When he composed his Requiem in the early 1870s, Verdi was contemplating not only mortality in general but also the death of Italian musical culture as he had known and loved it for sixty years. Turning his back upon the operatic theatre he had dominated for decades, he composed this movingly sacred yet strikingly theatrical cry from the soul. No one is more attuned to Verdi's style than the great tenor Luciano Pavarotti, captured here at the height of his powers and splendidly supported by greats Marilyn Horne, Joan Sutherland, and the Vienna Philharmonic under the incomparable Sir Georg Solti.