Gijs Leenaars, the principal conductor and artistic director of the Rundfunkchor Berlin since 2015, leads that group and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin on a recording of sacred music by Verdi and his contemporaries. This is the second album with Leenaars conducting this combination, following 2019's choral music of Brahms, also on Sony Classical. Though the album cover only displays the Quattro pezzi sacri, the program is filled out with a second work by Verdi (the Pater noster), as well as works by Rossini, ...
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Gijs Leenaars, the principal conductor and artistic director of the Rundfunkchor Berlin since 2015, leads that group and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin on a recording of sacred music by Verdi and his contemporaries. This is the second album with Leenaars conducting this combination, following 2019's choral music of Brahms, also on Sony Classical. Though the album cover only displays the Quattro pezzi sacri, the program is filled out with a second work by Verdi (the Pater noster), as well as works by Rossini, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Marco Enrico Bossi, and the Requiem by Puccini, written for the fourth anniversary of Verdi's death. The Quattro pezzi sacri were written separately over eight years, with two movements originally for a cappella vocal quartet. It is a harmonically and dynamically challenging set of works, alternating between a cappella sections and full chorus and orchestra. The opening "Ave Maria" is composed on the enigmatic scale following Adolfo Crescentini's publishing of the...
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