From Messa da Requiem by Giuseppi Verdi (10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901). When Gioachino Rossini died in 1868, Verdi suggested that a number of Italian composers should collaborate on a Requiem in Rossini’s honor. During the next year a Messa per Rossini was compiled by 13 composers, famous at the time, of whom the only one well known today is Verdi himself. The premiere was scheduled for 13 November 1869, the first anniversary of Rossini’s death. However, on 4 November, nine days before the premiere, the organising committee abandoned it. Verdi blamed the scheduled conductor, Angelo Mariani, for this. He pointed to Mariani’s lack of enthusiasm for the project, even though he had been part of the organising committee from the start, and it marked the beginning of the end of their long-term friendship. The piece fell into oblivion until 1988, when Helmuth Rilling premiered the complete Messa per Rossini in Stuttgart, Germany. In the meantime, Verdi kept toying with his composition, frustrated that the combined commemoration of Rossini’s life would not be performed in his lifetime. On 22 May 1873, the Italian writer and humanist Alessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi had admired all his adult life and met in 1868, died. Upon hearing of his death, Verdi resolved to complete a Requiem—this time entirely of his own writing—for Manzoni. Verdi travelled to Paris in June, where he commenced work on the Requiem, giving it the form we know today. The Requiem was first performed in the church of San Marco in Milan on 22 May 1874, the first anniversary of Manzoni’s death. Verdi himself conducted. The Lacrimosa is part of the Dies Irae sequence in the Requiem mass. Its text comes from the 18th and 19th stanzas of the sequence. Many composers, including Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi have set the text as a discrete movement of the Requiem. Latin Text: Lacrimosa dies illa, qua resurget ex favilla. Judicandus homo reus. Huic ergo parce, Deus. Pie Jesu, Domine, Dona eis requiem. Amen. English translation: Full of tears shall be that day on which from ashes shall arise the guilty to be judged. Therefore, O God, have mercy on their souls; gentle Lord Jesus, grant them eternal rest. Amen. (WIKIPEDIA)