BRITTEN 1913 – 1976 War Requiem Op
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
BENJAMIN BRITTEN 1913 – 1976 War Requiem Op. 66 CD1 37:17 01 6:43 Requiem aeternam 02 4:03 What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? 03 3:33 Dies irae 04 3:01 Bugles sang britten 05 3:23 Liber scriptus proferetur war requiem 06 1:40 Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death 07 3:24 Recordare 08 1:06 Confutatis maledictis 09 3:06 Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm 10 2:04 Lacrimosa 11 5:05 Move him into the sun CD2 46:15 01 3:46 Offertorium KURT MASUR conductor 02 6:30 So Abram rose, and clave the wood 03 3:06 Sanctus CHRISTINE BREWER soprano 04 3:03 Benedictus ANTHONY DEAN GRIFFEY tenor 05 3:53 After the blast of lightning from the East 06 3:41 Agnus Dei GERALD FINLEY baritone 07 6:58 Libera me LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA and CHOIR 08 8:37 It seemed that out of battle I escaped 09 6:26 ‘Let us sleep now…’ KURT MASUR conductor NEVILLE CREED conductor (chamber orchestra) and chorus master CHRISTINE BREWER soprano ANTHONY DEAN GRIFFEY tenor GERALD FINLEY baritone LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA and CHOIR BORIS GARLITSKY leader (chamber orchestra) PIETER SCHOEMAN leader (symphony orchestra) TIFFIN BOYS’ CHOIR simon toyne conductor (Tiffin Boys’ Choir) LPO – 0010 Benjamin Britten’S War requiem The opening Requiem Aeternam begins ‘In Paradisum’ from the Requiem and the War requiem in the tragic world of D minor, recalling words are taken up by all the soloists and the early Sinfonia da Requiem. Its funeral chorus in a great wave of benediction. ‘My subject is War, and the pity of War. the medieval cathedral which had been march rhythms, punctuated by tolling At the War Requiem’s first performance The Poetry is in the pity… All a poet can almost entirely destroyed by bombs in 1940. bells, alternate with the ethereal sounds of in May 1963, Britten had hoped to have do today is warn.’ Wilfred Owen’s words Britten came up with a radically innovative boys’ voices – Britten’s innocent observers British, German and Russian soloists stand at the head of the score of Benjamin scheme. He decided to intersperse the – accompanied by organ. The huge Dies Irae as a visible symbol of reconciliation, Britten’s War Requiem, his great artistic movements of the Latin Mass for the Dead, contains within it four of the Owen settings. but the Soviets would not allow Galina statement of pacifism. Britten was a set for soprano, boys’ and mixed chorus, and Its main material is a halting quick march, a Vishnevskaya to stand on the same stage pacifist throughout his life. At school he large orchestra, with poems by Owen - the chilling musical image of the laden troops as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, so Heather had refused to join the Officers’ Training most searingly subversive of the First World going ‘over the top’ and stumbling towards Harper (who also appears on LPO-0002 Corps, and his anti-war attitudes were War poets - for tenor and baritone soloists, their deaths. After the Offertorium, the Haitink conducts Britten) took her place. stimulated by long conversations with with chamber orchestra. Although Britten start of the Sanctus, with its harsh, brilliant The final hushed ‘Amen’ was followed by a his composition teacher Frank Bridge respected the teachings of the Church, he bells and solo soprano flourishes, recalls long, stunned silence (and a similar silence about the First World War. In the 1930s was not a Christian, and the Owen poems Orthodox liturgy; then the freely chanting followed the live recording captured on he was actively engaged with the Peace he chose sometimes implicitly criticise voices of the choir (Britten borrowing a this disc). Almost everyone in the audience Pledge Union, and he wrote several works the Requiem texts. So, for example, the sound remembered from Holst’s Hymn of realised they had witnessed the birth of promoting the cause of peace, notably the liturgical last trump in the Dies Irae, ‘Tuba Jesus) lead the music into an explosively that rare phenomenon, a modern classic. neglected Ballad of Heroes. On returning mirum, spargens sonum’ (‘the wondrous exultant D major, the work’s only moment The first recording of the work, conducted to England from the USA during the trumpet, scattering its sound’) is followed of triumph. In total contrast, the quietly by Britten, sold over 200,000 copies in Second World War, he and his partner Peter by Owen’s poem ‘Bugles sang, saddening undulating Agnus Dei interweaves the the first year of its release. Almost no Pears declared themselves conscientious the evening air’; and, most tellingly, the liturgy with Owen’s poem ‘At a Calvary near serious composer since has been able objectors. In his statement to the tribunal confident claim of the Offertorium, ‘quam the Ancre’ which makes telling references to communicate on such a wide scale, (from which they both succeeded in olim Abrahae promisisti, et semini eius’ to the Crucifixion; at the end the solo tenor and on such an important theme. In obtaining exemption from war service), (‘which thou didst promise of old to offers a clinching ‘Dona nobis pacem’. The the twenty-first century when, far from Britten declared: ‘The whole of my life has Abraham, and his seed’), is undermined Libera me returns to the funeral march retreating, war rages feverishly around been devoted to acts of creation… and I by Owen’s devastating reinterpretation of mood of the Requiem Aeternam. Its grinding the world, the War Requiem’s warning cannot take part in acts of destruction.’ the Abraham and Isaac story, ending with climax melts away into the misty purgatory message is still urgently relevant. The opportunity to express his deepest ‘the old man would not so, but slew his son of Owen’s ‘Strange meeting’, where dead feelings about war came in 1958 when – And half the seed of Europe, one by one’, German and British soldiers meet; the David Matthews Britten was asked to compose a large- lines that the solo tenor and baritone repeat former confesses ‘I am the enemy you killed scale work for the consecration of the new over and over again while the boys’ chorus my friend’, and offers forgiveness. Their Coventry Cathedral, built on the ruins of impotently sing the words of the liturgy. final ‘Let us sleep now’ is mingled with the Benjamin Britten’S War requiem The opening Requiem Aeternam begins ‘In Paradisum’ from the Requiem and the War requiem in the tragic world of D minor, recalling words are taken up by all the soloists and the early Sinfonia da Requiem. Its funeral chorus in a great wave of benediction. ‘My subject is War, and the pity of War. the medieval cathedral which had been march rhythms, punctuated by tolling At the War Requiem’s first performance The Poetry is in the pity… All a poet can almost entirely destroyed by bombs in 1940. bells, alternate with the ethereal sounds of in May 1963, Britten had hoped to have do today is warn.’ Wilfred Owen’s words Britten came up with a radically innovative boys’ voices – Britten’s innocent observers British, German and Russian soloists stand at the head of the score of Benjamin scheme. He decided to intersperse the – accompanied by organ. The huge Dies Irae as a visible symbol of reconciliation, Britten’s War Requiem, his great artistic movements of the Latin Mass for the Dead, contains within it four of the Owen settings. but the Soviets would not allow Galina statement of pacifism. Britten was a set for soprano, boys’ and mixed chorus, and Its main material is a halting quick march, a Vishnevskaya to stand on the same stage pacifist throughout his life. At school he large orchestra, with poems by Owen - the chilling musical image of the laden troops as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, so Heather had refused to join the Officers’ Training most searingly subversive of the First World going ‘over the top’ and stumbling towards Harper (who also appears on LPO-0002 Corps, and his anti-war attitudes were War poets - for tenor and baritone soloists, their deaths. After the Offertorium, the Haitink conducts Britten) took her place. stimulated by long conversations with with chamber orchestra. Although Britten start of the Sanctus, with its harsh, brilliant The final hushed ‘Amen’ was followed by a his composition teacher Frank Bridge respected the teachings of the Church, he bells and solo soprano flourishes, recalls long, stunned silence (and a similar silence about the First World War. In the 1930s was not a Christian, and the Owen poems Orthodox liturgy; then the freely chanting followed the live recording captured on he was actively engaged with the Peace he chose sometimes implicitly criticise voices of the choir (Britten borrowing a this disc). Almost everyone in the audience Pledge Union, and he wrote several works the Requiem texts. So, for example, the sound remembered from Holst’s Hymn of realised they had witnessed the birth of promoting the cause of peace, notably the liturgical last trump in the Dies Irae, ‘Tuba Jesus) lead the music into an explosively that rare phenomenon, a modern classic. neglected Ballad of Heroes. On returning mirum, spargens sonum’ (‘the wondrous exultant D major, the work’s only moment The first recording of the work, conducted to England from the USA during the trumpet, scattering its sound’) is followed of triumph. In total contrast, the quietly by Britten, sold over 200,000 copies in Second World War, he and his partner Peter by Owen’s poem ‘Bugles sang, saddening undulating Agnus Dei interweaves the the first year of its release.