Some Verdi Surprises

This week on Going Beyond Words and ACDA Radio/ChoralNet, host Stan Schmidt invites you to spend an hour with a master composer who wrote many well-known operas. But there was a time in his composing life that he concentrated on sacred choral music.  His name is Giuseppe Verdi.

This visit includes the incomplete Messa Solenne, and several Ave Marias that are not always heard.  Sections of the Messa Solenne to be explored are the “Cum Sancto Spiritu,” “Kyrie,” and “Gloria.” Performing these works is the Orchestra Sinfonica and the Coro de Milano Giuseppe Verdi with Riccardo Chailly in charge.

Then you will hear the first and third selections from the Quattro Pezzi Sacri: the Ave Maria based on a scale and the Ave Maria for SSAA voices sung in Italian instead of Latin. For a special treat, you will hear two solo Ave Marias, one written in 1889 and the other from Otello Act IV, sung by soprano Carmela Remigio with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, led by Myung-whun Chung.  Then you will hear the La Vergine degli Angeli with soprano Barbara Frittoli from the opera La frza del destino Act II, with the chorus and orchestra of Teatro Regio, Turin.    I hope you enjoy this excursion.

For a look at the CDs used and a complete list of music heard, go to the blog of WWW.GOINGBEYONDWORDS.COM website and click on show 2534.