Giuseppe Verdi once said, "Requiem aeternam, et lux perpetua luce at eis."

"WHAT?!?!?" I hear you exclaim, as one voice, "That's Latin, and he was a modern Italian."

Yes, and these are the opening words of Verdi's "Requiem" in the original Latin, so I can say with a strong level of certainty that, at some point in the process of composing Requiem, he must have said the words aloud.

And...

I will be singing the words tonight at the Verdi "Requiem" concert.

Many of you will know the music because the "Dies Irae" is used as backing music for a surprising number of TV documentaries where they want the crash and bang of an orchestra in full flight, with the rising and descending strings, along with the bellowing full voice of a choir. "Dies irae" means "Day of anger", and is followed by the words "Dies illa"... "Day of terror". The music reflects these emotions in the context of the classic Latin Mass, at the point when it is appropriate to be both angry and terrified that the dead have departed the earthly realm.

I just LOVE singing at full ff (fortissimo) followed by dead silence and then ppp (pianississimo). It tingles the back of the neck!

There is lots of Bass in this orchestra. Three string basses, and the brass has a Bflat bass and four trombones (several bass tombs) and a tympani (kettle drum set) and the biggest bass drum I've seen that has had the skins loosened to give a very flaccid sound.

I wish you could all be there. Of course, some of you might be!

_____
Peter