PREVIEW: Pasadena Symphony at Pasadena Civic Auditorium

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
This article was first published today in the above papers.
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Pasadena Symphony Orchestra, Jorge Mester, conductor
Occidental Chorale, Jeffrey Bernstein, conductor; Kelly Nassief, soprano; Carmella Jones, mezzo-soprano; Stuart Neill, tenor; Nmon Ford, bass-baritone
Verdi: Messa da Requiem
Sat., April 12; 8 p.m. Preconcert lecture at 7 p.m.
Pasadena Civic Auditorium; 300 E. Green St., Pasadena
Tickets: $20-$75. Children ages 5-17: $10. Rush tickets are $10 for students and seniors (65+) on Saturday at the Civic box office.
Information: 626/793-7172; www.pasadenasymphony.org
Of note: The PSO will offer an open dress rehearsal from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, April 12. Tickets are $10 regardless of age, and are available at the Civic box office.
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When most people hear the word requiem, they equate it with the Roman Catholic liturgical service, i.e., the Mass for the Dead. That's often true in classical music circles, as well, but it was clearly NOT what Giuseppe Verdi contemplated with his Messa da Requiem. Verdi always envisioned the piece in a concert hall setting, and that's how it will be played Saturday night at 8 in the Pasadena Civic Auditorium by the Pasadena Symphony, Occidental Chorale and four soloists.

The evening will be the final concert of the orchestra's 80th season and it was a natural choice for Music Director Jorge Mester, who estimates he has conducted the work about 10 times. "I think 'the Verdi' is one of those magic pieces that works on every level," says Mester. "For some reason, many performing artists often feel a spiritual connection to it. For those who find it a religious experience, it is that also, but it's dramatic, very operatic as well."

In a sense, Verdi wrote the 85-minute piece backwards. Although Verdi was not a religious man (his wife termed him a "doubtful believer"), he wrote the final movement, a haunting Libera Me, as a memorial for another composer, Giacomo Puccini, who died 1868. However, it was never performed (the machinations of that aborted event would make a prototypical Italian opera). Nonetheless, when Italian poet Allesandro Manzoi died in 1873, Verdi wrote an entire Requiem to honor the poet's memory (the work is often called the Manzoni Requiem) and finished it with the previously written Libera Me.

The Messa da Requiem was one of the last major works that Verdi composed (only the operas Otello and Falstaff remained). The Requiem was premiered on May 22, 1874, the first anniversary of Manzoni's death, at San Marco Cathedral in Milan and then three days later at was performed Milan's La Scala Opera House to great acclaim.

Only a handful of organizations have the forces to perform Verdi's Requiem adequately, explains Jeffrey Bernstein, director of the Occidental Chorale, which will sing in Saturday's performance. "It requires enormous forces, a full-sized orchestra and a lot of singers -- 120 singers is a bare minimum. It doesn't get done a whole lot because it takes an orchestra of the Pasadena Symphony's caliber to do it." To cite but one example of that latter statement: Verdi's Requiem wasn't performed by the Chicago Symphony until 1952.

Few works in the choral repertoire vary as widely dynamically as does the Verdi Requiem. The Dies Irae and Tuba Mirum sections feature some of the loudest music ever written, with trumpets surrounding the stage and bass drum stroke that hammer home the ominous message like no other composer every did.

"Jorge's passion for this piece is incredible; in a way," says Bernstein. "He feels like he wrote it. I can tell when we talk about it that this is going to be quite extraordinary."
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(c) Copyright 2008, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.