Favorite Verdi's Requiem?

Try the old Ferenc Fricsay recording on DG from 1952. It won't be your main recording but you can get it very cheap used on Amazon, the sound is actually very good for the date of release, and it's a stirring, moving performance. The successive entrance of the 4 soloists in the opening movement has to be one of the most exciting moments of music I have ever heard. I urge you to step past your reaction to the recording date and take a flyer on it, not much money at stake.

No one's mentioned the preeminent performance of the Requiem, which is the Carlo Giulini recording with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

Enjoy.

I was able to pick up a Claudio Abbado version on DG. I was only able to listen to the 1st side, due to a month long visit from my non music loving father-in-law, but it sounded pretty good. Not anything like live, but could not get the DSO in my house.

I will look for your suggestions. Vinyl or CD are OK.

Keep the idea's coming and thanks already!

My own fave rave Verdi Requiem is the old Reiner/Price lp, available in various pressings and, I'm sure, on cd, too. I feel that , maybe not uniquely among all the various recorded interpretations, but powerfully, Reiner approaches the Requiem as if it were a serious piece of German religious music. That it is, in fact, a piece of high Italian secular theatricality means that this may be a misrepresentation of the true heart of the piece, but to my ear it raises
Verdi's sometimes beautiful, sometimes coarse outburst to a new level of seriousness. Reiner, of course, can't suppress Leontyne Price's pure vocality to get a little subtlety out of her, but then no available recording of which I am aware (I don't know all that many) has an altogether satisfactory set of soloists so any version will be something of a compromise in some respect.
The original Soria pressing is maybe better than the Decca/London pressing but the sound has always been excellent and cd reissues may be just as successful.
In any case, it's a neat piece of music and about the only Verdi I really enjoy.

The Telarc performance of Robert Shaw with the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus is very good and with great sound.
One of Telarc's best efforts.