Mauro Visconti - Antonio Cocomazzi - Requiem (2022) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

At the beginning of the twentieth century, San Giovanni Rotondo was a tiny village, virtually in the middle of nowhere, in Southern Italy. Then, a humble friar, by the name of Padre Pio, came to the local Franciscan convent. He was destined to change the destiny of that village, but also of countless people all around the world. He was one of the most striking mystics of all times; whilst never attention-seeking, he did attract the gaze of the world for his piety and for the extraordinary phenomena happening to him and around him. A man who physically lived the Passion of Christ, he was also very attentive to the health and wellbeing of the local inhabitants. Thus, among other initiatives, he created one of the greatest and most advanced hospitals in southern Italy, where high-quality medical care was provided together with kindness and attention to the patient’s needs.
Composer Antonio Cocomazzi grew up in San Giovanni Rotondo, by then transformed into one of the most important spiritual and health centres of Southern Italy. His family was acquainted with Padre Pio, and has many intimate memories of the friar’s influence on their lives. In 1998, Cocomazzi was barely twenty-five: still very young, but already with considerable compositional experience. He was asked to compose a major work: a Requiem Mass for Padre Pio, on the thirtieth anniversary of his death (September 23rd). Liturgically, a Requiem is a Eucharist celebrated as an intercession for a dead person’s soul. In 1998, though the fame of Padre Pio’s holiness was already widespread, he had not yet been canonized. The first formal step toward his canonization took place the following year, when he was proclaimed a “venerable”. It was on that occasion that the premiere of Cocomazzi’s Requiem eventually took place; the work has been worthily revived in 2022, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the friar’s canonization.
Nearly twenty-five years passed from the premiere until present day. In the meanwhile, the composer’s career flourished, and he fully realized the promises of his youthful years. Of course, he also acquired experiences and knowledge which he could not have at twenty-five; still, he did not wish to alter a single note of the work he had written as a young man. For one thing, even after writing a huge number of works and issuing nine albums as a pianist/composer, he still considers this Requiem as the highpoint of his output, the peak of his creativity. “When I wrote it”, he states, “it was as if I was being enlightened, perhaps even led by spiritual inspiration”. For another thing, of course he could have changed some minor details, but (rightly) wanted to preserve the work in its original form. This concerns, of course, the overall concept and even the particulars; at the same time, one major intervention was needed, which, still, was not taken as a pretext for further changes.

TRACKLIST

1. Gabriella Costa - Requiem. I. Introitus: Requiem
2. Coro Kemonia - Requiem. II. Kyrie
3. Coro Kemonia - Requiem. III. Sequentia: Dies irae
4. Gabriella Costa - Requiem. III. Sequentia: Tuba mirum
5. Coro Kemonia - Requiem. III. Sequentia: Rex tremendae
6. Gabriella Costa - Requiem. III. Sequentia: Recordare
7. Coro Kemonia - Requiem. III. Sequentia: Confutatis
8. Gabriella Costa - Requiem. III. Sequentia: Lacrimosa
9. Vincenzo Bonomo - Requiem. IV. Offertorium: Domine Jesu Christe
10. Gabriella Costa - Requiem. IV. Offertorium: Hostias
11. Coro Kemonia - Requiem. V. Sanctus
12. Mauro Visconti - Requiem. VI. Benedictus
13. Mauro Visconti - Requiem. VII. Agnus Dei
14. Gabriella Costa - Requiem. VIII. Communio: Lux aeterna



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