Requiem, Verdi

PhORTLY after Rossini's death, in O 1868, Verdi suggested that the Italian composers should combine to write a requiem as a tribute to his memory, which should be performed at the Cathedral of Bologna, evgry hundredtli year, on the centenary of Rossini's death and nowhere else and on no other occasion. The proposal was accepted, and the thirteen numbers of the work were distributed among as many composers. The "Libera me " was assigned to Verdi. The several numbers were duly set to music and sent in, but, as might have been expected, they were found, when performed in uninterrupted succession, to want the unity essential to a work of art, and the scheme was abandoned. When, shortly after this, Alessandro Manzoni died at Milan, Verdi offered to write a requiem forthe anniversarv of liis death ; and this is the composition, the last movement of whieh was originally composed for the requiem of Rossini. It was flrst performed in St. Mark's Church, Milan, 22, 1874. Verdi is essentially a dramatist, and his admirers are forced to adinit the charge that his Requiem is written ii much the same dramatic spirit as his operas, but they urge tliat this fs admia sihle, and that the wprk must be judgei by itself and jiot solely by cotnparing i with the sacred bousic of Bach an Handel.