Verdi's Manzoni Requiem

I remember this piece played by the New Jersey Symphony in Liberty State Park on the first anniversary of 9/11. The dress rehearsal was shown on television, with the musicians singing and playing to empty seats, as if to those who had died on 9/11. It was played and sung at Terezin by inmates of the concentration camp, who sang to the Nazis of G-d's enduring covenant with "Abraham and his seed." And Verdi, an agnostic, wrote it in memory of the Catholic Manzoni. It is uniquely humane music that tells of terror in the face of death while offering the balm of hope and forgiveness.

Chana Yosefa