[ Decca / 2 CD ]
Release Date: Sunday 8 September 2013
This item is only available to us via Special Import.
A Verdi Requiem with a dream line-up of soloists and the forces of La Scala, Milan, directed by one of the greatest maestros of our time
With acclaimed performances at the Lucerne and Salzburg Festivals, Daniel Barenboim and his magnificent partners recorded this masterpiece around a live performance at La Scala, Milan, in 2012. A superb quartet of soloists - Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros, Elina Garanca and René Pape - stamp their authority on this terrific performance.
This marks the first audio recording by Barenboim in his role as La Scala's Music Director.
"Even without a fully Italianate instrument, Kaufmann's honeyed, warm tone makes him exceptional in Verdi… Kaufmann's refined artistry shows that even without the leather-lunged Verdians of half a century ago, today's stars can stake their claim on the composer." (The Telegraph)
"an optimum line-up of soloists for our time...Garanca's lush mezzo sounds like an Amneris in waiting in the Lux aeterna; Pape is a rock in the bass soloist's pronouncements...I wouldn't want to be without Kaufmann's searing Ingemisco and moving, introverted Hostias…" Sunday Times, 22nd September 2013
"It's a thoughtful, considered interpretation that places the emphasis not so much on the terrors of divine judgment as on mankind's suffering in the face of the unknown...the end result makes up in compassion for what it sometimes lacks in visceral excitement." The Guardian, 10th October 2013 ****
"this performance, exciting and occasionally thrilling though it is, is not remotely Italian...It's a 'through-composed' linked-up performance, paced withy a dramatic curve that makes even the punchiest Italian-led ones...feel like number opera...The non-Italian soloists are in good fearless voice and aurally well integrated into this concept." Editor's Choice Gramophone Magazine, November 2013
1.1a. Requiem (Live In Milan / 2012)
2.1b. Kyrie Eleison (Live In Milan / 2012)
3.2a. Dies Irae (Live In Milan / 2012)
4.2b. Tuba Mirum (Live In Milan / 2012)
5.2c. Mors Stupebit (Live In Milan / 2012)
6.2d. Liber Scriptus (Live In Milan / 2012)
7.2e. Quid Sum Miser (Live In Milan / 2012)
8.2f. Rex Tremendae (Live In Milan / 2012)
9.2g. Recordare (Live In Milan / 2012)
10.2h. Ingemisco (Live In Milan / 2012)
11.2i. Confutatis (Live In Milan / 2012)
12.2j. Lacrymosa (Live In Milan / 2012)
13.3a. Offertorium - Domine, Jesu Christe (Live In Milan / 2012)
14.3b. Offertorium - Hostias (Live In Milan / 2012)
15.4. Sanctus (Live In Milan / 2012)
16.5. Agnus Dei (Live In Milan / 2012)
17.6. Lux Aeterna (Live In Milan / 2012)
18.7a. Libera Me - Libera Me (Live In Milan / 2012)
19.7b. Libera Me - Dies Irae (Live In Milan / 2012)
20.7c. Libera Me - Requiem Aeternam (Live In Milan / 2012)
21.7d. Libera Me - Libera Me (Live In Milan / 2012)