Messe de Requiem a Quatre Parties Principales Soprano Mezzo Soprano Tenor Basse & Choeur ... Executee pour la Premiere Fois a l'Eglise San Marco a Milan. Reduction pour Chant & Piano par M. Saladino. Prix net: 15 Francs ... Pour l'Anniversaire de la Mort de Alessandro Manzoni 22 Mai 1874
Paris: Léon Esudier [PN L.E. 3382], 1874.
Large octavo. Quarter dark blue morocco with marbled boards, raised bands on spine with titling gilt. 1f. (trecto title, verso blank), 1f. (recto contents, verso blank), [5]-7 (text), [i] (blank), 229, [i] (blank) pp. With text in Latin.
With attractive polychrome title page printed in red, blue, and gold on tinted ground, Parisian musicseller's handstamp (Durand Schoenewerk & Cie.) to lower right corner. Embosssed Escudier blindstamp to lower outer corner of p. [3] (table of contents).
Binding slightly worn, rubbed, and bumped; endpapers browned. Minor foxing; small stain to lower outer margin of last four leaves; publisher's blindstamp very slightly trimmed at outer edge.
An attractive copy overall.
First French edition. Hopkinson 3B. Published in the same year as the first Italian edition published by Ricordi in Milan.
First performed in Milan at S Marco on 22 May 1874.
"The Requiem is at once a monument to Italian genius as Verdi perceived it in Rossini and Manzoni, an affirmation of his belief in an Italian music where the orchestra is very important but the sung word is paramount, and the climax of all those scenes, some tender, some terrifying, in which he sought to express his vision of suffering, suppliant humanity." Andrew Porter in The New Grove, Vol. 19, p. 655.
Item #39238
Price: $650.00 other currencies