramatic
and energetic quality that Verdi requires. I
think the distinctive depth and range of the Kirov forces
bring something of great importance to the Requiem, for
there is no other work like it."
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- "To have recorded
this piece in a church," says Renée Fleming "is
already inspiring and when you add the acoustic to the
kind of sound the Orchestra has, it's ear splitting. I'm
sure that this was the effect that Verdi intended: to
really rock people out of their seats ... and it does."
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- ON GERGIEV AND THE
KIROV
"I could not pass this opportunity to do this piece
with Valery Gergiev", says Renée Fleming. "He's
a conductor who can inspire and those are the kinds of
situations that I seek as a singer, because I know that he
will enable me to surpass my own limitations."
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- "It's an organic
feeling working with the Maestro and his orchestra,"
says Andrea Bocelli. "They kind of breathe together.
I feel this orchestra can perform in a way that no other
orchestra can do. It's incredible."
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- There is no work more
central to the 2001 Verdi celebrations - of the hundredth
anniversary of his death - than the Requiem Giuseppe Verdi
wrote for Alessandro Manzoni. It is a product of the most
peaceful part of his life. In the sixteen years between
Aida in 1871 and Otello in 1887 he wrote no operas -
seeming happy, it appeared, to live a rustic life on
his farm near Milan, growing corn and wheat and raising
chickens.
- Verdi was a man of great
spirituality but by no means of formal religious beliefs -
"a very doubtful believer" as his wife put it -
but in 1868 when Rossini died in Paris, Verdi suggested
that the city of Bologna where he grew up should celebrate
his life with a Requiem, written by a number of Italy's
leading composers. Verdi himself composed a final
Libera me and the combined work was finished although
never performed.
- He returned to the idea,
however, five years later with the death of Alessandro
Manzoni, a poet, novelist, humanitarian and national hero
- a prominent figure, like Verdi, in the
Risorgimento, the movement for Italian unification.
Manzoni was given a State funeral which Verdi did not
attend, choosing rather to go alone and silently to his
grave. He had once inscribed a photograph of himself to
Manzoni with the words: "I esteem and admire you as
much as any one man can esteem and admire anyone on this
earth. You are a saint, Don Alessandro." And with his
death Verdi decided to compose a Requiem by himself
with the intention of performing it one year to the day
after Manzoni's death.
- It was an immediate, if
controversial, success and after its first performance
in the church of San Marco in Milan, Verdi conducted
another 15 performances in Paris, four in Vienna and three
in London.The Libera me he had written for the abortive
Rossini Requiem was substantially used, revised and
re-scored for soprano and unaccompanied chorus. It
provided a heartrending and majestic conclusion to a work
that is certainly as powerful and unforgettable as
anything he ever wrote for any of his operas.
- Verdi's Requiem "is a
symbol of power and mystery, of life and death", says
Gergiev. "I think Verdi gave us an incredible
document of human genius. He embraced the whole gamut of
our thoughts, of our hopes and of our inevitable problems."
But what perhaps distinguishes the Requiem from others, by
Mozart, Brahms, Berlioz or even Fauré is that it stems
from Verdi's own compassion for, and understanding of, two
great men so that it becomes a direct and immensely
personal statement of Verdi's own spirituality. Brahms
said that only a genius could have written such a work and
we might say that the demands it makes upon its conductor,
soloists and chorus require exceptional artists to convey
its unique power and force.
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Andrea Bocelli's career in
pop music sometimes overshadows the enthusiasm with which he
follows his increasingly more successful way as classical
singer. Gergiev, who chose him for the recording, said:
"In my opinion the reason for his success is the
importance he sees in the traditional values of music: beauty
of sound, beauty of melody, expression of the own feelings.
People let themselves get enchanted by his voice, but also
from the world of feelings he transmits, and just this is the
reason, why I wanted him to take part in this performance. He
works hard and always is ready to learn more. Valery
Gergiev
"With Andrea Bocelli, who has a huge mass of fans, I
was impressed by the devotion to the repertoire"
Renée Fleming
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