Luisi & Verdi's Requiem

Nothing can make the hairs on your neck stand up like Verdi's magnificent Requiem. Fabio Luisi, Chief Conductor of the DR Symphony Orchestra, is a great interpreter of Verdi's intense depiction of heaven and hell, and says that conducting the work is like a personal purification for him - every time. For more than a thousand years, composers have set the Latin Mass for the dead, the requiem, to music. But Verdi's version, first performed in 1874, is unrivalled in its moving reflection on faith, doubt, grief and redemption. The deaths of two close colleagues - one of them the composer Rossini - made Verdi consider writing a requiem of his own. It was to become a deeply personal work - an exploration of the human being struggling to find their place and their faith, not unlike the operas for which the composer is famous. Verdi's work is one of the most dramatic and intense requiem masses in existence. Originally many thought it too overwhelming in its expression, but history has shown otherwise. Today Verdi's Requiem stands as a work of indescribable beauty and emotional depth, loved in concert halls all over the world.

• BBC Singers
• Fabio Luisidirigent
• Saimir PirguTenor
• Maria AgrestaSopran
• Deniz UzunMezzosopran