Paul McCreesh: a Trauersymphonie and a grand Requiem

Conductor Paul McCreesh returns to the Matinee for the first time since 2008. This time he links the Viennese classics Haydn and Mozart with the French Italian Luigi Cherubini.

Cherubini: Haydn fan and model for Beethoven
Luigi Cherubini would have been forever forgotten in music history. That he made a comeback in the second half of the twentieth century is thanks to Maria Callas, who revived his opera Medea, and to conductor Riccardo Muti, who worked tirelessly for his great choral works. Cherubini was born four years after Mozart, survived both Mozart and Haydn and was held in high regard by Beethoven, who considered him the greatest composer of his time. His Requiem in c was the model for Beethoven's Missa solemnis. Cherubini himself so adored Joseph Haydn that in 1805 - four years early - he dedicated a Chant sur la mort de Haydn to his idol.

Cherubini's Requiem for Louis XVI
Cherubini, Italian by birth, acquired an almost papal status in Parisian musical life between 1787 and his death in 1842. He was extremely skillful politically, writing hymns to the revolution as easily as this impressive Requiem for the commemoration of the beheading of Louis XVI.