Conductor:
Andres Mustonen

Asta Kriksciunaite, soprano;
Noa Frenkel, mezzo-soprano;
Rafal Bartminski, tenor;
Gennadi Bezzubenkov, bass
Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovenian Chamber Choir, Choir of the Opera SNT Maribor

This year the musical world celebrates the bicentenary of the birth of the great Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. The Ljubljana Festival pays tribute to this music giant by presenting one of his most beautiful works of art – Requiem. This epoch-making vocal instrumental composition was created under unusual circumstances. After the death of Gioacchino Rossini, in 1868, Verdi suggested that each of his colleagues should write a sentence for a Requiem in the late composer’s memory. He himself contributed the part Libera me. Although each of his colleagues, who are – except for Verdi – mostly forgotten today, wrote their individual sentences, this unusual work was never actually performed. Only a few years later, after the death of the writer and humanist Alessandro Manzoni, whom the composer deeply admired, Verdi decided to write a requiem in his memory that would contain all the necessary sentences. In June 1873, he travelled to Paris, where he wrote his work of art and revised the sentence Libera me. Thus Verdi left to the musical world one of the most beautiful and convincing as well as deeply religious musical works.