Daniel Oren about his relationship with Latin religious music
“Music is a contact with God. I also said this when I conducted Verdi’s Requiem at Santa Cecilia in November: it wasn’t a concert, it was prayer. I prayed during rehearsals much better than in the synagogue. It had nothing to do with whether it was in Latin or Hebrew. I felt elevated through the Requiem to very high levels thanks to these wonderful texts. I am thinking of Dvorák’s Stabat Mater, Puccini’s Mass that I took to St. Petersburg, or Rossini’s Mass that I had the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra play first a decade ago. Some very dogmatic Jewish orchestrators disagreed, but after the concerts they told me: ‘Maestro, you were right’. Art goes beyond that.” Read the full interview for Avvenire via the link below (language: Italian)