Messa da Requiem is the fourth work to be published in The Works of
Giuseppe Verdi. Following the strict requirements of the series, this
edition is based on Verdi's autograph and other authentic sources, and
has been reviewed by a distinguished editorial board--Philip Gossett
(general editor), Julian Budden, Martin Chusid, Francesco Degrada,
Ursula Günther, Giorgio Pestelli, and Pierluigi Petrobelli. It is
available as a two-volume set: a full orchestral score and a critical
commentary. The appendixes include two pieces from the compositional
history of the Requiem: an early version of the Libera me, composed
in 1869 as part of a collaborative work planned as a memorial to
Rossini; and the Liber scriptus, which in the original score of the
Manzoni memorial Requiem was composed as a fugue in G minor. The
score, which has been beautifully bound and autographed, is printed on
high-grade paper in an oversized format. The introduction to the score
discusses the work's genesis, instrumentation, and problems of notation.
The critical commentary, printed in a smaller format, discusses the
editorial decisions and traces the complex compositional history of the
Requiem.