"I am the enemy you killed, my friend": Sacrifice, Pacifism and Reconciliation in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts In Musicology University of Regina

by

Erin Marie MacLean

Regina, Saskatchewan

May, 2011

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FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH

SUPERVISORY AND EXAMINING COMMITTEE

Erin Marie MacLean, candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in Musicology, has presented a thesis titled, "I am the enemy you killed, my friend": Sacrifice, Pacifism and Reconciliation in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, in an oral examination held on March 17, 2011. The following committee members have found the thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material.

External Examiner: "Dr. Jonathan Goldman, University of Victoria

Supervisor: Dr. Pauline Minevich, Department of Music

Committee Member: Dr. Barbara Reul, Luther College

Committee Member: Dr. Jean-Marie Kent, Department of Music

Chair of Defense: Prof. Wes Pearce, Theatre Department

*Not present at defense ABSTRACT

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) composed the War Requiem in 1961 for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral, which had been nearly destroyed by German bombing in 1940. The composer's pacifist message is manifested through the metaphors of martyrdom and forgiveness. The image of the soldier, represented by two male soloists, conveys the futility of violence and draws comparisons with martyrdom and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The dichotomy of religion and modern warfare is illustrated by the juxtaposition of the traditional Latin liturgical text and

Wilfred Owen's graphic war poetry in English. This provides a provocative connection between ancient religion and twentieth-century modernist literature.

This thesis first examines architect Basil Spence and the rebuilding of

Coventry Cathedral, the WWI poetry of Wilfred Owen and the life and pacifist beliefs of Benjamin Britten. The first chapters provide an introduction to the musical and

textual analyses of the War Requiem score in the later chapters, in which we explore

the themes of sacrifice, pacifism and reconciliation. The analyses reveal the themes of

sacrifice, manifested in the biblical and poetic parallels; pacifism, demonstrated

through Britten and Owen's mutual condemnation of violence; and reconciliation, in

which all of the forces, sacred and secular, are united in a plea for peace. By

examining the various ironies and paradoxes raised by these themes, we discover a

further understanding of the War Requiem as a twentieth-century pacifist masterpiece.

i ACKNOWLEDGEM ENT

I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Pauline Minevich, whose passion for the War Requiem equaled my own. Despite countless setbacks, her knowledge, encouragement and enthusiasm were an integral part of the paper's completion.

I am heartily thankful to Dr. Barbara Reul for assisting me with the content and

formatting of this thesis. I have learned a great deal from her suggestions and her

contribution to my thesis has been substantial.

Thank you also to Dr. Jean-Marie Kent for the recent time and effort that she has put

into this project. Her perspective added a new dimension to the work and 1 am

sincerely grateful that she was willing to contribute to this process.

I would like to thank William Sgrazzutti and Marlys Upton at the John Archer

Library, University of Regina, for all of their assistance obtaining the library

materials. I'd also like to thank Karen Wiome at the Faculty of Graduate Studies and

Research for keeping me on track.

Thank you to Dr Andrew Plant, curator of the Britten-Pears Library for responding to

all of my questions.

Finally, a big thank you to Greg, Patrice and Erica for helping me with Rhoen so that

I could escape to the library.

ii DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate this thesis to my mother for all of her support from my first piano recital to grad school. Also, to my husband Dmetri whose love and encouragement kept me going.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract i Acknowledgments ii Dedication iii

PARTI

Introduction 1 Literature Review 8

1 BASIL SPENCE AND THE DIOCESE OF COVENTRY 16 Basil Spence and the rebuilding of Coventry 17 Themes of sacrifice in the Cathedral 20 Reconciliation in the architecture of Coventry Cathedral 21

2 WILFRED OWEN, THE POETRY OF WORLD WAR ONE AND SHELL SHOCK 26 Political commentary, religious imagery and "Healing" in Owen's poetry 30 Benjamin Britten, Wilfred Owen and the War Requiem 44

3 THE LIFE AND SELECTED WORKS OF BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976) 46 Britten's pacifism and musical activism 48

PART II

4 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE WAR REQUIEM 57 The organization of the War Requiem and its "planes" 59 The tenor and baritone soloists 60 Boys' choir and soprano soloist 61 Four-part chorus and full orchestra 63 The diabolus in musica and the sounds of war in the War Requiem 64

5 SACRIFICE AND PACIFISM IN THE WAR REQUIEM 70 War and violence in the Requiem aeternam and "Anthem for Doomed Youth" 72 Violence in Britten's "man-made" Dies irae and "Bugles sang" 82 Conflicting portraits of faith: The Sanctus and Britten's Eastern influences 94 The image of the soldier as a Christ-figure 99

6 RECONCILIATION IN BENJAMIN BRITTEN'S WAR REQUIEM 106

iv "Libera me" and "Strange Meeting" 107 CONCLUSION COVENTRY'S RECONCILIATION, BRITTEN'S PROVOCATION 119

Appendix A: Text and Translation 124 Appendix B: Instrumentation 132 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 133

v LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

EXAMPLE PAGE

4.1 Fanfare Motif # 1: Opening three measures of the Dies irae Movement 65 4.2 Fanfare motif #2: Horn 1 in F; Measures 4 through 6 in the Dies irae movement 66 4.3 "Dance of Death:" The Chorus, one measure after RN 52 of the Dies irae 67 5.1 Requiem aeternam, RN 3, Boys' Choir Entrance, "Te decet hymnus" 74 5.2 Requiem aeternam, RN 9, The Oscillating Tritone in the Harp at RN 9 76 5.3 Requiem aeternam, RN 10-3, The "military" rhythm in the percussion and "artillery fire" in the flute and clarinet. The harp's descent for "these who die as cattle" 78 5.4 Requiem aeternam, RN 11+1, The tritone oscillating on "prayers" (tenor solo, 1 after RN 11 "No mockeries for them from prayers or bells") 80 5.5 Requiem aeternam, RN 15, The "rhythms of war" in the snare drum 81 5.6 Dies irae, RN 17-12, The fanfares of the Dies irae 84 5.7 Dies irae, RN 24+3, Quasi-bird sounds in the flute, harp and clarinet of the chamber orchestra 85 5.8 a) Offertorium, RN 64 "Quam olim Abrahae promisisti" subject 90 5.8 b) Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, p. 7 mm. 1-4 "Father I am Ready" 90 5.9 The opening of the Sanctus movement 96 5.10 Sanctus, RN 89-7, The "Hosanna" and "Sanctus" Chorus 97 5.11 The Opening of the Agnus Dei movement 102 5.12 a) Agnus Dei, RN 97+3, The "falling fifth" on "Mundf' ("world") 102 5.12 b) Verdi's Agnus Dei, Opening 7 measures, "falling fifth" on "Mundi" ("world") 103 6.1 Libera me, RN 108, Soprano Solo "Tremens factus" at RN 108 109 6.2 Libera me, RN 126, "1 am the enemy you killed, my friend" at RN 126 112 6.3 Libera me, RN 133-4, The two choirs and soloists are united in the "In Paradisum" 116

vi Part One

INTRODUCTION

On 7 October 1958, British composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) was commissioned by the Coventry Cathedral Festival Arts Committee to write a work for the reconsecration and reconstruction of their Anglican Cathedral, which had been nearly destroyed by German bombing in 1940. Mervyn Cooke states that Britten had been waiting for an opportunity to write a Requiem Mass.1 The council requested a full-length work, either sacred or secular in nature, and requested that Britten conduct it. Notably, Britten did not chronicle the compositional process of the War Requiem as he had done with other works.2 Perhaps this was as a result of the personal nature of the work (dedicated to his deceased friends), or for fear of a backlash towards its anti-war statement. The composer may have been attempting to avoid any negative publicity prior to the premiere.

In the dedication to the work, Britten originally wrote, along with the names of the dedicatees, "In Commemoration of all the Fellow-Sufferers of the Second

World War, & in loving memory of Roger Burney, Piers Dunkerley, David Gill and

Michael Halliday."3 In the published score, however, Britten omitted the reference to the "Fellow-Sufferers," possibly concerned that his own acknowledged status during the war as a pacifist and conscientious objector would result in ridicule for relating

1 Mervyn Cooke, Requiem: Britten, War Requiem, Cambridge Music Handbooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 20. 2 Ibid., 23. 3 Benjamin Britten, War Requiem, Op. 66 (London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1962). Mention of the omission is provided by Cooke, Requiem, 47.

1 himself to those who died or were injured during the war.4 The work premiered at

Coventry Cathedral on 30 May 1962 and was hailed by critics as a milestone in

Britten's career.5

The War Requiem contains the traditional Latin liturgical text of the Roman

Catholic Requiem Mass and the English poetry of World War One pacifist poet

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918). The work is enormous in terms of the sheer number of musicians required, involving a full orchestra, twelve-piece chamber orchestra, organ

(harmonium was used for the premiere as the organ was not yet installed), four-part

SATB chorus, SA boys' chorus and tenor, baritone and soprano soloists, requiring two conductors.6 Britten set the Latin Mass for various combinations of full chorus, boys' chorus and soprano soloist, while the two male soloists sing Owen's poetry.

The text of the Mass for the Dead (Missa pro defunctis) is much the same as that of the standard Mass of the Roman Rite, with the more joyful, celebratory movements

(such as the Credo and Gloria) removed and the Dies irae added.7 In Britten's War

Requiem, there are six movements, with nine poems by Wilfred Owen interspersed.

Texts from the Mass Wilfred Owen's Poems

I) Requiem Aeternam: 1) "Anthem for Doomed Youth"

ID Dies Irae: 2) "Bugles Sang" (A poetic fragment: Britten sets only seven of the thirteen lines 3) "The Next War" 4) "On Seeing A Piece of Our Artillery Brought into Action" 5) "Futility"

4 Cooke, Requiem, 47. 5 Peter Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten (London: J.M. Dent, 1989), 450. 6 For full orchestration please see Appendix B on page 132. 7 "Requiem," in The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed. rev., edited by Michael Kennedy, Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t237/e8452 (accessed February 6, 2011).

2 Ill) Offertorium: 6) "Parable of the Old Man and the Young'

IV) Sanctus: 7) "The End'

V) Agnus Dei: 8) "At a Calvary Near the Ancre"

VI) Libera Me: 9) "Strange Meeting"

Following the renovation, the layout of Coventry Cathedral consisted of several distinct, independent spaces. We can interpret the design of the church, with its separate chapels, alcoves and ruins as resembling the musical layout of the War

Requiem, which contains similarly various styles of music and instrumentation. The ruins are reflected in the medieval-style chants and traditional choral settings while the modern poetry is set in a contemporary fashion. In addition is the layout of the

War Requiem for performance. Spatially, musically and dramatically, Britten divides the work into three physically distinct planes, or levels, in a manner that suggests a disconnection between the earthly and the celestial. Intermittently, the full chorus— accompanied by the large orchestra—and the soprano soloist sing the text of the Latin

Mass under the direction of one conductor. The twelve-piece chamber orchestra, led by a second conductor, accompanies the tenor and bass soloists who are positioned apart from the chorus. Finally, the boys' choir and organ are completely separated from the other musicians (as stipulated by Britten). Britten stated that, although the

Cathedral did not have a gallery, the boys' choir should be placed at a distance.8

The combination of these various musical levels creates a strikingly dramatic, multi-dimensional physical staging that reflects the architectural connection between the bombed ruins of the old Cathedral and the new edifice, which was built adjoining

8 Cooke, Requiem, 24.

3 the damaged church. The musical setting of the War Requiem achieves a similar juxtaposition of old and new, past and present by combining the traditional liturgical texts with the modern poetry. As Philip Rupprecht states, "Latin, as the traditional tongue of European worship, asserts the marked archaic quality characteristic of ritual utterance."9 The Requiem Mass connects the listener with the past, while Britten's setting of Owen's poems brings immediacy. He periodically portrays the Mass as antiquated by composing a ceaseless, repetitive chant—as in the Requiem aeternam and the Agnus Dei—contrasted with the soldiers, whose poetic narratives exist in the present tense and are non-repetitive.

Part one of this thesis contains three background chapters. In the first, I examine architect Basil Spence's creative process in the rebuilding of Coventry

Cathedral. Chapter 2 approaches the literary legacy of Wilfred Owen as a young soldier and pacifist poet. The third chapter explores Benjamin Britten's pacifist views and how his anti-violent beliefs are reflected in his other works, particularly his operas.

In Part two, Chapter 4 there is an introduction to the War Requiem, in which I discuss the organization of the work, and provide a context for the premiere.

Although the circumstances of a work's premiere are not always crucial to an understanding of its significance, the War Requiem is best examined within this context. The Cathedral itself enhances the meaning of Owen's poems because it was, literally, the backdrop to a war. The circumstances of the War Requiem's first performance are fraught with contradiction—poetically, musically, architecturally, liturgically and politically. A few of these contradictory elements include the way the

9 Philip Rupprecht, Britten's Musical Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 200.

4 sacred text appears alongside the secular poetry, and the use of ancient modes which appears alongside modern twentieth-century compositional techniques. Also of significance, which I will address further, is that the town of Coventry itself was a political pawn during World War Two. By examining the music of the War Requiem

(its melody, harmony, motivic elements, recurring thematic material and textual relationships) 1 will explore the irony created by these contradictions, thus revealing themes of sacrifice, pacifism and reconciliation. The notions of sacrifice and pacifism are manifested through the many metaphors of martyrdom, both biblical and militaristic. Christ's crucifixion, the sacrifice of Isaac and the deaths of soldiers exist concurrently in the War Requiem. Moreover, reconciliation is revealed within the message of Christ in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the climax of the work, the poem "Strange Meeting," where the two soldiers must face their own mortality. In addressing these various, opposing themes in relation to one another, I provide a new understanding of Benjamin Britten and the War Requiem itself.

In Chapter 5,1 address the themes of sacrifice and pacifism, and demonstrate how they exist together in the work. Specifically, I examine literal and metaphorical manifestations of these concepts and their treatment in biblical, poetical and musical contexts. In particular, my analysis approaches the representation of the soldier as

Christ and the implication this has on the War Requiem as a sacred work. In Chapter

6,1 discuss the theme of reconciliation within the War Requiem itself, and its significance in the context of the commission, the Cathedral itself, the reconciliatory

nature of its renovation and what Britten suggests on a personal and political level

through his musical decisions. For example, the three soloists Britten intended for the

5 premiere symbolize three different sides of the European conflict: Peter Pears, the

English tenor; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the German baritone; and Galina

Vishnevskaya, the Russian soprano.10

This musical examination of the War Requiem is not intended to address all of the compositional details of the work. Rather, I will demonstrate how Britten's setting conveys the themes of sacrifice, pacifism and reconciliation through musical gesture

(themes, motifs, keys etc.) as well as a juxtaposition of styles and texts. I will also show how his shaping or manipulating of the sacred and secular content creates a powerful irony: I interpret Owen's poems as the nucleus of the work and will argue that the liturgical text is subsidiary to the message within the poems.

Ultimately, what are the implications in the depictions of violence and forgiveness? Britten engages these concepts and the contradictions that they raise. He does so on both a musical level (melody, instrumentation) and an extra-musical level

(including his performance instructions to the musicians), thereby creating a specific representation of pacifist ideology. These themes, opposing as they are, contribute to the greatest irony of all: that the Requiem Mass itself is essentially secondary to the greater subject of humanity in its frailty and intrepidity. Britten uses identifiable musical tools and idioms to problematize the listener's own presuppositions about faith and religion, that the subjects of hell and judgment are biblical matters when in fact they are present on earth. For example, he places twentieth-century sounds of war

(metaphorical shells, gunfire, bombs) together with the liturgical text's description of doomsday. By composing the War Requiem in this fashion, we discover that Britten

10 Since Vishnevskaya was unable to attend the premiere, Heather Harper (English) replaced her (http://www.bri ttenpears.org/?page=britten/works/requiem.html).

6 raises questions such as: What is faith if not human? What role does religion have if any, in the struggle of human beings who are fighting earthly and mortal causes, yet who fear moral consequences? Has the divine become so removed that we now seek it out only in the darkest of places, and at times cannot find it at all, as in "Let us sleep now..."? One does not assume that the War Requiem answers all of the questions it poses; however, perhaps Britten is suggesting that the solution lies within both our faith and our humanity.

7 Literature Review

The literature surrounding the War Requiem is substantial. It encompasses subjects ranging from the life of the composer Benjamin Britten, to the poetry of shell-shock, to queer theory. In order to study the themes of sacrifice, pacifism and reconciliation within the War Requiem, I shall specifically consider the literature of musicology, English literature, architecture and history as they relate to those themes.

The initial area of research details the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral and its architect Sir. Basil Spence (1907-1976). There are limited sources available on

Spence, the primary one being his autobiography which details his experiences at

Coventry (Phoenix at Coventry: The Building of a Cathedral (1962, 2nd ed. 1964).

Patricia L. Brace's dissertation, "A Rhetorical Study of Coventry Cathedral and

Benjamin Britten's War Requiem: Revealing Tropes of Metonymy, Metaphor and

Irony" (Ohio State University, 1993)—addressed further below—thoroughly investigates the reconstruction and iconography within Coventry.

In the War Requiem, the Latin liturgical texts of the Requiem Mass are set side by side with the World War One poetry of Wilfred Owen (1893-1918). The literature surrounding Owen ranges from extensive biographies to anthologies addressing the poetry of war and post-traumatic stress disorder, or shell-shock. The primary biography of Wilfred Owen is Jon Stallworthy's Wilfred Owen (1974).

Notable Owen scholars, including Dominic Hibberd, assert that Stallworthy's biography, in conjunction with Harold Owen's memoirs, is the preeminent source on

Owen's life." Stallworthy was a close friend of Wilfred's brother Harold Owen

" Dominic Hibberd, Owen the Poet (Preface), (Georgia: Georgia University Press, 1986), xi.

8 (1887-1971) and thus gained insight into Wilfred's life as a child and young man.

Although Owen's poetry is not examined in depth, this thorough account sheds light on his wartime experiences.

More current biographies, such as Dominic Hibberd's Wilfred Owen: A New

Biography (2002) provide further interpretations of Owen's poetry, and perhaps a more objective and contemporary account of Owen's life (in the explication of

Owen's homosexuality). For instance, Hibberd indicates where, in Wilfred Owen's journals, Harold Owen removed segments of text with scissors. He speculates that perhaps Harold's censorship was an attempt at protecting his brother's legacy and the secrecy of Wilfred's sexuality. Hibberd is a prominent scholar in the discourse surrounding Owen, and my bibliography lists four large works devoted to Owen and

First World War poets.

In terms of Owen's poetry, two sources on war poets provide the most detailed perspective on his style. Daniel Hipp's book, The Poetry of Shellshock:

Wartime Trauma and Healing in Wilfred Owen, Ivor Gurney and Siegfried Sassoon

(2005), is a comprehensive study of the British poetry of World War One, and an exploration of how Owen revolutionized the use of imagery in poetry by engaging the darker, more graphic aspects of war. Paul Norgate's article, "Wilfred Owen and the soldier poets" (1989), addresses the notion of poetry as a healing tool. Norgate

examines Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen and uses specific

examples of their work as illustrations of the ways in which expression can be a form of treatment.

Owen is discussed in a more general manner by authors whose subject matter

focuses on issues of modernism and the differing poetic styles and techniques to

9 emerge after WWI. For instance, Peter Howarth's British Poetry in the Age of

Modernism (2005) examines the various poetic forms that were developed in the first half of the twentieth century. In addition, David Roberts' book, Minds at War: The

Poetry and Experience of the First World War (2003), examines topics such as propaganda in war poetry and women poets of the First World War. The discourse surrounding Owen is expansive, from psychoanalysis to politics. I have selected works that pertain to the subject of shell shock as it relates directly to Wilfred Owen.

The literature surrounding Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) is as varied as the composer's career. In addition to the subject of his life and operas, Britten has had a significant role in the burgeoning field of queer theory. Humphrey Carpenter's comprehensive, Benjamin Britten: A Biography (1992, 2nd ed. 2003) is the principal

biography on Benjamin Britten. Carpenter's musical analyses are often so overlapped

with Britten's private life that his career as a composer is at times lost to personal

events. Not every scholar appreciates the level of personal or private matters that are

addressed in the biography. Graham Elliot states that "Britten himself would almost

certainly have been appalled at the revelation and speculation in which Humphrey

Carpenter has indulged in his biography of the composer," although he does cite

Carpenter throughout his book.12 Despite this, Britten: A Biography is the first to

delve into Britten's psyche, and other Britten scholars including Mervyn Cooke and

Michael Oliver, cite it frequently.13 Thus, Britten: A Biography is considered the

primary biographical source on Britten.

12 Graham Elliot, Benjamin Britten: The Spiritual Dimension (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5. 13 Cooke, War Requiem and Michael Oliver, Benjamin Britten (New York: Phaidon Press Ltd., 2008).

10 Other biographies—more modest in scope—have been written since Britten's death, including Christopher Headington's Britten (1981, 2nd ed. 1996) and Michael

Kennedy's Britten (1981, 2nd ed. 1993). Kennedy provides a significant overview of

Britten's style and compositional process by surveying the composer's better-known works, mainly his operas, in addition to an examination of Britten's professional life.

The biography Benjamin Britten (20th Century Composers) (1996,2nd ed. 2008), by

Michael Oliver is not as detailed as the Carpenter biography, yet it provides a concise account of the composer's life. Here, the music is subsidiary to the life of Britten, yet the majority of his compositions are discussed in an abbreviated fashion. Lastly,

Donald Mitchell and Philip Reed's compilation of Britten's letters and diary entries entitled, Letters from a Life: the Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten

1913-1976, is comprised of five volumes.14 These letters to friends and family, in addition to his journals, provide a detailed account of not only Britten's life, but also his compositional process.

The critical literature on Britten has centered primarily on his operas, for instance Michael Wilcox's Benjamin Britten's Operas (1997) and Peter Evans' The

Music of Benjamin Britten (1989). These sources devote an entire chapter to each of

Britten's principal operas and provide detailed musical analyses of them. Evans' book contains a chapter on the War Requiem which reiterates the observations made in his

1962 article, "Britten's War Requiem."15 Eric Walter White's Benjamin Britten: His

14 A fifth volume has been recently published but was unavailable at the time of writing. 15 Peter Evans, "Britten's War Requiem," Tempo no. 61/62 (Spring - Summer, 1962): 20-24+29-39, http://www.jstor.org/stable/944081.

11 Life and Operas (1983) likewise devotes a chapter to each of Britten's operas;

however, it is interspersed with sections chronicling the composer's personal life.

There have also been entire books devoted to specific Britten operas, most notably

Philip Brett's Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes (1983), demonstrating the depth in

these works.

Notable articles on the subject of queer theory include Stephen McClatchie's

"Benjamin Britten, Owen Wingrave, and the Politics of the Closet; or, 'He shall be straightened out at Paramore'" (1996) and Lloyd Whitesell's "Britten's Dubious

Trysts"(2003). Britten's homosexuality is explored through the study of "the

outsider" as a theme in the composer's operas. Philip Brett's considerable

contribution to the field is notable, specifically the posthumously published collection

of essays, Music and Sexuality in Britten (2006) and the edited volume Queering the

Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology (2006). As with the general literature

on Britten, the primary focus is Britten's operas and the themes of the outsider, the

repressed, or the betrayed. These elements are extremely prominent in the War

Requiem, as are the themes of pacifism, patriarchal betrayal and the notion of the

queer hero. Despite the occasional mention of Britten's sexuality in the discourse

surrounding the War Requiem including Cooke and Herbert (discussed below) his

queerness and Owen's ambiguous sexuality remain unexamined in the literature.

Literature on the War Requiem

A central source on the subject of the War Requiem is Mervyn Cooke's

Britten: War Requiem (1996). It provides an examination of the pacifist ideals of both

12 Britten and Wilfred Owen, a general musical summary of the six movements and an extensive description of the critical reception. Philip Reed also contributes a section on the circumstances of the commission, the compositional process, and the premiere.

Cooke provides a concise overview of the entire work, its composer and the premiere, with limited musical analysis.

Extensive musical examinations are found in the articles and theses on the subject of the War Requiem. For instance, Edward Lundergan's "Benjamin Britten's

War Requiem: Stylistic and Technical Sources" (1991) provides a detailed analysis with the focus being on a specific intervallic motif, which he argues permeates the

Requiem. Thomas Rooney's 1997 dissertation, "Benjamin Britten's War Requiem:

Parody and the Transmutation of Myth," is an analysis of Britten's setting of the

Owen poems. Rooney demonstrates how Britten transforms the myths of the Last

Judgment and the crucifixion through parody and distortions, most significantly in the

Offertorium movement's "Parable of the Old Man and the Young."

Nikola Dale Strader's dissertation, "The Stylistic Placement of War Requiem in Benjamin Britten's Oeuvre" (1996), argues that the War Requiem was not the culmination of Britten's career, but that it was simply a part of his natural musical development. Her analysis of the texts, text-music relationships and other musical characteristics provides an overall impression of Britten's musical style and how it evolved throughout his career.

The 1962 article "Benjamin Britten's War Requiem" in the journal Tempo by

Peter Evans remains the most informative article or review of the work. Evans has carried out extensive scholarly research on Britten and he provides an instructive and

13 comprehensive analysis to the War Requiem. Significantly, he was present at the premiere of the work and witnessed the English and German soloists (although the

Russian was absent) and the reopening of Coventry Cathedral after its desecration; all pertinent contextual factors necessary when interpreting the music of the War

Requiem. Evans provides a first hand account of the event, which contributes to his article's continued relevance.

James D. Herbert's 1999 article in Critical Inquiry, "Bad Faith at Coventry:

Spence's Cathedral and Britten's War Requiem," elaborates on Evans' musical analysis integrating a theological perspective, including Anglican rites and rituals, even transubstantiation in the Eucharist. By doing so, he is providing a further religious and historical context in which to approach the War Requiem.

By far the most detailed musical examination of the work was accomplished by Edward Lundergan in his article for Choral Journal in 1998, entitled "Musical

Metaphor: Cyclic-Interval Structures in Britten's War Requiem." Lundergan presents a technically detailed, sophisticated examination of interval relationships within the

"characters" of the War Requiem. He discusses how they relate to one another and what impact these motifs have programmatically. I provide a brief synopsis of

Lundergan's theory in the introduction to this thesis and amalgamate his theories with my own in the analysis chapters.

The vast scope of the War Requiem provides many possibilities for research.

Whether approached in relation to the history of the Requiem Mass and its place in the musical canon, or perhaps the connection or interrelation between Britten's and

Owen's concealed sexuality, the options for continued scholarship are endless

14 surrounding this monumental work. I have chosen to approach the musical examination from both a political and religious perspective in order to focus on

matters that are not as frequently addressed in the discourse on the War Requiem.

15 CHAPTER ONE

BASIL SPENCE AND THE DIOCESE OF COVENTRY

On the evening of November 14, 1940, the city of Coventry was attacked by

Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe (air force). The severe bombing left 568 dead, 863 wounded and many homeless.1 In addition to the tragic civilian losses, the city's beloved Cathedral was nearly destroyed. Because of its impressive age, dating back to the 1400s, and its huge size of 24,000 square feet, St. Michael's Cathedral, commonly referred to as Coventry Cathedral, was a national monument and an icon of the city's religious past.2

Coventry has had three churches over the past one thousand years. The first was St. Mary's Benedictine Monastery, founded by Earl Loefric (968-1057) in 1043.3

Built near it in 1433, the parish church of St. Michael was the largest parish church in all of England.4 Following Henry the Eighth's royal decree in 1539, all monasteries were to be dissolved and looted.5 St. Mary's was partly demolished and used as a quarry and St. Michael's fell into decay.6 The latter was renovated in 1918, raised to the status of a Cathedral and remained relatively unchanged until it was nearly

1 Rob Orland "Coventry Blitz," Historic Coventry Web site, accessed January 4, 2011, http://www.historiccoventrv.co.uk/blitz/stats.php. The total figure has never been accurately quoted due to unavailable statistics on visitors and absent citizens of Coventry. 2 Ibid. 3 Reverend H.C.N. Williams, Coventry Cathedral (Norwich: Jarrold and Sons Ltd.), 3. 4 Orland, "Coventry Blitz." 5 The Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "Suppression of English Monasteries under Henry VIII," by F.C. Gasquet, accessed January 27, 2011, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10455a.htm. 6 Orland, "Coventry Blitz."

16 destroyed in 1940 by the German bombing. All that remained standing were the outer walls and the tower.7

In the days following the bombing of St. Michael's, two charred oak beams were discovered to have fallen into the shape of a cross. The cross was arranged in a dustbin filled with sand, placed at the east end of the church and the words "Father

Forgive" were carved into the sanctuary wall.8 The citizens of Coventry adopted this motto as a symbol of faith and began the process of recovering and rebuilding.9 Led by Provost Richard Howard, the congregation began to rebuild, not in defiance, but rather as a gesture of spiritual renewal and resilience, resulting in the Cathedral's religious ministry of peace and reconciliation.10

Basil Spence and the rebuilding of Coventry

In 1944, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880-1960), the architect of the neo-Gothic

Anglican Cathedral at Liverpool, was commissioned by the Royal Fine Arts

Commission to produce a design for the new Coventry Cathedral. The Commission, however, did not accept his design because, according to Basil Spence, "[the] conflicting requirements of the clergy made impossible demands on the architect and

Sir Giles resigned in 1947."11 The Harlech Commission was formed in 1947.12 Its members issued the conditions of an open architectural competition and appointed a

7 Nigel R. Jones, Architecture of England, Scotland, and Wales (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2005), 82. 8 Williams, Coventry Cathedral, 7. 9 Other churches in England to undergo similar rebuilding include St. Nicholas' in London, located on Queen Victoria Street. See http://www.london-architecture.info/LO-037.htm. 10 "Our History," Coventry Cathedral website, accessed January 4, 2011, http://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/about-us/our-history.php. " Spence, Phoenix, 2. 12 Named after Lord Harlech (1918-1985), a British diplomat and Conservative Party Leader.

17 reconstruction committee.13 The first page of the Commission's conditions, entitled

"Schedule of Requirements and Accommodation," contained this message from the

Bishop and Provost:

The Cathedral is to speak to us and to generations to come of the Majesty, the Eternity and the Glory of God. God therefore direct you. [The Cathedral] stands as a witness to the central dogmatic truths of the Christian Faith. Architecturally it should seize on those truths and thrust them upon the man who comes in from the street.14

In the initial conditions for the competition there were no distinct themes mentioned; however, there was a list of locations or particular points of interest within the

Cathedral which were to be emphasized, such as the altar, a children's chapel, a Lady

Chapel and so forth.

Sir Basil Spence (1907-1976) was a Scottish architect who had studied at the

School of Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art and at London University under the architect and historian Albert E. Richardson (1880-1964).15 During World War II,

Spence served on active duty in the British military and fought at the D-Day landing in Normandy. Spence expressed in his book Phoenix at Coventry (1962) that he felt it necessary to participate in the rebuilding process, following so much destruction during the conflict. Moreover, he conveyed the personal pain he experienced as an architect having witnessed the destruction of so many historical buildings across

Europe. He stated that "as an architect witnessing the murder of a beautiful building.

.. I firmly believe that the creative genius of man, the spark of life that he carries

13 Louise Campbell, "Towards a New Cathedral: The Competition for Coventry Cathedral 1950—51" Architectural History 35 (1992): 210. 14 Spence, Phoenix, 3. 15 Grove Art Online, s.v. "Spence, Basil," by Louise Campbell, accessed January 27, 2011, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.

18 while on earth, is manifest in his efforts ... once this is lost... that particular light has been put out forever."16

Spence returned to work after the war, but Louise Campbell asserts that by

1951 he was professionally frustrated and "was beginning to feel typecast as an exhibition designer."17 As a result of his experiences in the military during the war,

Spence entered the competition to design a new Coventry Cathedral. A total of 219 architects made final submissions; hundreds more requested the conditions of the competition, but failed to submit any work.18 Upon his first visit to St. Michael's, with its missing roof and altar of collapsed stone, he vowed to change as little as possible of the original: "I saw the old Cathedral as standing clearly for sacrifice, one side of Christian faith, and I knew my task was to design a new one which should stand for the triumphs of the resurrection."19 Spence was announced the winner of the competition on August 15, 1951 and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II participated in the ground-breaking ceremony on March 23, 1956.

In the foreword to Spence's book, Bishop Gorton of Coventry wrote that

"Spence was a man inspired—a man with an ardent glowing faith in God—who believed in his vocation to build a Cathedral expressive of the Christian faith in contemporary terms."20 Campbell has observed that Spence's design "preserved most of the remains of the ruined church by using the medieval pieces as a picturesque adjunct to the new sandstone Cathedral, placed at right angles to it."21 In his book,

16 Spence, Phoenix, 1. 17 Campbell, "Spence," Grove Art Online. 18 Spence, Phoenix, 5. 19 Ibid., 6. 20 Ibid., i. 21 Campbell, "Spence," Grove Art Online.

19 Architecture of England, Scotland, and Wales, Nigel R. Jones reflects upon the structure and the competitions by stating:

Sir Basil Spence was a modernist whose work, by the choice of materials and details, exhibited a warmth and richness. The designs submitted ranged from the extremes of modernism and traditionalism but the Spence design managed to be both without being extreme; a modern appearance on a traditional axial plan...22

After its completion in 1962, Coventry Cathedral became a national symbol of renewal and Spence was commissioned for several other prestigious projects, including the University of Sussex (1959) and the Chancery of the British Embassy in

Rome (1971 ).23

Themes of sacrifice in the Cathedral

Themes of sacrifice and martyrdom, through Christ's crucifixion, are significant within the Christian faith and Spence emphasized them in the architectural detailing and choice of artistic works within Coventry Cathedral.24 In particular, he drew upon images surrounding the Passion of Christ, for example the crown of thorns

(of which there are seven instances within the building, including on the floor of the

Unity Chapel), Christ bearing his cross on the road to Calvary, the crucifix and the

Pieta.25 According to Patricia L. Brace, these images serve as a "reminder of Christ's

22 Nigel R. Jones, Architecture of England, Scotland, and Wales (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2005), 83.

24 lb'd" Stephen Sykes, Sacrifice and Redemption: Durham essays in theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Michael McGuckian, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: A search for an acceptable notion of sacrifice (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2005). 25 The Pieta (meaning pity) refers to the image of Christ, after the crucifixion, lying in the Virgin Mary's arms. For further details see Lindsay Murray, The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).

20 suffering and sacrifice for all humanity."26 This concept reinforces the metaphor of martyrdom by underlining the significance of resurrection in the Christian faith.

In addition to the Christian concept of sacrifice, a second instance of sacrifice is found in the circumstances surrounding the bombing of Coventry. It became known in 1976 that Prime Minister Winston Churchill had been informed of Hitler's plans to bomb Coventry. The Fiihrer meant to annihilate non-military targets in his attempt to crush civilian resistance.27 If Churchill chose to evacuate the city, the Germans would realize that the Allies had cracked their "Enigma" codes with their code-breaking machines, resulting in the immediate change of the codes that had taken months to procure. But if the Prime Minister did not warn the citizens, thousands would be injured or killed. He chose the latter, which provides the most significant example of sacrifice..

Reconciliation in the architecture of Coventry Cathedral

Spence's reconstruction of Coventry Cathedral created two connected spaces with corresponding purposes. He built a modern church that was representative of its time, rather than looking to designs of the past, in order to initiate a new beginning for the congregation of St. Michael. He also created a memorial for all of the victims of war, so that people would remember the horrors and damage that it caused.

Jones asserts that Spence's use of the old and new cathedrals symbolizes death,

26 Brace, "A Rhetorical study of Coventry Cathedral," 161. 27 Brace, 98-100. William Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976),153.

21 resurrection and "the indestructibility of Christianity by strongly linking the ruins to the new construction."28

The clergy and the Royal Fine Arts Commission endorsed Spence's concept of a modem design juxtaposed with the older, severely damaged Cathedral.29 Yet it was not a unanimous decision to exploit the bombed church. Bishop Neville Gorton, the overseer of the entire project, was against the notion of including the ruins in the design, warning against the "false sentimental affection" that he predicted the church's remains would continue to attract.30 Yet others in the diocese, including

Provost Howard, continued to support the presence of the old Cathedral believing it served as a powerful symbol of renewal.31 Howard, a staunch supporter of Spence's vision, was often criticized for sidestepping various councils and making statements on the details of the Cathedral's reconstruction.32 He wished to emphasize the project's symbolic nature and in the original competition's conditions stated that "the new Cathedral should in some manner enshrine the experience of resurrection."33

These sentiments were obviously shared by Spence as the theme of resurrection appears within his design; for example the Chapel of the Resurrection.

The notion of reconciliation, in regards to the renovation of Coventry

Cathedral, stems not from the sacrament of reconciliation but rather as a statement of

forgiveness and absolution to those who committed the desecration. In order to

rebuild in the spirit of forgiveness, as Provost Richard Howard suggested, the project

28 Jones, Architecture, 83. 29 Campbell, 208. 30 Bishop Neville Gorton (Coventry Cathedral 1940-1962 in Coventry Cathedral archives Chapter III) quoted in Louise Campbell, 'Towards a New Cathedral," 212. 31 Brace's dissertation, "A Rhetorical study of Coventry Cathedral" provides extensive information on the use of such symbols and iconology in the Cathedral renovation, 132-183. 32 Campbell, "Towards a New Cathedral," 211. 33 Ibid.

22 design would require the metaphors of reconciliation and rebirth.34 Spence did so by juxtaposing the old Cathedral with the new and in his design choices inside the

Cathedral. In particular, he applied specific references to Germanic architecture for the significant areas of the Cathedral. For instance, the ceiling of the Cathedral was to be vaulted, with prominent beams in a design similar to the German medieval "hall" churches.35

A further reconciliatory gesture is the Unity Chapel, which is a place of worship for all Christian denominations. The unification of differing faiths is an integral part of the ministry of reconciliation.36 The Church of Germany contributed a large donation towards this Chapel, which can be interpreted as a reconciliatory gesture, reinforcing the symbol of unity.37 The Unity Chapel was designed to resemble a medieval Crusader's tent, a connection which Spence himself made by describing it as the "temporary home of a people always ready to move onwards."38

Ironically, although the Crusades provided the Christians of Europe with a united cause, they were based on religious persecution.39 Thus, Spence's Unity Chapel to be a symbol of national and religious unification, yet paradoxically, an unintended representation of war and violence.

34 Provost Richard Howard, quoted on the Coventry Cathedral website, "Our ministry of Reconciliation," accessed May 2, 2011, http://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/about-us/our- reconciliation-ministry.php. 35 Brace, "A Rhetorical Study," 144. 36 New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. s.v. "Reconciliation, Ministry of," (by K. Untener) http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CCX3407709358&v=2.1&u=ureginalib&it=r&p=GVR L&sw=w (accessed January 19, 2011). 37 Brace, "A Rhetorical Study," 150. 38 Chapel of Unity Pamphlet provided in Brace, 152. 39 The Crusades were a religiously motivated military campaign (1095-1291), instigated by the Holy Roman Empire to gain control of the Holy Land.

23 The most recognizable symbol of the triumph of good over evil is the image of Coventry Cathedral's patron saint, St. Michael. Spence placed a nineteen-foot cast bronze figure of St. Michael by artist Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) beside the steps to the porch. The figure is standing triumphantly over an eleven-foot anthropomorphic horned devil.40 The devil is awaiting his destruction, while St.

Michael is holding a long spear, looking not joyful or triumphant but, as Brace describes, "resigned to the fact that the struggle between good and evil is far from over."41 St. Michael (who in the Christian tradition is the rescuer of souls and champion over Satan) is not a metaphor of resurrection or reconciliation but rather one of victory over tyranny 42 This symbol would have been highly significant to the citizens of Coventry who had survived so much violence.43

On Christmas Day 1940, during a national radio program broadcast live from the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, Provost Richard Howard declared that after the war, he would "work with those who had been enemies, to build a kinder, more Christ-like world."44 That statement, along with the Cathedral's mantra of "Father Forgive," epitomizes the absence of bitterness demonstrated by the people of Coventry. It was also the driving force behind Spence's vision for the Cathedral: to not forget, but simply to forgive.

40 Brace, 166. 41 Ibid. 42 New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "St. Michael," http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10275b.htm (accessed February 15,2011). 43 In his book Saint Michael the Archangel of Medieval English legend, Richard Freeman Johnson discusses the cult and legends of St. Michael dating back to the Middle Ages. He states that the number of Reformation churches dedicated to the archangel Michael in England alone numbered 611. Richard Freeman Johnson, Saint Michael the Archangel of medieval English legend (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2005). 44 Provost Richard Howard, quoted on the Coventry Cathedral website, "Our ministry of Reconciliation," accessed February 15, 2011, http://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/about-us/our- reconciliation-ministry.php.

24 The notion of reconciliation is integrated into the Cathedral's architecture on several levels: the old with the new, the traditional aspects of the church juxtaposed

with the modern artwork within it (such as Graham Sutherland's tapestry "Christ in

Glory in the Tetramorph") and finally, the incorporation of the contributions of past

enemies—all provide a sense of mollification and reconciliation.45

45 English painter and printmaker, Graham Sutherland's (1903-1980) tapestry features Christ in a Byzantine style; it was woven from his cartoon, with the aid of photographic blow-ups. Grove Art Online, s.v. "Sutherland, Graham," by Ronald Alley, accessed January 20, 2011, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/.

25 CHAPTER TWO

WILFRED OWEN, THE POETRY OF WORLD WAR ONE AND SHELL SHOCK

Images of the First World War and the horrors of No Man's Land have endured into the twenty-first century in part because of the poetry that arose from the conflict. Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and others channeled their experiences with vivid accounts of the savagery.1 Their young comrade-in-arms and fellow patient at Craiglockhart hospital, Wilfred Owen, provided perhaps the most raw and powerful poetry of the war. Wilfred Owen was born on March 18, 1893 in Oswestry,

England. His early childhood was spent on the sprawling grounds of his grandfather's estate.2 Hard times fell on the Owen family when his grandfather died in 1897 and their home, its grounds and most of its contents had to be sold immediately to pay his enormous debts.3 Although not without financial difficulties, Wilfred's father, earning

a modest living as a railway station manager, was able to provide a solid education for his four children.4 Religion played a significant role in the lives of the Owen family, with daily prayer and bible study. They attended services at Christ Church

Evangelical in Birkenhead, England and the children attended Sunday school

regularly.5 Dominic Hibberd states that "the adult Wilfred cannot be understood as

man or poet unless his youthful experience of Evangelical religion is remembered."6

' Jon Silkin, Out of Battle: The Poetry of the Great War (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1998). 2 Douglas Kerr, Wilfred Owen's Voices: Language and Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 21. 3 Ibid. 4 John Purkis, A Preface to Wilfred Owen (London: Westley Longman Limited, 1999), 12. 5 Dominic Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography (London: Orion Publishing Ltd., 2002), 19. 6 Ibid., 21.

26 In his youth, Owen studied music, English literature and for a time contemplated a career as a musician.7 Around the age of twenty he began to teach privately for wealthy families, and to take an interest in poetry, particularly the

English Romantics.8 At the onset of the war in 1914, he did not immediately consider enlisting, but rather lived out the first year of the conflict as a civilian. Owen is described by Daniel Hipp as being in favour of the war, yet not caught up in the nationalistic excitement.9 In October 1915, Owen entered the Artists' Rifles of the

British army as a cadet.10 Once his training was completed, he was formally commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment." On December

31, 1916, he arrived on the battlefield in France and was given command over a platoon of infantrymen participating in the final days of the Battle of the Somme.

Owen fought for only five months yet experienced such significant trauma that he was relieved of duty due to shell shock.12 There are varying accounts surrounding his ordeal, however, two episodes appear to be particularly significant.

The first occurred on March 13th 1917, following a prolonged period in the trenches with no relief, a fate which countless soldiers endured, and which caused psychological suffering because of the horrific conditions. Owen fell into a deep hole in the battlefield, injured himself and was trapped there for well over a day. This event brought about a considerable change in his demeanor, causing him to become

7 Daniel Hipp, The Poetry of Shell Shock: Wartime Trauma and Healing in Wilfred Owen, Ivor Gurney and Siegfried Sassoon (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2005), 40. 8 Purkis, Preface to Owen, 12. 9 Hipp, Poetry of Shell Shock, 44. 10 The Artists' Rifles regiment was raised in 1859 from a group of painters, sculptors, engravers, musicians, architects and actors. See, http://www.artistsrifles.com/history.html. 11 Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 186. 12 Ibid., 242.

27 withdrawn. However, Owen's superiors did not consider his condition serious enough to condone relief of duty. He remained in the trenches for two more months.13

The second event took place in April of 1917, when Owen was blasted by a shell that threw him on to the corpse of one of his fellow soldiers. It was this incident that brought about his stammering and disorientation.14 He was described by the

Medical Board on June 25th as "shaky and tremulous ... his manner peculiar, and his memory confused."15 He received a diagnosis of shell shock. He was discharged from duty and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Owen scholars identify his arrival at Craiglockhart Hospital as the turning point in his poetic career.16 Hibberd describes this time as "[the] beginning [of

Owen's] evolution from an imitator of the poetic styles of Swinburne and Keats to a poetic spokesperson for soldiers of war."17 Another resident at Craiglockhart during this time was Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), a poet openly critical of the war; his anti-war statement was published in The Times in July of 1917. Owen was well acquainted with Sassoon's work and he immediately introduced himself to the senior poet. The two began meeting in Sassoon's room every evening to discuss their work.

The elder poet guided Owen past the "healing poetry" (which he was encouraged by his doctors to write) toward discovering his own voice without mimicking other poets.18 In a letter to Sassoon, Owen conveyed his gratefulness for his tutelage:

13 Hipp, Shell Shock, 52. 14 Ibid. 15 Army Medical Board, quoted in Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 242. 16 Hipp, Poetry of Shell Shock, 51; D.S.R. Welland; Wilfred Owen: A Critical Study (London: Chatto & Windus, 1960), 49; Jon Silkin, Out of Battle: The Poetry of the Great War (London: MacMillan Press Ltd., 1998), 208. 17 Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 242 18 Hibberd, Wilfred Owen, 254.

28 You have fixed my life, however short. You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me. I spun around you a satellite for a month, but I shall swing out soon, a dark star in the orbit where you will blaze. It is some consolation to know that Jupiter himself sometimes swims out of ken!19

"Sweat your guts out writing poetry" was Sassoon's advice to Owen in August 1917, who as a result, gained the confidence which took his writing to a new level.20 It is very difficult to find any information on Owen's state of mind during this period at

Craiglockhart, either in his medical records or in his letters to his mother, who he strove to protect from the truth.21 Most of the clues to his psychological condition are discovered within his poetry.22

In the following examination of Owen's poems, I have selected those that convey or represent his beliefs and sensibilities regarding the war most effectively. In order to provide a broader sense of Owen's style and motivation I do not limit my assessment to those poems selected by Benjamin Britten for the War Requiem.

Rather, I have selected poems from Owen's oeuvre that best coincide with the themes and motifs present in the War Requiem.

In order to emphasize the concepts of sacrifice, pacifism and reconciliation, I

have grouped Owen's poems into two categories. The first group contains poems with political and militaristic content juxtaposed with religious symbolism and Christian

metaphors. The second category contains poetry that can been described as healing or

therapeutic works. These were written during or following Owen's hospitalization at

Craiglockhart, as Owen attempted to confront the horrors he had experienced.

19 Owen to Siegfried Sassoon, Shewsbury, 5 November 1917, in Collected Letters, ed. Harold Owen and John Bell (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 504-505. 20 Owen to Leslie Gunston, Craiglockhart, 22 August 1917, in Collected Letters, ed. Harold Owen and John Bell (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 486. 21 Owen and Bell, Collected Letters. 22 Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 245, Mervyn Williams, Wilfred Owen, Border Lines Series (Glamorgan: Poetry Wales Press, 1993), 58.

29 Political commentary, religious imagery and "Healing" in Owen's poetry

The political content of Owen's poems reflects not only the action of the battlefield, but also what was taking place on the home-front during the war. Owen was highly critical of the general public who, in his opinion, were in denial about the truth of the Western Front and ignorant of the suffering taking place.23 The first of such works to contain the poet's convictions was "Anthem for Doomed Youth," written in September and October 1917. It was deemed by Sassoon to be Owen's first successful poetic commentary upon the war.24

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds.

23 Williams, Wilfred Owen, 150-155. 24 Hipp, Shell Shock, 64.

30 And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

(Wilfred Owen, "Anthem For Doomed Youth," 1917)

This poem emerged in its completed form in October 1917 after several revisions, under Sassoon's guidance.25 In it, Owen omitted any mention of an enemy; rather the violence of war is the enemy that turns children into animals waiting for the slaughter.26 He avoided nationalistic sentiments and consistently strove to portray the war in a patriotically objective fashion. According to Hibberd, Sassoon was a part of the compositional process, challenging Owen to move away from the "patriotic commitment to military victory" by "neutralizing] the anti-German implication . . . changing our [in the third line] to the and monstrous in preference to solemn [in the second line]."27 Thus, Sassoon was encouraging Owen to write about all wars, not simply the present conflict.

The literal images that Owen evoked are those of mourning by the "passing bells" and "drawing down of blinds." References to candles, tears and sad shires

reinforce the atmosphere of loss and grief. Juxtaposed with the religious allusions to orisons and choirs are references to violence, war and weaponry. The "bugles" could

imply a military march into battle or the mournful horn playing the "Last Post" or

"Taps," signaling a soldier's funeral. This suggests that the "Anthem," which seeks to

mourn all those affected by war can be heard in two ways: the sounds of violence at the front and sounds of mourning at home. Owen illuminates the ubiquitous nature of

war by representing both the battlefield and the home-front in the poem.

25 Hipp, Shell Shock, 64. 26 Silkin, Out of Battle, 210. 27 Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 270.

31 Owen frequently utilized biblical metaphors and references to specific stories in order to convey a political message. Other than the Christ story, the Genesis chapter about Abraham and the near sacrifice of his son Isaac is the most powerful biblical example of sacrifice in the name of God. In Genesis Chapter 22:1-18,

Abraham is told by God to take his only son, Isaac, and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. Abraham accepts the task and takes his son to be killed. However, at the last moment an angel of God intervenes, telling Abraham that he has done well, but to sacrifice a ram instead. He has passed God's test and is in His good favour. In

"Parable," however, Abraham is portrayed as sinister, because when the angel comes down to stop the slaughter, Abraham ignores the plea and slays his son. The poem ends with the menacing phrase, "And half the seed of Europe, one by one," coinciding with the biblical reference to Abraham's seed (which was promised to

Abraham and his seed) from Genesis Chapter 22, verse 17.

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,

And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,

and builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,

32 Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him. Behold,

A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;

Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

(Wilfred Owen, "Parable of the Old Man and the Young," 1917)

There is a striking contradiction between these two depictions of sacrifice.

According to Allen J. Frantzen, Abraham is portrayed in the Bible and in medieval literature as a hero.28 He is the embodiment of blind faith and obedience. Isaac is not portrayed as a sacrificial victim, but rather a Christ-like martyr prepared to give his own life (or have it taken) in the name of a greater good. However, as Silkin asserts,

Owen interprets Abraham to be a violent aggressor and Isaac the helpless victim. This completely alters the original meaning within the story; that deference and obedience will result in glory. Therefore, the questions to ask are; whom does Owen perceive as the appropriator or appropriators of the Abraham character and who is, or are, the

Isaacs of the poem?

One theory is that the Isaac figure portrays the innocent men who were asked to give their lives for their country. Joseph Cohen suggests that Owen's re-creation

28 Allen J. Frantzen, "Tears for Abraham: The Chester Play of Abraham and Isaac and Anti-sacrifice in Works by Wilfred Owen, Benjamin Britten, and Derek JarmanJournal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31, no.3 (Fall 2001): 455.

33 embodies "an instance of Christian 'Greater Love' in the slain youth of Europe."29 It is possible that this interpretation of sacrifice and martyrdom was Owen's sentiment.

However, one could argue that his perspective was far more complex. First, Owen participated in the conflict willingly and chose to return to the front after his stay at

Craiglockhart Hospital.30 This demonstrates a determination to continue the cause, despite any moral misgivings he may have had. Second, many of Owen's poems convey a sense of responsibility to the soldiers under him. He often referred to the men as children in such poems as "Dulce Et Decorum Est"(Oct 1917)—"to children ardent for some desperate glory"—and "Arms and the Boy" (March 1918)—"Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade." In his poetic fragment "Spring Offensive" (Sept

1918), the reader senses the burden of culpability that Owen felt in sending men into battle. It is as though Owen is removed from the action; simply a spectator witnessing the slaughter of his fellow comrades as they rush to the top of "the hill."

So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together

Over an open stretch of herb and heather

Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned

With fury against them; and soft sudden cups

Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes

Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.

(Wilfred Owen, "Spring Offensive," 1918)

By referring to the men as "boys" or "children," Owen is placing himself in the role of the adult, or superior, thus making himself responsible for their deaths.

29 Joseph Cohen, Journey to the Trenches: The Life of Isaac Rosenberg, 1890-1918 (New York : Basic Books, 1975), 217. 30Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 295.

34 This image of soldiers as children alters our understanding of the Abraham and Isaac story of who is truly to blame. Perhaps Owen is suggesting that he is partially responsible.

If we examine other poems such as the famous "Strange Meeting" (1918), we observe that Owen considers the English soldier to be both victim and killer.31 In this poem—which Britten chose as the concluding poem of the War Requiem—two soldiers on opposing sides, meet in what they believe to be hell. They discuss the futility and pity of war and lament that they will not see the end of the war. At the conclusion of the poem, the one is acknowledged to be the murderer of the other. It culminates with the statement "Let us sleep now." In this poem, Owen never condemned Germany as the enemy, for it is likely that he recognized the helplessness of the young German soldier doing his duty for his country, just as he did. Yet he acknowledged that both are to blame, for they do not meet in Valhalla, the traditional home of dead warriors. Nor are they in heaven being rewarded by their maker.

Rather, they are both considered to be the Abraham and the Isaac of Owen's

"Parable." The two soldiers are both killers and victims, both combatants and pacifists, which is perhaps how Owen viewed himself.

Leading up to the war, spirituality and worship continued to be a part of

Owen's life with regular attendance at church.33 As mentioned, the subject of religion, particularly his Christianity, emerges as a focal point in his war poetry, not only because of the parallels between Christ's sacrifice and that of the soldiers, but also because of Owen's guilt over his participation in the violence and his fear of the

31 Please refer to Appendix A for the text of "Strange Meeting." 32 Hipp, Shell Shock, 90. 33 Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 42.

35 spiritual ramifications. Several of his poems and letters home reveal his conflicted feelings about the role of the church in the war. In a letter to his mother in mid-May of 1917, he expresses his inner turmoil:

Already I have comprehended a light which will never filter into the dogma of any national church: namely that one of Christ's essential commands was: Passivity at any price! Suffer dishonour and disgrace; but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed; but do not kill. It may be a chimerical and an ignominious principle, but there it is. It can only be ignored: and I think pulpit professionals are ignoring it very skillfully and successfully indeed .. . And am I not myself a conscientious objector with a very seared conscience?34

In his poem "Le Christianisme" (Christianity), Owen rebukes the Church for its lack of sympathy to those enduring the war:35

So the church Christ was hit and buried

Under its rubbish and its rubble.

In cellars, packed-up saints lie serried,

Well out of hearing of our trouble.

(Wilfred Owen, "Le Christianisme" lines 1-4, 1917)

The implication is that the Church, with its "rubbish and rubble," consists of cold, inanimate statues of Christ ("church Christ") and the saints ("packed-up saints"), and is completely removed from humanity. Owen is perhaps suggesting that during times of war, given the horrors being witnessed and the disillusionment that would accompany this, religion and Christianity are degraded to mere ornaments of faith. In addition, the statue of Christ is struck and buried. The "saints," meanwhile are protected, "packed-up" and kept safely away from the conflict or "trouble." Perhaps

34 Wilfred Owen to Mary Owen, Stationary Hospital, 16 May 1917, in Collected Letter), 460. 35 Silkin, Out of Battle, 233.

36 the "saints" are the clergy who failed to speak out against the fighting, or the bureaucrats who declared war, but did not participate in combat. Hilda D. Spear argues that Christian myth underwent a transformation during the First World War.

Jesus the Son was accepted and loved because He was a suffering victim, whereas God the Father was rejected and often hated because He was willing to sacrifice Jesus . .. The soldier victims were identified with Jesus; His lot was theirs; they suffered agony, bore their crosses [and] frequently endured a cruel and undeserved death.36

Many WW1 poets drew comparisons between the soldier's sacrifice and Christ's. In

Alec de Candole's (1897-1918) poem "War" (1918) the poet adapts the Gospel's words about Christ: "He saved others; he cannot save himself' (Matthew 27: 42) to

"these soldiers, they save the world, themselves they cannot save."37 As Elizabeth

Vandiver states:

Poems that highlighted sacrifice used a complicated syncretism of Christian and pagan tropes to cast the modern volunteer as a simultaneous reflection of classical heroes and Christ.

In "At a Calvary near the Ancre," Owen comments on the church and the bureaucracy by likening himself and other soldiers to comrades of Christ. Here, the soldiers are neglected by their peers ("disciples"), abandoned by the church

("priests") and even the writers of history ("scribes") will write that they died for a greater good.

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.

In this war He too lost a limb,

36 Hilda D. Spear, Remembering, We Forget: A Background Study to the Poetry of the First World War (London: Davis-Poynter, 1979), 101-2. 37 Elizabeth Vandiver, Stand in the Trench, Achilles: Classical Receptions in British Poetry of the Great War, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 210.

37 But His disciples hide apart;

And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,

And in their faces there is pride

That they were flesh-marked by the Beast

By whom the gentle Christ's denied.

The scribes on all the people shove

And bawl allegiance to the state,

But they who love the greater love

Lay down their lives; they do not hate.

(Wilfred Owen, "At a Calvary near the Ancre," 1917)

Owen credits the soldiers who stood around Christ as he hung on the cross, whereas the disciples hid in fear. The priests, too, come to the trenches or "Golgotha" to offer prayers and watch over the soldiers, always proud when they suffer minor wounds

("flesh-marked"). There is also reference in the Bible (Revelations 14: 9-10) to the devil leaving his "flesh-mark" on his followers, thus hinting, as Stallworthy suggests,

"that the devil is not Germany, but rather war itself."38 Perhaps by referencing

Revelations, Owen is acknowledging that the evils of war are beyond that of earthly disputes and belong to the realm of hell and damnation. These sorts of cynical, religious images, or what Purkis calls "fiercely anti-clerical" references, provide a

38 Jon Stallworthy, in The Poems of Wilfred Owen, ed. Jon Stallworthy (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1985), 111.

38 startling juxtaposition to the image of the "gentle" Christ figure, who Owen likens to the wounded soldier and perhaps himself.39

Within Owen's religiously themed poems, we observe intense guilt, resentment and anguish over his involvement in the war. Owen drew a parallel between himself (or soldiers in general) and the image of the innocent, sacrificed

Christ, revealing a measure of turmoil or confusion over his role in the war. Was he a guilty murderer or an innocent martyr? What is clear is that he strove to find answers through the therapeutic act of writing poetry. With the help of Sassoon and his psychiatrist, Owen faced his demons and translated that pain into his verses.

Owen began his psychiatric treatment for shellshock at Craiglockhart War

Hospital on June 27, 1917, and was under the care of Dr. Arthur Brock.40 Physicians such as Dr. Brock and Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, were pioneers in the therapy used for soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.41 Dr. Brock was treating his shell-shock patients with ergotherapy or the "occupation cure" that he had begun to develop before the war.42 This entailed reintroducing patients to nature and society in order for them to regain a connection with their environments. Brock's treatment of

Owen addressed two areas: reconnecting with the world around him and dealing with his nightmares. The first was approached immediately and as Douglas Kerr states,

Owen quickly "launched on his own 'regional survey' of Edinburgh, visiting schools and slums, factories and middle-class drawing rooms, and exploring the topography

39 Purkis, A Preface to Wilfred Owen, 124. 40 Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 252. 41 Meredith Martin, "Therapeutic Measures: The Hydra and Wilfred Owen at Craiglockhart War Hospital," Modernism/Modernity 14, no.l (Jan 2007): 35-54. 42 Douglas Kerr, Wilfred Owen's Voices, 198.

39 and natural history of the area."43 In addressing Owen's nightmares, Dr. Brock recognized the importance of analysis, and he worked with him in order to release the

"phantoms of the mind."44 Brock explained in his assessment that Owen's bad dreams were "expressions of failure, guilt and loss of self-confidence."45 He advised that

Owen use poetry as a way of getting beyond his feelings of fear and guilt.

Being away from the front did not ease the torments experienced by the soldiers. The corridors of Craiglockhart Hospital were characterized as scenes out of a nightmare with men crying out in their sleep and others, unable to sleep, wandering the halls.46 Owen wrote in a letter to his friend Leslie Gunston, that he was "one of the weary who don't want to rest."47

One of Owen's most explicitly personal poems is "Has your soul sipped?"

(October 1916), about a young man he witnessed bleeding to death and how he found the experience to be very moving and "beautiful."48

I have been witness

Of a strange sweetness,

All fancy surpassing

Past all supposing.

(Wilfred Owen, "Has your soul sipped?" 1916)

Prior to Owen's participation in the war, he observed the conflict in a distant way, removed from the action, yet the macabre aspects of the violence nevertheless

43 Kerr, Wilfred Owen's Voices, 196. 44 Brock, quoted in Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 252. 45 Arthur J Brock, Health and Conduct (London: Williams & Norgate, Ltd., 1923), 171-172. 46 Hibberd, 252. 47 Owen in a letter dated June 1917, quoted in Hibberd, 253. 48 Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 258.

40 fascinated him. In September of 1914 he accompanied a doctor friend to a hospital in

France where the wounded were treated. What Owen took from this experience was a fascination for the graphic, going so far as to write his brother detailed letters that included lurid drawings describing the incident.

His desire to capture the war experience in a visual manner and through language, foreshadows the technique of realism that would mark Owen's initial war poems.49 However, later on as a soldier suffering from shell shock, he sought to construct an understanding for himself and to discover a purpose for the fighting; resulting in a more sophisticated, mature and personal interpretation of the horrors of war.50 An example of this is his poem "Mental Cases."

Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?

Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,

Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,

Baring teeth that leer like skulls' teeth wicked?

Stroke on stroke of pain, - but what slow panic,

Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?

Ever from their hair and through their hands' palms

Misery swelters. Surely we have perished

Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?

- These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.

Memory fingers in their hair of murders,

49 Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 258. 50 Martin, "Therapeutic Measures," 47.

41 Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.

Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,

Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.

Always they must see these things and hear them,

Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,

Carnage incomparable, and human squander

Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.

Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented

Back into their brains, because on their sense

Sunlight seems a blood-smear; night comes blood-black;

Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh.

- Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,

Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.

- Thus their hands are plucking at each other;

Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;

Snatching after us who smote them, brother,

Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.

(Wilfred Owen, "Mental Cases," 1918)

This poem is similar to "Strange Meeting" in that a visitor arrives in an unknown place, perhaps a hospital or hell, and is shown the inmates held there. Owen told

Sassoon that "Mental Cases," originally titled "The Deranged," was his "terrific

42 poem."51 It contains memories of actual shell-shock victims, but its portrayal of madmen as "purgatorial shadows" reveals Owen's perceptions, not only of the other patients, but of himself as well. Meredith Martin states that:

Within the context of Craiglockhart, we can read Owen's later poems as partial products of therapy that re-educated its patients to recognize and confront their hysteria, reordering its reception in the mind through a reconnection to the physical and social world.52

Writing poetry became not only a method of healing from his post-traumatic condition, but it also assisted Owen in coming to terms with his conflicted opinions about the war. He thought of himself as unwell because of his mixed emotions, which caused him further anxiety.53 By the end of his stay at Craiglockhart Hospital, Owen had decided to return to the front if for no other reason than to attain a certain amount of credibility in his convictions as an objector to the war. He stated in the fall of 1917:

"I hate washy pacifists as temperamentally as I hate whiskied Prussianists. Therefore,

I feel I must first get some reputation of gallantry before I could successfully and usefully declare my principles."54

Owen was discharged from Craiglockhart in November 1917, one year before his death. He returned to France but was killed by German machine-gun fire beside the Sambre and Oise Canal on the morning of November 4, 1918.

51 Hibberd, Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, 317. 52 Martin, "Therapeutic Measures," 54. 53 Stallworthy, Wilfred Owen, 215. 54 Wilfred Owen to Mary Owen, Craiglockhart Hospital, 2 October 1917, in Wilfred Owen Collected Letters, ed. Harold Owen and John Bell (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 498.

43 Benjamin Britten, Wilfred Owen and the War Requiem

Benjamin Britten's decision to use Owen's poetry in the War Requiem is interesting for several reasons. First, there were several librettists, writers and poets in the circle of friends associated with Britten and his partner Peter Pears (1910-1986) including poet Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973).55 Yet Britten did not select one of his peers to collaborate on the project, opting instead for poems by a young soldier- poet from the previous war. Second, having not participated in combat, Britten's war experience was completely different from that of Owen. Although Britten may have shared many of his pacifist sentiments, Owen's perspective was the result of his experience in combat and suffering from shell shock. Britten did not experience the horrors of being a soldier and yet he evidently perceived that the knowledge of a combatant was necessary to successfully embody a prayer for peace.

The raw language and graphic detail in Owen's poems effectively convey the violence of battle, yet also the tragedy of military sacrifice. Perhaps Britten chose

Owen's poetry not only because of the abundance of religious symbols and imagery, and because Owen was an active participant, but also because Owen ultimately lost his life (one week before the Armistice), thus fulfilling the Christ metaphor of martyrdom. The invocation to God and Jesus Christ in the liturgical text, praying for rest and salvation, is only half of the message of the War Requiem. Rather, the perspective of the soldier is actually that of Wilfred Owen, whose voice is interjected between the liturgical texts, and whose death creates a further metaphor for sacrifice in that he is the second martyr of the work. Christ is the first "Lamb of God" (Agnus

Dei) to be sacrificed, and Britten positions Owen as the second. As we have observed

55 R. Victoria Arana, W.H. Auden's Poetry (New York: Cambria Press, 2009).

44 in several of his poems, Owen refers to soldiers as Christ figures, sacrificed for the greater good or the benefit of society, even the world. It was only fitting, then, that

Britten adopted this notion and by utilizing his poetry, placed the image of Owen as the contemporary sacrificial counterpart to Christ's crucifixion. Had Owen lived, the metaphor for the futility of war would have been incomplete. The crux of the War

Requiem lies in the dichotomy between the sacred text and secular poetry. Yet what is ultimately revealed is that the two are parallel with one unified message of sacrifice and finally, as we will observe in Chapter 6, reconciliation.

45 CHAPTER THREE

THE LIFE AND SELECTED WORKS OF BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976)

Benjamin Britten's influence on twentieth-century music has been far reaching. He revitalized English opera, which according to Philip Brett, had been neglected since Henry Purcell in the seventeenth century.1 Britten was also influenced by non-western music, such as gamelan instrumentation from Bali, which he integrated into his compositions.2 It is within Britten's operas that we find the most similarities with the War Requiem, not only in the dramatic nature of his settings but also in the socio-political content of the libretti and poetry.3 By examining Britten's operas in both a historical and biographical sense, we achieve a better understanding of the War Requiem and also discover the corresponding themes of peace, reconciliation and forgiveness.

Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft, on the Suffolk coast, on November

22, 1913. His mother, Edith, was an amateur musician and dedicated member of St.

John's, an Evangelical church.4 His father, Robert, was a dentist and rarely attended services. Every Sunday, the four Britten children alternated between church with their mother and car rides with their father.5 Benjamin began his musical education very early, and by the age of fourteen had completed over one hundred compositions,

1 Grove Music Online, s.v. "Britten, Benjamin," by Philip Brett, et al., accessed January 28,2011, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/. 2 "His encounter with gamelan orchestras on a visit to Bali had an immediate impact on the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas, and it was his experience of the austere, stylized ritual of Japanese Noh theatre that was to be the main inspiration for the three Church Parables, composed at two-yearly intervals between 1964 and 1968." http://www.brittenpears.org/?page=britten/repertoire/opera/curlew.html. 3 For further suggested readings on queer theory, Britten biographies and Britten's operas see the Literature Review and Bibliography. 4 "Benjamin Britten: Biography," Britten-Pears Foundation, accessed January 29, 2011, www.brittenpears.org. 5 Elliot, The Spiritual Dimension, 8.

46 although several of these early works were not published until after his death.6 In childhood, Britten was a voracious learner and as Brett states, showed "an almost

Mozartian precocity" in preparatory school.7 As a young man he ventured to London where he received composition lessons from the composer Frank Bridge (1879-

1941).8 It was Bridge who taught Britten to be meticulous in his musical technique— a skill he maintained his entire compositional career. The elder composer was also highly influential in shaping his protege's character and political sentiments

(pacifism) through their lengthy sessions together. Britten stated during an interview in 1963 that Bridge instructed him to "find yourself and be true to what you found."9

In 1929, Britten attended the Royal College of Music in London and despite

Bridge's attempts to steer his interests in the direction of modernism, his diaries reveal that he "could not make head or tail" of Schoenberg's Erwartung.10 Instead, the lyrical writing of Gustav Mahler influenced Britten's style, as well as his passion for baroque English opera. Britten stated: "One of my chief aims is to try and restore to the musical setting of the English language a brilliance, freedom and vitality that have been curiously rare since the days of Purcell."11 In addition to rediscovering

English vocal repertory, Britten strove to express himself personally and politically in

6 Grove Music Online, s.v. "Britten, Benjamin," by Philip Brett, et al., accessed January 21, 2011, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/. 7 Ibid. 8 Frank Bridge was an English composer, violin instructor and teacher of composition. 9 Britten in an interview in Sunday Telegraph 17 Nov 1963, quoted in Brett's article, "Benjamin Britten" in Oxford Music Online. 10 Benjamin Britten diary entry, 9 January 1931, in Journeying Boy: The Diaries of the Young Benjamin Britten 1928-1938, ed. John Evans (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 2009). Found in Brett's Grove article. 11 Britten, quoted in Boris Ford, ed., Benjamin Britten's Poets: An Anthology of the Poems He Set to Music (London: Curcanet Press Limited, 1994), xi.

47 his music, and his early compositions of the 1930s are saturated with political statements against violence and allegories for peace.

Britten's pacifism and musical activism

Throughout his life and career, Britten met individuals who had an enormous impact on his anti-military convictions. Mervyn Cooke asserts that there were signs of his pacifism early on, stemming from a childhood revulsion to corporal punishment in schools.12 In addition, during his private composition lessons, a young

Britten and Frank Bridge would engage in extensive discussions on pacifism.13 While in his early twenties Britten even went so far as to participate in a door-to-door pacifist leaflet campaign in Lowestoft. Of further influence was his friend, the poet

W.H. Auden. Auden's views on the social obligations of artists, writers and musicians were influential for Britten, and he began to integrate these political beliefs into his compositions.14 The first such political statement appeared in March 1936, when

Britten composed a brief musical score for the controversial film Peace of Britain.

Written and directed by Paul Rotha (1907-1984), it contained a politically motivated anti-rearmament message.15 During this period of the 1930s, Britten also composed his first major work to "encapsulate a social or political issue," the song-cycle Our

Hunting Fathers (1936).16 This work engendered much criticism following its

12 Mervyn Cooke, War Requiem, Cambridge Music Handbooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 11. 13 Ibid. 14 Lloyd Whitesell, "Britten's Dubious Trysts " Journal of the American Musicological Society 56, no.3 (Autumn, 2003): 688. 15 Cooke, War Requiem, 12. 16 Philip Brett, "Pacifism, Political Action and Artistic Endeavor," in Music and Sexuality in Britten ed. George E. Haggerty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 175. Our Hunting Fathers Op.8, for high voice and orchestra, was written in June of 1936. It contains five songs. A thorough analysis can be found in Chapter 3 of Benjamin Britten, by Michael Oliver (London: Phaidon Press, 2008).

48 premiere at the Norwich Triennial Festival in September 1936. Many dismissed it, including critic H.C. Colles of The Times who claimed it was "just a stage to get through," implying that Britten's newfound activism would simply be outgrown.17

Not to be discouraged, Britten collaborated with the poet and playwright Ronald

Duncan (1914—1982) on the choral work Pacifist March (1937) for the Peace Pledge

| o Union, a pacifist organization. Other works that are political in nature include the choral works The World of the Spirit (1938) and Ballad of Heroes (1939), a piece written in honour of those who had fallen in the Spanish Civil War.19 In 1940 Britten completed the orchestral Sinfonia da Requiem, which he described in his journals and letters as "combining my ideas on war & a memorial for Mum & Pop," referring to the dedication to his deceased parents.20 Given its title, this work is significant because it addresses Britten's interest in the concept of the memorial in music and the theme of war, making it a precursor to the War Requiem. Philip Brett asserts that this type of composition would become "characteristic of [Britten's] later music [by] combining personal and social concerns on an ambitious scale."21

Britten and Peter Pears traveled to the United States in 1939, five months prior to the onset of the war, following their friends Auden and Christopher Isherwood

(1904-1986) who had left months earlier for New York.22 There are conflicting

17 H.C. Colles' article in The Times (Sept 1936), quoted in Brett, "Political Action," in Music and Sexuality, 175. 18 Cooke, Requiem, 12. 19 The World of the Spirit originated as a BBC commission and broadcast. It too is a mixture of poetry and scripture, selected by R. Ellis Roberts, for soloists, speakers), chorus and orchestra. Britten-Pears Foundation, www.brittenpears.org. Benjamin Britten, The World of the Spirit (for narrator, SATB choir and orchestra) incidental music commissioned by the BBC in 1938 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 20 Brett, "Political Action," in Music and Sexuality, 176. 21 Ibid. 22 Peter Parker, Isherwood: A Life (London: Picador Publishing, 2004).

49 accounts of the reasons for Britten's departure. Michael Oliver states that Britten had originally intended to simply visit the United States in order to recover from a near nervous collapse (speculated by friends to be the result of overwork). He was encouraged by his peers to stay, later stating that "many of us young people at that time felt that Europe was more or less finished."23 However, the Britten-Pears

Foundation asserts that Britten and Pears attempted several times between 1939 and

1942 to obtain travel visas in order to return to the United Kingdom, indicating that

their stay in America was unintentionally extended.24 Whatever the circumstances

regarding the length of Britten's stay, he was undoubtedly vocal in his anti-military

beliefs, and while in New York he received correspondence from friends back in

England disapproving of his firm stance. For example, his friend composer Lennox

Berkeley (1903-1989) wrote in a letter dated September 3, 1939, "I've always been a

pacifist at heart, how can one be anything else? But I think if there ever was a case

where force has got to be used, this is it."25

In April 1942, Britten and Pears finally returned home to England. They both

registered as conscientious objectors and were later exempted from military service.26

Below is Britten's statement to the local tribunal for their registration, dated May 4,

1942:

Since I believe that there is in every man the spirit of God, I cannot destroy, and feel it my duty to avoid helping to destroy as far as I am able, human life, however strongly I may disapprove of the individual's actions or thoughts. The whole of my life has been devoted to acts of creation (being by profession

23 Britten, quoted in Michael Oliver, Benjamin Britten (New York: Phaidon Press Ltd., 2008), 71. 24 http://www.brittenpears.org/?page=britten/biographv/thirties.html. 25 Lennox Berkeley, letter to Britten dated September 3, 1939, quoted in Cooke, Requiem, 13. 26 Benjamin Britten, Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten, 1913- 1976, vol. 2, ed. Donald Mitchell and Philip Reed (Los Angeles: University of California, Berkeley, 1991), 1031.

50 a composer) and I cannot take part in acts of destruction. Moreover, I feel that the fascist attitude to life can only be overcome by passive resistance. If Hitler were in power here or this country had any similar form of government, I should feel it my duty to obstruct this regime in every non-violent way possible. Benjamin Britten 27

Britten's Operas

How is Britten's pacifism evident in his operatic oeuvre? Michael Kennedy states that the composer's self-appointed task of establishing an English operatic idiom was successful for two reasons. First, he developed his compositional technique in order to face the challenge of writing such a large work. Britten then developed what Kennedy calls a "spiritual leitmotiv, "

For Britten, the leitmotiv took the form of a parable, a word which may be applied with accuracy to many of his works, [of] how innocence can be tainted and corrupted by the world.28

That same year, Britten approached English poet and playwright Montagu

Slater (1902-1956) to write a libretto on the subject of the eighteenth-century fisherman Peter Grimes, whose life is told by George Crabbe (1754-1832) in the poem The Borough (1810).29 Britten's opera Peter Grimes premiered in London on

June 7, 1945.30 The tale of Peter Grimes begins following the mysterious death of

Grimes' apprentice. In the town hall, Grimes faces a crowd of hostile villagers who blame him for the young man's death. Throughout the opera, Grimes is subjected to ridicule and judgment from the people of his town, all but the schoolmistress Ellen

Orford. Grimes vows to one day marry Ellen after earning enough money to open a

27 Ibid. 28 Michael Kennedy, Britten, The Dent Master Musicians (London: J.M. Dent, 1993), 158. 29 Eric Walter White, Benjamin Britten: His Life and Operas, 2nd Ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 120. 30 Philip Brett, Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

51 store and leave the fishing village. However, his violent nature gets the better of him and in Act Two he strikes out against Ellen; before long, an angry mob sets off on a manhunt. Deranged and raving, Grimes launches a boat out to sea and takes his own life as Ellen is led away.31

Peter Grimes addresses two recurring themes which permeate Britten's operas, the outsider or individual against society and the corruption of innocence.32

This metaphor reflects Britten's experiences during his time as an objector to the war.

Britten later stated that "a central feeling for us was that of the individual against the crowd. As conscientious objectors, we were out of it."33

Britten returned to England in 1942, not certain of whether he would be persecuted for his beliefs. He wished to return to his country, yet was wary and distrustful of the society around him. Philip Brett believes that it was the opera Peter

Grimes which represented "the ultimate fantasy of persecution and suicide, that played a crucial role in [Britten's] coming to terms with himself and the society."34

The suicide of the main character as a result of society's judgment and oppression

relates also to Britten's outsider status as a homosexual. To quote Brett again, "the

two, [homosexuality/conscientious objection] were inextricably intertwined not only

in him as an individual, but also in British culture."35 Peter Grimes (1945) was the

31 Grove Music Online, s.v. "Britten, Benjamin," by Philip Brett, et al., accessed November 7, 2010, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/. 32 "Peter Grimes," The Britten-Pears Foundation, accessed November 13, 2010, http://www.brittenpears.org/?page=brittenAvorks/grimes.html. 33 Benjamin Britten, from R. Murray Schafer's British Composers in Interview (London: Faber and Faber, 1963), quoted in Brett, "Political Action," in Music and Sexuality, 177. 34 Brett, "Britten and Grimes," The Musical Times, 999. 35 Brett, "Political Action," in Music and Sexuality, 177.

52 first of Britten's operas, yet he continued the theme of the 'outsider' in many of his sixteen operas.36

In Billy Budd (1951), Britten raised the questions of whether obligation can

lead one morally astray, and if what is considered legal justice can actually be

morally unjust.37 The premise of the plot draws on the story of Abraham and Isaac

(discussed in Chapter 2), for which Britten had a particular fondness, using it in other compositions such as the War Requiem, and Canticle 11 (1952) (examined in Chapter

4). The opera's libretto was written by Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970) and Eric

Crozier (1914-1994), and based on the short novel Billy Budd (1886) by Herman

Melville (1819-1891). In 1797, during the French Revolution, the young and

innocent sailor Billy Budd is tormented and ridiculed by all the other crew members

on board the HMS Indomitable because of his stutter, save the compassionate Captain

Vere. When the sinister Master-at-Arms Claggart accuses Billy of mutiny, he is

unable to defend himself, and can only stammer. In frustration he strikes Claggart,

who collapses, and dies. Captain Vere is forced, by the demands of other men, to

have Billy executed, though his conscience tells him to do otherwise. Before his

hanging, Billy cries out, "Starry Vere, God Bless you!" The opera closes with the

aged Captain Vere who, still haunted by the memory of that long-ago day, concludes

that Billy Budd, by forgiving his actions, "has saved me, and blessed me, and the love

that passeth understanding has come to me."38

36 Claire Seymour, The Operas of Benjamin Britten: Expression and Evasion (Rochester: Boydell Press, 2004); Eric Walter White, Benjamin Britten: His Life and Operas; Michael Wilcox, Britten's Operas (New York: Absolute Press, 1997). 37 Mervyn Cooke and Philip Reed, eds., Benjamin Britten: "Billy Budd" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 38 Benjamin Britten, Billy Budd Op. 50 (London: Hawkes & Sons, 1961), 332.

53 As Brett states, "the action places the dramatic emphasis firmly on his moral choice and predicament, which is precisely that of choosing between loyalty to a fellow man and the authority of the state."39 This mirrors Abraham's dilemma in choosing between God and his son in the Offertorium of the War Requiem. Abraham and Vere must choose between their higher authority and their own moral compass.

Abraham is spared at the last minute from his task, but Vere is compelled to do what he feels is legally just, yet morally unjust. Billy Budd revisits the themes addressed in

Peter Grimes—the hero as an outsider, and men at odds with those around them.

Brett asserts that as Britten's acceptance in English society grew over the years and as his mistrust of society diminished:

His own private and spiritual preoccupations came closer and closer to the surface: the corruption of innocence, the poignancy of age and decay, the theme of human reconciliation, compassion for the weak, lonely and helpless, and the Christian notion of salvation.40

In comparison, the character of Billy Budd is not only unblemished by bitterness at

his condemnation, he is also righteous enough to "save" the man who orders his

execution. This Christ-like figure and the notion of martyrdom is developed further

by likening the soldier to Christ in the War Requiem.

Although it was written eight years after the War Requiem, the ghost story of

Owen Wingrave (1970) supplements Britten's message of peace. Specifically

conceived and composed as an opera for television, it focuses on Owen Wingrave, the

son of a military family, who abandons his military calling and becomes an open

objector to the war. After fierce family opposition, disinheritance and the ridicule of

39 Brett, "Political Action," in Music and Sexuality, 180. 40 Philip Brett, "Salvation at Sea: Britten's Billy Budd," in Music and Sexuality in Britten (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 74.

54 his fiancee, Wingrave agrees to prove his bravery by spending the night in a haunted room at the family mansion of Paramore—a room in which an ancestor was found dead without a single wound after accidentally killing his son while disciplining him.

Several hours later, Wingrave's fiancee unlocks the door to find him similarly deceased, without a wound.

Owen Wingrave is the combination of two of Britten's personal struggles, his highly criticized pacifism and his known, yet unconfirmed homosexuality.41 Here,

Wingrave is punished by his family for wanting to abandon military life, yet the presence of the haunted room (or closet) draws a comparison with Britten's reluctance to live an entirely open homosexual lifestyle. Stephen McClatchie addresses the inner turmoil Britten faced and the notion of the "open secret."42

Wingrave, like Britten, rejects military life, but strives to prove his bravery by spending the night in the haunted room. On the other hand, it has been suggested that

Britten left Great Britain for the United States in order to avoid conscription. Pacifism aside, Britten also abandoned the traditional role of the straight male composer that

British society called for him to be. Instead, he adopted a role that at times did not come easily, that of an immensely private, yet openly gay man. Wingrave is disinherited and ridiculed because of his choice, which Brett states "places a great condemnatory weight on the family." Specifically, the female characters are portrayed in the opera with "unmitigated hostility" as well as undermining the notion of patriarchy 43

41 Stephen McClatchie, "Benjamin Britten," Cambridge Opera Journal 8, no. 1 (Mar., 1996): 59-75. 42 Ibid., 59. 43 Brett, "Political Action," in Music and Sexuality, 183.

55 The haunted room is significant because is serves as both a literal and metaphorical closet. Britten felt censored his entire life, yet a life in the closet was unimaginable and would only provide a certain level of psychological death or in this case 'death without wounds,' the fate of Owen Wingrave. The irony is that Wingrave embraces a life of peace and nonviolence only to face a horrifying death because of a desire to disprove his cowardice.

From Peter Grimes and Billy Budd to Owen Wingrave, Britten's protagonists

tend to be outsiders, disenfranchised from both family and society. Many scholars

agree that this is not only because of his unpopular political sentiments but also

because his homosexuality gave him a perception of being an outsider. Brett states:

Just as the pacifist can fight militarism only in its own terms (and lose in those terms), so the problem of the homosexual is to escape the history of sexuality into a new life without replicating the old 'straight' order, something understandably inconceivable to the closeted Britten.44

It is with this in mind that we now approach the War Requiem and Britten's use of

another outsider figure, that of Wilfred Owen. Owen's poetry, as we have observed,

is recognized as a statement against the horrors of war. Britten's interpretation of that

message comes in the form of what Peter Pears called "a passionate denunciation of

the bestial wickedness by which man is made to take up arms against his fellow."45

44 Ibid. 45 Peter Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten (London: J.M. Dent and Songs Ltd., 1979/ 2nd ed. 1996), 450.

56 PART TWO

CHAPTER FOUR

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE WAR REQUIEM

Given the dramatic content of hell and judgment within the Latin Requiem text, the emotional rawness of Wilfred Owen's war poems, and the theatrical fashion in which Benjamin Britten draws all the various elements together, it is no wonder that the War Requiem is often regarded as akin to the composer's operas.1 Peter

Evans asserts that, ultimately, the War Requiem can be compared with Britten's operas in its "vast scope [and] development from the contemplation of a dramatic conflict."2 Some of the most notable Masses and Requiem Masses in the musical canon are by opera composers, for example, those by Mozart and Verdi. Hans von

Biilow described Verdi's Requiem as his "latest opera, in ecclesiastical dress." The same could easily be said of the War Requiem due to Britten's dramatic treatment of the Mass. Furthermore, comparisons are often drawn between the War Requiem and

Verdi's Requiem because of undeniable similarities in overall design, and melodic and harmonic parallels that could be explained as Britten's tribute to his predecessor.4

The occasion for which the War Requiem was written no doubt contributes to the theatricality of the work, given the nature of the reconsecration of Coventry

Cathedral with its ruins, and what it signified to the citizens of Coventry and England.

1 See, for example, Malcolm Boyd and Peter Evans. 2 Peter Evans, "Britten's War Requiem," Tempo 61/62 (Spring - Summer, 1962): 20, http://links.istor.org/sici?sici=0040- 2982%28196221%2F22%292%3AO%3A61%2F62%3C20%3AB%27R%3E2.0.CQ%3B2-C. 3 Hans von Billow, quoted in Evan's article "Britten's War Requiem," 20. 4 Malcolm Boyd, "Britten, Verdi and the Requiem," Tempo 86 (Fall, 1968): 2-6.

57 The primarily English audience would have been able to immediately connect and sympathize with the War Requiem's contemporary figures of the soldiers, and the recognizable poetry. Britten stated in his article, "On Writing English Opera:"

The text of my War Requiem was perfectly in place in Coventry Cathedral— the Owen poems in the vernacular, and the words of the Requiem Mass familiar to everyone—but it would have been pointless in Cairo or Peking.5

Thus the meaning behind the celebration was intensely poignant to those who had survived the war and watched the rebuilding of their society. The bombed ruins around them served as a painful reminder of what had been lost; yet the new

Cathedral symbolized all that was achieved after the war—renewal, restoration and peace.

As indicated, Britten's mother was religious and thus Britten would have been exposed to the various church doctrines. Britten's peers, colleagues and historians have speculated as to the depths of his religious beliefs, yet even the composer's own statements are ambiguous, even cryptic. Peter Pears stated, "[Britten] was religious in the general sense of acknowledging a power above greater than ourselves, but he wasn't a regular church-goer."6 Pears also observed that Britten's "sense of identity with Christianity fluctuated."7 When musician and conductor Murray Perahia (1947-) asked Britten if he considered himself religious he replied that he was "certainly

Christian in his music."8 One can merely speculate as to what he was implying; however, in the same 1942 tribunal where Britten was forced to defend his conscientious objection to the war, he linked his pacifism with his faith by stating that

5 Benjamin Britten, "On Writing English Opera," Opera 12 (1961): 7-8. 6 Alan Blyth, Remembering Britten, (London: Hutchinson & Company Ltd., 1981), 22. 7 Elliot, The Spiritual Dimension, 29. 8 Blyth, Remembering Britten, 172.

58 he "[does] not believe in the Divinity of Christ, but [thinks] his teaching is sound and his example should be followed."9

The organization of the War Requiem and its "planes"

A further example of the War Requiem's dramatic nature lies in the layout and organization of the forces involved. In particular, Britten's division of the various musicians into sections is especially theatrical. There is the alternation between the three contrasting musical entities (the boys' choir and organ; four-part chorus, female soloist and orchestra; male soloists with the chamber orchestra). Meredith Davies, who at the time worked with the English Opera Group, was selected to conduct the full choir, soprano soloist and orchestra. Britten opted to direct the tenor and baritone soloists and the chamber orchestra.10 The musical styles of each entity are individual and distinct, contributing to the dramatic contrast between one group and another.

Peter Evans asserts that:

For the greater part of the work, dramatic conclusions that the listener may draw are not the product of overt musical interaction between the performing groups; the three distinct ensembles move most often on quite separate planes."

However, Britten connects the liturgical text with the poetry in such a way that there is a mutual acknowledgement between the two by way of a textual and musical interaction.

9 Britten, Letters, vol. 2, 1031. 10 Cooke, Requiem, 27. 11 Peter Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten, 451.

59 The tenor and baritone soloists

The axis of the entire work is the presence of the two male soloists, who are presented as soldiers through their delivery of the war poems. They are the centre of the narrative and I interpret them to be the emotional crux around which the other parts orbit. Britten's use of the smaller twelve-piece chamber orchestra for the male soloists promotes the feeling of intimacy, accessibility and connection with the soldiers. As stated earlier, the English tenor Peter Pears and German baritone Dietrich

Fischer-Dieskau were positioned equally within the framework of Owen's poetry.

Both portray the tragic soldier, the "doomed youth" and the Isaac figure. The nationalities of the singers, while representative of the warring nations of World War

Two, are perhaps a symbol of reconciliation in itself on Britten's part. The men are simply soldiers facing the earthly realities of war, their fears and resentments.

Britten set Owen's twentieth-century poetry in an operatic fashion by utilizing a recitative style in order to promote the syntactical flow of the poems and the fluidity of the action taking place. The tenor and baritone solos alternate between diatonicism and sections of tonal ambiguity, including occurrences of octatonic structures and twelve-tone references. In his article, "Musical Metaphor: Cyclic-Interval Structures in Britten's War Requiem," music theorist Edward Lundergan asserts that each plane or musical level contains its own cyclic-interval structure, which defines the plane and provides a sort of tonal narrative between the "characters" (the soldiers, for example) of the War Requiem. He argues that:

60 Through the use of whole-tone, octatonic, and twelve-tone scales or clusters, one finds Britten's use of diatonic passages all the more purposeful ... Britten's diatonic and non-diatonic structures share a common cyclic derivation and combine to form a unified musical language, a system of cyclic-interval relations so extensive as to include traditional functional tonality as a subsystem.12

Lundergan states that "octatonic and diatonic formations [are] associated with the music of the terrestrial battlefield and are set predominantly in middle and low registers." These can be found in the music of "Bugles Sang" in which octatonic structures predominate, and in "Strange Meeting" where "the battlefield key of G minor" (and the resolution of the tritone) is achieved.13

Boys' choir and soprano soloists

The second "plane" of the War Requiem is the presence of the boys' choir. It can be interpreted as an angelic presence since the boys are placed at a distance from the mortal beings (literally removed), and are accompanied by (perhaps the most traditionally religious instrument) the organ. Britten's directions for the placement of the boys indicates that they are to observe the action, not as the rest of humanity (the choir) does on the ground, but from a distant vantage point, beyond the earthly realm.

Lundergan's theory reinforces this interpretation as he identifies the dominant musical language of the boys' choir as an interval-3 cycle (C3o), which consists of C-

Efflat ]-F[sharp ]-A.14

Lundergan states that:

The extreme simplicity of the intervallic structure of C3o, containing only minor thirds and tritones, serves as a symbol of purity, while the process of

12 Edward Lundergan, "Musical Metaphor: Cyclic-Interval Structures in Britten's War Requiem, " Choral Journal 38, no.7 (February 1998): 9. 13 Lundergan, 11. 14 Lundergan, 11.

61 cyclic transposition, endlessly repeatable without generating a new pitch class, suggests isolation and an orientation toward eternity.15

Lundergan states that the boys' choir sings "diatonically harmonized, inversionally related melodic lines, anchored on the tritone pitches C and F-sharp, implying an axis of symmetry on A (or E-flat)."16 The interval-3 cycle is not exclusively used in the boys' choir sections. For example, in the Agnus Dei movement, Lundergan suggests that the tenor's line or "the registral descent of C3o, can be seen as a musical metaphor for the descent of God to earth in the Incarnation."17 This interpretation reinforces the argument that Britten portrayed the boys' choir as celestial because this same interval cycle permeates their musical lines.

The most difficult role of the War Requiem to interpret is that of the soprano soloist. Britten wrote many of the most poignant and stirring passages for the soprano, including the "Lacrimosa" and the Sanctus, perhaps implying that she is of greater importance than a mere spectator. There are also occurrences when the soprano and the chorus engage in a dialogue (as in the "Rex tremendae") suggesting a particular divine significance to her role, perhaps that the Virgin Mary or female deity. She sings in the same language (Latin) as the chorus, but she is not removed from the action (as is the boys' choir) nor does her part appear alongside the other male soloists.18 The soprano role being in Latin may have been a simple matter of

15 Lundergan, 10. 16 Lundergan, "Musical Metaphor," 9.

17 Ibid.,13. 18 Michael Oliver, Benjamin Britten, Twentieth-Century Composers (London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1996), 170.

62 logistics. The intended soloist Galina Vishnevskaya had never sung in English; therefore Britten told her he would write her part in Latin.19

In the Sanctus, the soprano's vocal line is a technically virtuosic, with great leaps accompanied by quasi-Indonesian instruments,20 offering a further interpretation that she is perhaps a pagan priestess. She sings, predominantly, with the chorus (humanity), is accompanied by the full orchestra, and yet she is physically set apart from the group—in front and beside the full choir—almost on her own fourth

"plane."

The four-part chorus and full orchestra

While the tenor and baritone soloists represent the individual soldiers, the four-part chorus can be interpreted as society as a whole. As Rupprecht states, the choir stands for humanity, "a collectivity facing the audience, and with whom the audience can identify—but who [are] restricted to the liturgy."21 It is the choir that enacts the Requiem Mass itself and offers prayers to those who have died. They are the observers, not participants in the earthly conflict and generally reflect upon the action just as in opera where the chorus consists of spectators and commentators.

The choir is positioned behind the soloists (the soldiers) who are, as

Rupprecht suggests, the "first-hand witnesses, reporting from 'out there' on the battlefield."22 Dramatically, the chorus thus acts as an assembly of spectators, removed from the violence, yet aware of the action. In the Agnus Dei they are unified with the soldiers in their plea for peace. Yet at times the chorus is divided, even

19 Oliver, Benjamin Britten, 170. 20 Chinese blocks, gong, vibraphone, glockenspiel, antique cymbals (C and F#) 21 Philip Rupprecht, Britten's Musical Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 197. 22 Ibid., 197.

63 amongst itself, as in the "Recordare" in which the women of the home-front are musically separated from the male-dominated "Confutatis." Stylistically, Britten provides the chorus with the most traditional of settings in his treatment of the four choral voices. For example, he composed fugues and chorales for the Offertorium and the Agnus Dei. Yet his setting is also unconventional in that it abounds with one of the most jarring, dissonant intervals in music, the tritone, which undermines the peaceful nature of the text.

The diabolus in musica and the sounds of war in the War Requiem

Although the three separate areas or "planes" of the War Requiem are musically contrasting, Britten provides unity by the use of one of the most recognizable motives in Western music—the tritone. Referred to in the Middle Ages as diabolus in musica (the devil in music), the diminished fifth/augmented fourth creates a jarring sensation because of its tonal instability, typically demanding resolution.23 The significant tritone pitches of the War Requiem are C and F-sharp, which Britten exploits to their full potential, both melodically, harmonically and thematically. It is the ultimate irony of the work: The Requiem (peaceful) Mass for the dead (who the congregation is praying are at rest) is based on a foundation of the

least peaceful or restful musical gesture in tonal music.

Other specific musical motifs or gestures are found repeatedly throughout the

War Requiem including musical metaphors that portray the literal sounds of the battlefield. One such motif is Britten's use of fanfare, a brief triadic passage typically

23 Grove Music Online, s.v. "Tritone," by William Drabkin, accessed January 22, 201 1, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/.

64 found in the brass.24 In particular, two fanfares featured in the opening measures of the Dies irae are reiterated in different forms. The first (found in mm. 1-3) is characterized by a 16th-note/dotted 8th-note/dotted half note in an arpeggiated triad, followed by a triplet figure (either descending or ascending) with three repeated triplets/two 8th-notes/whole note. [See the two fanfare examples below.] The second fanfare, (mm.4-6) consists of a descending (at times ascending) stepwise motion, whose rhythm alternates two quarter-notes with two 8th- notes, followed by ending pitches of varying length. This motif appears in measure 10 of the Dies irae. [See example below]

Example 4.1 Fanfare Motif #1: Opening three measures of the Dies irae Movement

(Chorus stand ) Quick J:i60 . . =s - - r Horn 1 in F -tf -—- ac PP^marked TTT » _ [2 Trumpet 1.2 in C 3- ^ ' -UJJJJJJJ J T& U QC. rr* > & O = I Trombone 1 t*

pp marked

Example 4.2 Fanfare motif #2, Horn 1 in F; Measures 4 through 6 in the Dies irae movement

24 Grove Music Online, s.v. "Fanfare," by Edward H. Tarr, accessed January 22,2011, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/.

65 UUICK 4=160 Wlegro)

DO marked P marked

In his article "Violent Climates," Donald Mitchell discusses Benjamin

Britten's preoccupation with human brutality, and his use of particular musical

devices and motifs throughout his oeuvre, as a means of signifying violence, pain or death.25 An example is the "Dance of Death," which manifests itself in Britten's

earlier works, such as Our Hunting Fathers (1936) and King Arthur (1937). Mitchell

describes the "Dance of Death" as fanfares, along with a hectic, frenzied "wild

dance" or Scherzo (usually in G minor), used to convey a particular horror in the

action.26 For example, in Ballad of Heroes (1939), the "Dance of Death" serves to

demonstrate that it is war, and as Mitchell states, "the sacrifice of life that it exacts,

that heads the hierarchy of Britten's public concerns."27

The "Dance of Death" appears in the War Requiem at its most potent in the

Dies irae and Libera me movements, where the dramatic momentum builds, in G

minor to points of sheer hysteria. For example, observe just after Rehearsal Number

52 (hereafter RN) in the Dies irae. [See example below]

25 Mitchell, Donald. "Violent Climates," in The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten, ed. Mervyn Cooke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 188-216. 26 Mitchell, "Violent Climates," 202. 27 Ibid.

66 Example 4.3 "Dance of Death:" The Chorus, one measure after RN 52 of the Dies irae

Fl V 2 !—Li-f f . f f , , f , ' f

PlCC. Jfheovy

OD.t 2 Jf heavy

E.Hn. heavy c\ v 2 In BP rteovy CI 3 n E9 jf heavy

Bsn.1. 2 fheovy

D.Bsn Jr heavy

inf" 3.4

heavy

Prano f heavy

jr heavy

ol - vet soe-clum heavy

vet sae-clum fheavy

Di - es a - v»l-Io: heovy

f heavy

/heavy

/heavy

f heavy

•fheavy

67 Mitchell asserts that "over the course of Britten's career, the Scherzo/wild dance had transformed from the initial "Dance of Death" idea into a "Dies irae," meaning that the motif originally identified as the "Dance" evolved within his oeuvre to become known as the "Dies irae" motif.28

A further reference to war and violence is observed through Britten's use of percussion as representing the "drums of war." For example, at RN15 of the Requiem aeternam, the snare drum with its militaristic dotted rhythms brings the Owen poem

"Anthem for Doomed Youth" to a close. The sound of the military drums conjures images of soldiers marching into battle. The presence of such suggestive musical devices as the fanfare and military drum rhythms enhances the theatrical nature of the

War Requiem. One could argue that these musical representations lessen the solemnity of the ceremonial Mass for the Dead, or perhaps they enhance it, to say nothing of the biting irony created by militarism synthesized with the religious service.

It is through these metaphors of warfare and violence that we find the notions of sacrifice and reconciliation. For example, to be "sacrificed" in a biblical sense often implies further conjectures such as "martyrdom" and conjures images of saints dying for their beliefs, or even Christ's crucifixion. In a militaristic context, the term

"sacrifice" can imply "patriotism," or as Britten the conscientious objector may have understood it, the unwilling sacrifice of a citizen for his country. This is where we find the notion of pacifism as an extension of sacrifice, or perhaps a reaction to enforced sacrifice. As we have observed, both Owen and Britten considered

28 Mitchell, "Violent Climates," 202.

68 themselves to be pacifists; however, their war experiences were completely divergent from one another. The commonalities lie in their mutual disdain for the loss of life, gruesome violence of battle and for the "pity" of war.29 Reconciliation, in the music and text of the War Requiem, stems from the mutual acknowledgement of the senselessness of war and from the gestures of forgiveness and understanding in the final movement.

29 Referring to Owen's reference of "the pity of war."

69 CHAPTER FIVE

SACRIFICE AND PACIFISM IN THE WAR REQUIEM

The War Requiem contains Britten's most powerful pacifist message of anti- violence; as Mitchell states, "not only a confrontation [of war] but a condemnation of it."1 However, it is through the metaphors of sacrifice that one discovers the strongest messages of peace. Britten's pacifism is exhibited in this work by his use of biblical stories with characters whose tales are of mortal sacrifice in the name of religion, and also by his selection of Owen's poetry and the poet's satirical treatment of such biblical content. As a result, the two themes—pacifism and sacrifice—are inextricably linked.

The reason I have chosen to explore the concepts of sacrifice and pacifism within the War Requiem lies in the seeming paradox, indeed the double entendre of what "War Requiem" means. Requiem implies a prayer for the repose of the souls of the dead.2 In other words, a Requiem (which literally translates to "rest") is a prayer for the dead to be at rest, or to be at peace. However, the text of the Requiem Mass contains not only prayers for peace, but also violent references to hell and damnation, particularly in the Dies irae movement, which begins "Day of anger, that day / Shall dissolve this generation into ashes."3 Requiem is also understood as "an act or token of remembrance."4 This implies that the War Requiem can be understood as "war"

1 Mitchell, "Violent Climates," 206. 2 Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. "Requiem," http://www.oed.com. 3 See Appendix on page 124 for a complete translation of the Latin liturgical text. 4 Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. "Requiem," http://www.oed.com.

70 and "peace/rest," (two conflicting and incompatible concepts) or as "war" and

"memorial," which would suggest that the work commemorates victims of war.

The notion of violence is an extension of sacrifice because, as the First World

War dragged on, the horrors of war began to be viewed as the senseless offering of innocent lives. During the Great War, Dawn Bellamy argues, "the sheer multiplicity of deaths interpreted as sacrificial offerings resulted in the creation of a new mythology specific to the context of that war."5 As a result, the image of the heroic soldier was discarded and a new metaphor emerged, that of the crucified martyr.6

This is worth exploring because of Britten's frequent use of what one might call a musical cynicism which mars or undermines the peaceful nature of the text. Britten achieves this by juxtaposing the poetry against the liturgical text and by musical means, for instance his use of the tritone or choice of key.

As addressed in the previous chapter, Britten scholar Donald Mitchell has discussed the theme of violence in broad terms as it appears throughout Britten's career as a composer, and has examined how profound this theme is within Britten's oeuvre.7 This analysis expands upon Mitchell's theories by exploring Britten's literal and metaphorical interpretations of violence within the War Requiem in terms of elements contained within the musical parameters of metre, articulation and instrumentation. Britten's exploitation of traditional musical and religious archetypes and cliches are explored in order to provide musical metaphor and symbolism. Also considered is Britten's treatment of the idea of "faith" by examining his use of non-

5 Dawn Bellamy, "Others have come before you: The influence of Great War poetry on Second World War poets," in Oxford Handbook of British and Irish War Poetry, ed. Tim Kendall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 305. 6 Ibid., 306. 7 Mitchell, "Violent Climates."

71 Western musical devices, and also the absence of "faith" and what this may reveal about Britten's perspective towards the church and its role (or lack thereof) in war.

War and violence in the Requiem aeternam and "Anthem for Doomed Youth"

In his article, "Violent Climates," Donald Mitchell states:

It is vital to remind ourselves of [the War Requiem's] origins in the long­ standing history of Britten's preoccupation with acts and climates of violence and, above all, not allow the work to be overlaid—stifled, smothered—by an interpretative tradition associated with oratorio, the concept of the 'big' choral work.8

As we observed in Chapter 3, by 1962 Britten had already established a reputation for composing personalized vehicles in which to convey his political beliefs. Despite being as Mitchell calls it, a "big choral work," (from the above quote)

Britten's history as a known pacifist preceded the work's premiere. Thus, Britten's passionate message of peace and anti-violence took, and continues to take, precedence over the medium that he chose.

When listening to the first few moments of the War Requiem one is immediately struck by the theatrical treatment of the opening choral section. Britten begins with a quiet gong, restrained bells and the hushed murmuring of the chorus.

The bells, on the tritone pitches (C and F-sharp), are significant as Britten places them throughout the War Requiem to represent the announcement of a soldier's death.

Rather than the slow, plodding, step-wise motion resembling the steady, gradual steps of a funeral procession, Britten's War Requiem begins with a rhythmic pattern so disjointed that it disrupts the peaceful imagery conveyed in the text. The orchestra plays in a quintuplet rhythm, which conjures images of drudgery and burden by its

8 Mitchell, "Violent Climates," 210.

72 reluctant, unsteady movement forward. This could be interpreted as an image of

Christ and the weight of his cross as he walks to Golgotha. The music also resembles the slow, awkward march of a soldier bearing the burden of his heavy cargo, or a fallen comrade. These metaphors—that of Christ or a soldier—are allegories of sacrifice: Christ's on the cross and the soldier's for his country.

The overall tone is ominous as the bells chime a single repeating F-sharp.

Sopranos and tenors of the chorus enter restating the F-sharp in a choral parlando style—"requiem, requiem aeternam" (rest, rest eternal), with the emphasis on the repeated "rest, rest." This manner of singing creates a chanting effect, reflecting a group of congregants. While the orchestra trudges onward, the bells continue to chime a tritone lower on C-natural, ushering in the altos and basses who echo the prayer for rest. The melodic pattern continues and as the dynamic level slowly increases, the texture and volume of the vocal parts thicken. The tension reaches a breaking point at RN 2, where the chorus sings a dovetailing, "et lux perpetua" ("and let perpetual light shine on them") as the sopranos, followed by the altos, tenors and finally the bases alternate the voicing of the musical line. They come together in a final unison, "requiem aeternam." Ironically, both of these phrases are on the tritone pitches of C and F-sharp, which evokes neither heavenly light, nor eternal rest.

At RN 3, the boys' choir enters with a haunting, chromatic melody (ex. 5.1).9

They are accompanied by the organ, which plays a series of ascending triads (also at a distance), while the violins provide an inverted pedal point of alternating C and F- sharps.

Example 5.1 Requiem aeternam, RN 3 Boys' Choir Entrance, "Te decet hymnus"

9 Cooke, War Requiem, 61.

73 |3] Quick crotchets, J (Alftqre) f ynwto I Boys 't de-cct hy-nnfi, II

Ongcn

»

D* - us

Te dt-cet hy-mnus,

5 it i 5

Evans states, "the underlying series of triads is founded on all twelve roots, producing

a weightless movement."10 As the choir is removed from the remainder of the

musicians, this creates a distant, haunting, ethereal quality as a result of this physical

isolation and the "weightless" nature of the accompaniment. By displacing the boys'

choir—or metaphorical angels—Britten may be acknowledging a certain spiritual

hierarchy in relation to the two male soloists. If we are to regard the young boys as divine, then already we find religion removed from the 'earthly' environment. This could suggest a disconnection between human beings and their spirituality during times of conflict or strife.

10 Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten, 454.

74 There may be a particular significance to the number three as a result of not only the three semi-tones, but also the distance of a minor third—three semi-tones— between the various notes (F-sharp to A to C to E-flat). This could be interpreted as a reference to the holy trinity, reinforcing the perception that the boys' role is angelic and thus part of the divine. At RN 7 the orchestra and chorus begin an abbreviated recapitulation of the opening Requiem aeternam, with F-sharp in the soprano and tenor, and C in the alto and bass, reiterating the "requiem aeternam" chant-like setting. They grow progressively softer as though the scene is cinematically panning away from the chorus and towards the soloists, or away from the home-front and towards the Western Front.

The tritone bells chime one last time before the double bass of the chamber orchestra abruptly enters at RN 9. The tenor soloist begins "Anthem for Doomed

Youth" on C4, appropriating one of the tritone pitches from the chorus that has just ended. He sings, "What passing bells for these who die as cattle?", thus immediately disrupting the image of church or quiet prayers with a scene of macabre violence.

What is most striking is the irony of the poem's religious terminology and symbolism: orisons, candles, pall, flowers and most significantly (and utilized literally) the bells.

Britten's talent for dramatic instrumentation and use of rhythm to create extra- musical and theatrical elements are also featured in this section of the first movement, as shown in the following two examples. He transfers the tritone from the bells of the preceding liturgical section to the harp of the chamber orchestra (which is ironic

75 considering the harp's celestial implications), where the diabolus in musica oscillates between G-flat (F-sharp) and C (ex. 5.2).

Example 5.2 Requiem aeternam, RN 9, The Oscillating Tritone in the Harp

Very quick and agitated d = 88 (Allegro motto ed ogitoto) eresc. . ... S M M 4 T-^>

Harp

TENOR SOtO

What passing bells g via

Vfc.

Ob.

In "Anthem for Doomed Youth," Britten has created a literal battlefield: the bass drum and snare drum (without the snare) play the military rhythms of battle along with the martial rhythms in the low strings (ex. 5.3). Moreover, the flute and clarinet imitate the sounds of artillery shells; as Cooke states, "Owen's shrill demented choirs of wailing shells."11 Cooke also draws our attention to the autobiography, Goodbye to all that by Robert Graves (Owen's fellow poet and patient at Craiglockhart), where Graves notes that "the shells sound like musical instruments."12 The motif begins as a low, quiet drone in both instruments when suddenly the music bursts to a forte and soars three octaves, resembling an explosion, only to descend and return to a hushed pianissimo as though settling back to earth.

" Cooke, Requiem, 62. 12 Robert Graves, Goodbye to all that: An Autobiography, 3rd ed. (London: Anchor Books Ltd., 1998), 82.

76 The harp's ostinato accompaniment, which begins at RN 9, is abruptly halted as the tenor line concludes, "for these who die as cattle." There is a fortissimo glissando down five octaves between "as" and "cattle," perhaps offering a musical depiction of soldiers falling on the battlefield like cattle. This compositional approach to scoring corresponds with Britten's use of the literal sounds of the battlefield (fanfares, drums etc.,) from the 1930s onward as an evocation of violence, in many of his dramatic works.13 He discards the ceremonial aspects of the Requiem aeternam and evokes elements of warfare and destruction, through music.

Example 5.3 Requiem aeternam, RN 10-3, The "military" rhythm in the percussion and "artillery fire" in the flute and clarinet. The harp's descent for "these who die as cattle"

13 Mitchell, "Violent Climates," 207.

77 p htavli/

PP I

O smooth £ T.sok> tn ly the monstrous e

at PP mefi*Hoio 2 X VI. II PP mar film

Britten also utilizes musical ideas from the Requiem aeternam and reworks them for the setting of the poems. At RN 13, the harp's accompaniment resembles the

78 triadic twelve pitches of the preceding boys' section, mimicking the organ's accompaniment as the solo oboe enters restating the boys' melody from RN 3.

Mervyn Cooke states that "Britten's use of simple twelve-note propositions such as this [are] generally reserved for portions of the Latin text referring to God's grandeur and omnipotence."14 This could indicate a further parallel between the heavenly boys' chorus and the "boys" (meaning the soldiers) of the poem. Perhaps Britten is suggesting that both are equally divine, considering the latter's sacrifice. However, he may be drawing the parallel between the two types of "boys" as an ironic demonstration and an additional juxtaposition of the earthly battle and the notion of the divine.

Britten is not so subtly undermining or "mocking" the previous sacred texts by now comparing the current battles of man with the slaughter of innocent beasts. On the word "prayers" (from "No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells"), the tenor's line oscillates between G-flat (F-sharp) and C, casting the word in a skeptical or cynical light that implies perhaps prayers are futile, and there is no peace to be found. Rather, the triplet and dotted rhythms in the upper strings of this passage resemble a fanfare, suggesting that these prayers are being offered on the battlefield itself.

Example 5.4 Requiem aetemm, RN 11+1, The tritone oscillating on "prayers" (tenor solo, 1 after RN 11 "No mockeries for them from prayers or bells")

14 Cooke, Requiem, 61.

79 pp

Perc. B.D

from proyecs

wjp- crtsc.

Db

Evans suggests that the poem is presented in such a way as to be in conflict with the entire preceding liturgical section.15 The tenor's line "not in the hands of boys" at RN

13+4, suggests that these young boys (of the boys' chorus) are likely to meet the same fate as he. This theory is reinforced when the tenor sings, "And each slow dusk a drawing down of the blinds" at RN 15, set to a rhythmically augmented version of the boys' melody. All the while "the rhythms of war [in the bass drum] stir again."16

Example 5.5 Requiem aeternam, RN 15, The "rhythms of war" in the bass drum

Perc. 1 1 BO(S0»tid.») j Pj j |j fj_JlPlJ

j- P.~ jB-PJ J J J I J J J H, J Ir , , ,

The final section of the Requiem aeternam is the "Kyrie," which begins at RN

16 with the tritone featured as the tonal center. This section, revisiting the four-part

chorus and bells of the opening, is extremely brief (only ten measures in length) and

15 Evans, Requiem, 22. 16 Ibid., 23.

80 reminiscent of a medieval organum with its parallel fourth and fifth motion in plainchant style. The setting is unornamented, indicating that after Owen's exposure of the true sacrifices, humanity is left only with simple reflection. Evans suggests that

"after the dead have spurned our mourning, we are fittingly reminded that there is much to mourn in ourselves."17 The tritone chimes and the choir quietly murmurs the final F-sharp-B-sharp singing "Lord have mercy upon us." Britten then abandons the tritone and resolves to a hushed F major triad (with the F-sharp falling to F-natural), rather than the expected G major or minor. The cadence at the end of the "Kyrie" provides the listener with respite from the ever-present tritone without completely fulfilling the true resolution to G major, which would imply rest and peace. The war continues on—salvation and peace are not attained. By reiterating, yet altering the

"requiem aeternam" motif in the "Kyrie," Britten is perhaps suggesting not only a change or shift in the perspective of humanity as a result of what Owen's "anthem" has revealed, but also on the most basic level, acknowledging the divide between the sacred and earthly struggles.

The most salient aspect of the Requiem aeternam and "Anthem" is the listener's introduction to the various "planes" and how the theme of rest or peace is nearly absent from the entire movement. Rather than a unified plea for peace between the choirs and soloist, we observe varying degrees of unrest and violence. The music of the full chorus is so saturated with the jarring tritone that, although they are praying for rest, the unwavering dissonance discloses its impossibility. What should be a message of solace from the boys' choir is simply a remote prayer: distant and hollow. Finally, the soldier's "anthem" reconfigures the religious imagery of the

17 Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten, 456. church bells and prayers, and creates an analogy of beastly slaughter in response to the prayer for peace: a bold pacifist condemnation of humanity in general, but also of the church itself.

Violence in Britten's "man-made"18 Dies irae and "Bugles sang"

As indicated, a significant feature of the War Requiem is the disruption of the

Latin Mass by Owen's war poetry, which creates a struggle within the Requiem itself.

Mitchell states that "[the suspension of the] majestic flow and momentum of the

Requiem ... should provide caustic commentary on the 'values' with which unthinking tradition blandly and blindly, and above all solemnly, associates the grand old, age old, Latin text."19 Of all the movements, nowhere is this ongoing commentary on, or undermining of, the Latin text more apparent than in the Dies irae movement. The lengthiest of the six movements, it is also the most disjointed in terms of the alternation between the liturgical text and the poetry. Four of Owen's poems

("Bugles Sang," "The Next War," "On Seeing a Piece of our Artillery Brought into

Action" and "Futility") are interspersed within the many subsections of the movement. Emotional pandemonium ensues as the soldiers provide a narration on the violence of the battlefield, while the chorus (humanity) reveals a parallel

interpretation of the Day of Judgment. In effect, this detaches humanity from the present reality and results in their seeming ignorance. Mitchell reinforces this interpretation stating, "these disruptive interruptions, inteijections and interpolations should be heard to question—contradict, even—the 'culture' that the setting of the

18 Evans, Requiem, 23. 19 Mitchell, "Violent Climates," 207.

82 Latin text of the Requiem represents."20 In addition, Evans concludes that the climaxes of this movement are found on the battlefield and not in the biblical "Day of

Wrath."21

The Dies irae is the opening verse to the Sequence of the Requiem Mass.22

The text is that of the Day of Wrath, when the trumpets call all souls before God, who then judges them, either granting mercy or condemning the wicked to hell. The hymn closes with a supplication for forgiveness before the coming of that terrible day. The boys' chorus is absent from the entire movement, insinuating a level of spiritual hopelessness. Violence and despair are reflected in the Owen poems of the Dies irae, directly conveying the grief of the liturgical text; however, there are no hints of faith- based (scriptural) comfort. In other words, Britten has created a God-less battlefield.

As Evans asserts, "[by] refusing] to portray a God of wrath, [Britten's] man-made dies irae must appear more terrible a denial of the God of pity."23 Despite the earthly context in which Britten presents the soldiers, the sacrifice is both mortal and spiritual. The sacrificed individuals are condemned to suffering or death on the battlefield, but are also forsaken by God.

Just as in the Requiem aeternam, the battleground of the Dies irae contains the metaphorical sounds of warfare (ex. 5.6), beginning with a quiet brass fanfare—the call to battle with its dotted rhythms and triadic musical line.

20 Ibid. 21 Evans, Britten, 456. 22 "The Sequence (Sequentia)—or, the Prose (Prosa)—is the liturgical hymn of the Mass... It occurs on festivals between the Gradual and the Gospel." The Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "Prose or Sequence" (by Clemens Blume), http://www.newadvent.orij/cathen/l248Id.htm/ (accessed 19 November 2010). 23 Evans, Requiem, 23.

83 Example 5.6 Dies irae, RN 17-12, The fanfares of the Dies irae

(Chorus stand) Quick J*i60

PmrM rj Trumpet }2mC ^ vhiijihu. Trombone ! B»I ii r^_

Ifrffffftft

Tbn«. L'^r J

The fanfare precedes a triplet figure that resembles the stuttering of gunfire (perhaps a reference to "Anthem's" "stuttering rifles' rapid rattle." The tonality is vague; however, the key of G minor (the same key in the opening of Verdi's Dies irae) becomes apparent with the entrance of the chorus. Starting with the basses, tenors and lower strings, the chorus and orchestra begin in a disjointed 7/4 meter providing an image of breathless terror. This is exacerbated by the quarter rests, which occur after every beat or two. Between the choral sections, the two fanfares continue with an ever-increasing number of parts. For example, at RN 20 the brass section is divided into 13 parts (perhaps alluding to the twelve disciples and Christ), as they voice the triadic triplets of fanfare no. I.24 The texture and dynamics build in both the chorus and orchestra until the breaking point at "Coget omnes ante thronum" ("drives all before the throne"), just prior to RN 22. At this point the fanfare motives and tonalities are completely disjointed as the chorus stumbles through the completion of the 7/4 section, the "Tuba mirum" ("wondrous war horn"), in anticipation of the soldier's rebuttal, "Bugles sang, saddening the evening air."

24 See summary of fanfares on pages 64 and 65.

84 Owen's untitled poetic fragment, known as "Bugles sang" beginning at RN

24, features variations or fragments of the previous two fanfare motifs of the Dies irae (appearing in the horn and the flute).25 The baritone's line echoes the horns by repeating the triadic fanfare, set against sustained or repeated major triads in the strings, whose dotted rhythm resembles that of the second fanfare motif. The vocal line alternates with solo passages in the flute, clarinet and oboe, their motifs also taken from the two fanfares. Britten thus alters the heavenly trumpets (the 'Tuba mirum") from the bugles of the battlefield to the sounds of nature by using the pastoral connotations of the woodwinds.26 What began as sounds of violence has now morphed into quasi-bird sounds "saddening the evening air."

Example 5.7 Dies irae, RN 24+3, Quasi-bird sounds in the flute, harp and clarinet of the chamber orchestra

ouctcy ios bcfsr* • tronaji#>{cortx.S(xro,

The climax of the section is reached at RN 27 at the words, "voices of old despondency," where the fanfare motif is abandoned. The phrase builds— ironically—in both dynamic and in pitch toward the word "bowed" on F-sharp of the tritone. "Bugles Sang" concludes with "slept" ("Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept") which arrives on an A major triad just before RN 28, possibly foreshadowing

25 See "Bugles Sang" in Appendix A page 124. 26 Grove Music Online, s.v. "Pastoral," by Geoffrey Chew and Owen Chander, accessed January 28, 2011, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/.

85 the A major/D Lydian of "let us sleep now" which concludes the Requiem?1 In

"Bugles," Britten has departed from the fire and brimstone of the impending day of wrath and rather, has created an intimately fearful picture of judgment in which the

"evening air" is filled with "shadow" and "despondency," as humanity faces its doom.

The "Recordare" and "Confutatis" are divided between men's and women's voices, and subdivided (sopranos 1 and 2; altos 1 and 2; and into tenors and bases 1 and 2). Second altos begin the "Recordare" with a simple, lilting theme, which is subsequently adopted by the first altos, the second sopranos and finally first sopranos.

The fugue continues with the melody inverted. The women's musical line may be seen as a variation of the "Bugles sang" motif, with a triadic motion, yet with a passing note between the third and the fifth. Their prayers are humble and tender as they beseech a "kind" Jesus to forgive them as He forgave Mary. By mentioning

Mary the mother of Christ, along with the presence of the women in the chorus, this section is distinctly maternal in nature. This causes one to question what Britten (and

Verdi who likewise chose to set the "Recordare" for women) was suggesting. I consider this as a metaphor for the role of women during the two World Wars:

Women were not present at the front (with the exception of nurses) and were thus separated from the men. At RN 43, there is a C pedal and ostinato string pattern, over which the women sing in the Lydian mode on C. Cooke contends that this mode "is used elsewhere [in the War Requiem] to symbolize innocence and purity."28

27 Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten, 455. 28 Cooke, Requiem, 65.

86 Containing only the men of the chorus, the "Confutatis" begins at RN 45.

Cooke states that this serves to "promote a martial atmosphere which will soon

explode into ... the movement's grandest climax."29 The aggressive nature of the

rhythm, marked "heavy," with the syllabic setting on eighth-notes in a brisk Allegro

creates a militaristic mood. In addition is the dramatic effect created by the extreme

fluctuation of dynamics, for example, the transition from a muted piano at RN 48, to

the powerful fortissimo four bars later. It is as though, by composing such a musically

aggressive section for them, Britten is assigning a level of culpability to the men of

"humanity"—the chorus—by setting their section in such a violent fashion while the women's is comparatively mild. The four-part men's chorus is reminiscent of the fanfare, as it is triadic, giving the impression of soldierly barbarity, in comparison to

the tender women's section. If we consider Evans' assertion that this Dies irae is

"man made,"30 as suggested above, then perhaps this is a literal manifestation of that theory. Men have created the hell that they reside in, while women are considered

peripheral and non-violent.

In the Dies irae, Britten manipulates our associations with the horns of the

apocalypse in two ways. Metaphorical bugles of battle, now voiced in the non-

military sounding, pastoral flute, oboe and clarinet, are "saddening the evening air" in

an imitation of the fanfare. The image is that of a soldier (the baritone) pondering the

"voices of boys," perhaps their cries from No Man's Land, while in the distance are

what can be perceived to be the firing of guns, the triplet figure. In addition, the

trumpets from the Day of Wrath are morphed into the bugles of war. By the use of the

29 Cooke, Requiem, 65. 30 Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten, 457

87 fanfares' rhythms applied to the pastoral woodwinds, Britten may be suggesting that judgment will be granted not by God, but by way of earthly battles. The fluctuation between religious and human judgment provides a powerful pacifist statement.

Humanity is preoccupied by biblical predictions of the Day of Wrath, when it is in fact mankind that has created its own day of doom through war. Britten is perhaps dismissing the Dies irae entirely and disclosing that hell is on the battlefield.

The third movement of the War Requiem, the Offertorium, is the most commanding in its message of sacrifice through the story of Abraham and Isaac. In

Genesis 22, verses 1-18, God instructs Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of his faith, but at the last moment sends down an angel to halt the slaughter. This was not Britten's first effort at setting the story. His Canticle II parable (1952) is an abridged setting of the Chester play Abraham and Isaac, which contrasts with the version featured in the War Requiem?* In Canticle II, Britten omits the revelation that

God demanded the sacrifice of Isaac. Rather, the figure of Isaac is portrayed as a willing sacrifice:

Father, do with me as you will, I must obey and that is skill, God's commandment to fulfill, For needs so it must be.32

Allen Frantzen suggests that Britten's original interpretation of Abraham and Isaac

"alignfs] the play with the perspective of the sacrificer (Abraham) and underscore^]

31 The Chester Mystery plays originated in the fourteenth century when the monks at the Abbey of St Werburgh (now Chester Cathedral) enacted stories from the Bible to help those who could not otherwise follow or understand the Latin. See http://www.chestennvstervplavs.coTn/background.html. 32 Benjamin Britten, Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, Op. 51 (London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1952), 17.

88 his suffering and his benevolence."33 In contrast, Owen depicts Abraham as evil when he rejects God's divine authority and the angel who comes down to stop the sacrifice.34 Given that Britten selected this particular poem for the Offertorium movement, this could suggest a change in his perspective or philosophy toward the notion of the patriarch.

The Latin text of the Offertorium centers primarily on self-sacrifice

("Sacrifices and prayers / we offer to Thee, Lord, with praise"), but it also refers to

God's promise to Abraham "and his seed" ("I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.")35 By setting Owen's poem in this context, Britten once again subjects the

Latin text to a measure of cynicism and irony.36

Abraham appears for the first time just after RN 64, where the chorus begins the fiigal passage "Quam olim Abrahae promisisti" (Thou didst promise Abraham and his seed) in a resounding G major. The tenor and bass sections begin the fugue followed by the sopranos and altos, building in musical intensity up to the tenor solo.

The fugue's theme itself is taken from Britten's Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, in which Isaac repeats over and over "Father, I am all ready."

33 Allen J. Frantzen, 'Tears for Abraham: The Chester Play of Abraham and Isaac and Antisacrifice in Works by Wilfred Owen, Benjamin Britten, and Derek Jarman," Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31, no .3 (Fall 2001): 455. 34 The poem "Parable of the old man and the young" is on page 36 of the Owen Chapter. 35 The Book of Genesis, Chapter 12, verses 1-3. 36 See the Offertorium text on page 124 of the Appendix.

89 Example 5.8 a) Offertorium, RN 64, the "Quam olim Abrahae promisisti" subject

vio.

dtv Ob.

Example 5.8 b) Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, p.7 mm. 1 -4, "Father I am Ready"

(IJUJII MtMUd)

(atvat/s staeait*)

The repetitiveness of the line "Quam olim Abrahae" functions in two ways.

First, God's promise to Abraham is strongly emphasized, prior to Britten's

contradictory setting of "Parable of the Old Man and the Young." Abraham is

celebrated with a jubilant fiigue for full orchestra in a key that suggests the resolution

of the tritone, that of G major. Second, Allen J. Frantzen asserts that the "repeating of

these lines underscore^] the mockery of Abraham's sacrifice of his seed," when

90 contextualized by the poem which follows.37 This theory is reinforced musically by the use of extreme dynamics (ranging from ff at RN 68 to ppp at RN 79) and the nature of the fugue with its overlapping, chaotic textures that at times provides a sense of hysteria, such as at RN 82. Interestingly, the music itself, drawn from Isaac's song of self-sacrifice from Canticle II, magnifies Britten's mockery of the Abraham figure. The chamber orchestra that bridges the choral and solo sections at RN 69 appears in the same dance rhythm of 6/8 as Canticle II, in an almost farcical interpretation of the preceding choral exultations.

The two soloists begin the poem by alternating phrases with the flute.38 The vocal line is in the same upbeat, buoyant fashion as the preceding choral section, set above a sporadic, relentless drumbeat and heavy, sustained strings. Here is an example of how Britten employs the musical devices with which the listener has become familiar from the previous two movements. The instrumentation is eerily similar to the "battlefield" sounds of the first movement and the fanfares of the Dies irae (for instance, at RN 73+1, where we observe a version of fanfare no.l) suggesting that something threatening is about to occur.

When Isaac (the tenor) realizes there is no lamb to slaughter he sings the haunting, unaccompanied melody "But where the lamb for this burnt offering?" The baritone narrates the violent scene of "parapets" and "trenches." The flute and clarinet

(at RN 73) call attention to the revelation of this WWI locale by playing what Cooke calls, "the wailing shells of'Anthem for Doomed Youth'" above the pounding drum,

37 Frantzen, "Tears of Abraham," 457. 38 See the poem "Parable" in Appendix A, p. 124.

91 conjuring images of the walk to the executioner's platform.39 It is as though the music is thrown off balance as the scene shifts from that of an ancient altar to the muddy trenches of France, begging the question of who is in fact being sacrificed: Isaac or a soldier?

Just as Abraham stretches forth the knife to slay Isaac, the music is halted and the baritone sings, "When lo!" The two men narrate together, in harmony, the voice of the angel calling down to Abraham to cease the sacrifice. They sing the triadic melody quietly in the upper register, imitating the sound of a boys' choir. It is musically understated and yet highly dramatic with inflections of C-Lydian (the F- sharp subtly providing the presence of the tritone). As the 'angel' suggests the offering of the ram (just before RN 75) the score instructs a leaning into the phrase marked ppp, perhaps indicating that the angel is unsettled with the situation, even doubtful of the outcome, while the tritonal pitches of C and F-sharp are especially prominent.

At RN 75, the strings reveal agitation through unnervingly repetitive sixteenth notes. Just prior to the final lines, the timpani plays a melodic figure that echoes the military bugle's fanfare of the Dies irae. The baritone, appearing again as the narrator sings, "but the old man would not so," and the music returns to the "march-like" beat of the walk to the executioner. At RN 77, the two men sing a disjointed, rhythmically syncopated "half the seed of Europe one by one" over and over in sporadic, chaotic

bursts set to the descending scale pattern of the "Quam olim Abrahae promisisti"

subject. At RN 77+1 the organ enters, followed by the boys' "Hostias" chorus above

39 Cooke, Requiem, 68.

92 the soloists with the text "Hostias et preces tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus" ("sacrifice and prayers of praise we offer to you Lord").

It is at this juncture, through the extreme musical contrasts and textual contradictions, that we recognize the metaphor: the division between heaven and earth. In addition, perhaps the "angel," whose role is assumed by the two male soloists, is not actually present. Rather, the two soldiers themselves sing in falsetto, imitating the boys' choir and impersonating the "angel" in an almost delusional yearning for justice. If the angel was truly been present, it would be logical for Britten to have the boys' chorus portray it, in continuity with their roles throughout the work.

Furthermore, the continuous utterance of "one by one" implies that the killing continues on and on, while the true celestial beings (the boys' choir singing in Latin) sing of sacrifice from a distance, far away from the actual sacrificing. The movement concludes with a return to the full chorus fugue as it repeats the initial text of God's promise to Abraham. As Graham Elliot states:

Here is one of the strongest revelations of the spiritual heart of the War Requiem parable: God offers salvation, but man has free will to reject His salvation and to bring about all the evil consequences of such rejection.40

On a broad level, the Offertorium and "Parable of the Old Man and the

Young" are metaphors for the sense of patriarchal betrayal that many young soldiers, including Owen, felt toward the establishment that sent them to war. In this instance,

Abraham could be interpreted essentially as representing the bureaucrats, the government, even the church—any of the institutions that could be seen as initiating or condoning the war and thus sacrificing its "sons." In this way it is a very strong

40 Elliot, The Spiritual Dimension, 146.

93 pacifist statement. However, on a detailed level Britten has raised further questions about the role religion itself has to play in the conflict. In the Offertorium, the

"promise" made by God in Genesis is to protect Abraham's seed and, ultimately, all the descendants and followers of Abraham. Owen's poem condemns Abraham, yet I interpret Britten as perhaps condemning God's promise, even God. He does so by conflating "Parable" and the Offertorium in order to convey the futility of the promise.

If it is accurate that the boys' choir represents celestial beings, or any heavenly entity associated with God, then what is implied by the text's seeming indifference to the suffering of humanity? In the "Hostias," the boys' choir not only accepts but also encourages the devotion of those about to be sacrificed, because the sacrifice is the will of God. The Offertorium and Owen's "Parable," therefore, provide the most cohesive and collaborative statement of sacrifice in the entire

Requiem.

Conflicting portraits of faith: The Sanctus and Britten's Eastern influences

The Sanctus is especially striking in contrast with the other movements, particularly the stark Agnus Dei which it precedes, in that many of the fundamental musical devices that Britten uses in order to define space, time and genre, are abandoned at this juncture. The use of quasi-Indonesian instruments—rather unorthodox in a Latin Mass in 1961—when previously the instrumentation was traditional (the organ), provides a startling contrast and an escape in that moment.

Not only is the war left behind, but also the West. The irony created by the traditional

Latin settings combined with the battlefield does not exist. It is replaced by a non-

94 Western religious counterpart: the ceremonies of the East, complete with cymbals, metal bells and a female priestess overseeing this celebratory movement. This movement stands alone as Britten's tribute to the Eastern faiths. It functions as an ironic, opposing counterpoint to the more traditional music of the conventional Mass.

In the Sanctus of the War Requiem, traditional musical representations of

Western church liturgy are abandoned completely in favour of non-Western (even exotic) demonstrations of faith. Britten discards all themes of war and death entirely; rather, he evokes the message of joy contained in the Sanctus text (Heaven and earth are full of Thy Glory). He also modifies the traditional, Western musical setting.

Immediately the listener is struck by what can be described as Britten's non-Western influences, such as Indonesian gamelan music.41 The instrumentation (vibraphone, glockenspiel, antique cymbals and bells) is employed in what could be interpreted as a representation of an Eastern religious ceremony. In addition, Cooke acknowledges the "constant association in Britten's output between gamelan sonorities and unattainable goals."42 If Britten's use of the quasi-gamelan instrumentation does indeed represent "unattainable goals," as Cooke suggests, then the joyous exaltation of the Sanctus is simply a delusion: a falsified depiction of faith.

The Sanctus begins with the sounding of bells—on the vibraphone, glockenspiel, antique cymbals and bells—on F-sharp, identical to the opening

Requiem aeternam, except that the bells are not church bells but rather imitate

Indonesian instruments. Entering with an aggressive forte dynamic, the soprano

41 In 1955 Britten and Pears toured the East, including a visit to the island of Bali where Britten was fascinated by the sound of the gamelan orchestra. http://www.bri ttenpears.ori;/?paee=britten/biographv/fifties. html 42 Cooke, Requiem, 70.

95 soloist commences with a grandiose musical line of wide leaps, sounding much like a fanfare in the royal sense rather than the militaristic. The tritone C - F# is prominent in the voice and instruments, after having been inconspicuous in the Offertorium.

Musical Example 5.9 The opening of the Sanctus movement

4. SANCTUS

Vibraphone (without tans)

Cymbals

Belts ^2 metol beoUrs)

Do-rr*-nue De-us So - ba-oth, Do-mr-nus Dc-utt So - ' - bo-oth.

96 At RN 85, the choir recites a monotone chant of the liturgical text, evoking the sound of congregants whispering to themselves. Slowly the pitches and the dynamic levels rise, heightening the intensity to a tonal cluster. An example of this may be seen between RN 85 and RN 86 where the choir sings F-sharp, G-sharp, C-sharp, D, F- natural, G-natural, B-flat and C. Abruptly the chanting halts and there is a dramatic pause for an entire measure. The trumpets enter brilliantly at RN 87, followed by a thunderous gong as the chorus sings "Hosanna" and "Sanctus." This particular musical passage is especially theatrical as a result of the rhythmic disjunction between the orchestra and the choir.

Example 5.10 Sanclus, RN 89-7, The "Hosanna" and "Sanctus" Chorus

Son Son Son

VI* PP Via

In the choral section of the Sanctus, Britten has musically united humanity into one unanimous voice of praise in, what Cooke terms "the traditional baroque ceremonial

97 key of D Major."43 There is also a return to traditional instrumentation with the reappearance of the large orchestra, particularly the prominent brass section, which evokes a sense of ceremony and celebration.

As the chorus fades away at RN 89, the soprano soloist begins the

"Benedictus." Her role is one of priestess reciting to the congregation, which in turn echoes a version of her prayer. This could be interpreted as a deliberately iconoclastic symbol by Britten, which coincides with the entire non-Western aspects of the movement. There is a bold combination of Eastern and Western elements all amalgamated into one exclamatory movement of rapture.

At RN 92, the Sanctus repeats with the boisterous chorus and joyous fanfare in D, before abruptly ending at RN 93. The chamber orchestra adopts the D pedal as the baritone sings, "After the blast of lightning from the East." This may imply that the joyous yet ostentatious Sanctus was rendered as nothing more than a storm, disturbance or distant ruckus from the far-off vantage point of the battlefield. In addition, Cooke suggests that the instrumentation and musical style of the Sanctus acknowledges the "oriental flavour" of the phrase "from the East" of the poem.44 The listener is transported from the "East" where there remains joyous celebrating, to the

Western Front, where the soldiers are reflecting upon the noise in the distance.

Britten's message of peace is firmly established in the themes of self-sacrifice and human suffering, yet it is often placed into context beside a religious counterpoint. For instance, the comparisons that are drawn in thq Agnus Dei between

Christ's crucifixion and the slaughter of young soldiers, serve to intensify the

43 Cooke, Requiem, 70. 44 Ibid., 71.

98 message of self-sacrifice, but also illustrate betrayal and death at the hands of others.

At times, as we have observed in the "Requiem aeternam," Britten draws conflicting parallels between the earthly and the divine. Depictions of religion, by way of the

Latin liturgical text, are often treated as incongruent with the depictions of reality found in the autobiographical poetry.

The image of the soldier as a Christ-figure

One particular theme within Owen's poetry that Britten drew upon is the image of the soldier as a Christ-figure. We observed in the Offertorium movement the parallel between the soldier and the maimed character of Isaac: yet in Christianity,

Jesus Christ offers the ultimate symbol of sacrifice. Indeed, the entire Christian faith is based upon the sacrifice, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. In the Agnus Dei, the Jesus figure is hanging at a modern-day Golgotha, the Ancre valley (scene of the battle of the Somme), where he is denied and abandoned by his disciples. Rather, it is the soldiers who "bear with him" the burden of their mutual sacrifice in the name of their cause. The soldiers share the same fate as this Jesus-figure in their mortal sacrifice, unlike the disciples who remain behind, and are therefore praised for their

Christ-like martyrdom—"They who love the greater love lay down their lives; they do not hate."

The Agnus Dei is the embodiment of the entire work. Here, Owen's poem "At a Calvary near the Ancre" is the principal musical entity in the movement.45 The liturgical text is subsidiary to the message contained within the poem, as the chorus

(praying to the sacrificed Lamb of God to take away humanity's sins) serves to

45 See Appendix A, page 124. accompany the soloist. Here one observes a certain level of collaboration for the first time, as both the choir and tenor are textually and chronologically unified in their plea for peace. In addition, for the first and only time, the soloist appears musically prior to the chorus. It is in the Agnus Dei that the juxtaposition of reality and ritual appear most unambiguous and thus the most disturbing.46 This movement epitomizes the plea for peace within the Requiem, with the two planes (humanity and the soldiers) united in their plea for peace.

Within the Agnus Dei, there is a particular significance given to the number five, whether it is the time signature of 5/16 or the diabolus in musica that contains five note-names from F-sharp to C. Johann Sebastian Bach frequently applied numbers to provide a deeper meaning to the music and specifically the number five to symbolize the five wounds of Christ, the ultimate expression of Christian sacrifice.47

The five wounds of Christ—referring to those on his feet, hands and side—have been celebrated and honoured, since the fourteenth century, with a feast day.48 The wounds also have their own rosary consisting of five divisions, each composed of five

"Glories in honour of Christ's wounds and one Ave in commemoration of the

Sorrowful Mother."49 In addition to the Western connotation, is the Eastern significance of the number five. Cooke states that Japanese composer and theorist

Motokiyo Zeami's (1363-1443) analysis of No50 reflects the importance of the number five in its "Five Elements Theory" which calls for five acting skills (Song,

46 Mitchell, Violent Climates, 209. 47 Ruth Tatlow, Bach and the riddle of the number alphabet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 48 New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "The Five Sacred Wounds," (by Frederick Holweck) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/IQ275b.htm (accessed May 3,2010). 49 Ibid. 50 A traditional Japanese masked drama with dance, mime, and song, evolved largely from Shinto rites. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "Noh."

100 Dance, Old Man, Warrior and Woman) and five structural elements (Music, Dance,

Acting Gesture and Emotion).51 There are also five categories of a No play: god, warrior, woman, lunatic and demon.52 Britten utilized this principle in several of his

Balinese-inspired compositions, such as Curlew River (1964).53

The unsettling tritone is ever-present in the Agnus Dei movement, as the melody descends an octave from F-sharp5 to F-sharp4, and the accompaniment descends a span of a fifth, from F-sharp to B (F-sharp-E-D-C-sharp-B), pivoting on the final note and ascending upward a fifth (C-natural-D-E-F-natural-G), (ex. 5.11). The musical line of the chamber orchestra outlines the first five notes of a b minor scale and then a C major scale with both anchored on the downbeat of each bar on the tritone pitches.54 The melody drifts to the identical progression of tones and semitones (whole-tone, whole-tone, semi-tone, whole-tone), first ascending and then descending.

51 Mervyn Cooke, Britten and the Far East (New York: Boydell & Brewer, 2001), 135. 52 Ibid., 134. 53 Op.71, 1964 Parable for church performance, libretto by William Plomer (after a Japaese No play Sumidagawa, by Juro Motomasa. Cooke, Britten and Far East, 135. 54 Evans, Britten, 452.

101 Example. 5.11 The opening of the Agnus Dei

Slow ^.80

Oboe

Ckrinci in A ftp

PP

One Dart.

The melody and accompaniment of the Agnus Dei is a musical manifestation of the tritone. The ostinato is relentless and obsessive, providing an almost trance-like

motif. This ostinato accompaniment repeats its incomplete scale over and over, in

what Evans calls, the "ceaseless burden"55 of a B minor tonic chord alternating with

its Neapolitan sixth (B, D, F-sharp and C-natural, E, G). Another possible analysis

could interpret this passage as a descent from F-sharp to B in B-minor, followed by

the corresponding five-note ascent of C major.

The interval of the descending fifth on the word Mundi, (ex. 5.12 a), is a direct

quote from Verdi's Agnus Dei (ex. 5.12 b). Additional similarities exist between the

two Requiem Masses, in that both composers wrote the Agnus Dei movement in B

55 Evans, Britten, 452.

102 minor, and as Malcolm Boyd states, "both [composed] smooth-flowing melodies in octaves, which remain unharmonized for the most part."56

Example 5.12 a) Agnus Dei, RN 97 +3 The "falling fifth" on Mundi ("world")

W-

a< hi oz 8

VI

Via.

PPP

\PPf3

Db PPP

Example 5.12 b) Verdi's Agnus Dei, Opening 7 measures, the soprano's "falling fifth" on Mundi

("world")

dclcissino

A- gnus De - i deilr.is*iwio

The Latin text, with the inclusion of the tenor soloist's final phrase, is stated five times and there are five English phrases, not to mention that this is the fifth movement of the Requiem. Britten appears to have used a cross formation in order to provide a literal Cross. The descending progression F-sharp-E-D-C-sharp-B written

36 Boyd, Britten, Verdi and the Requiem, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 5.

103 vertically, and the ascending progression C-D-E-F-G written horizontally, form the shape of a cross, intersecting at the pitch E.

At the conclusion of the movement, after the poem's final line "they do not hate," the tenor reiterates the choir's plea, "dona nobis pacem " ("grant us peace"), as the music begins in the key of F-sharp, becomes C-minor and concludes again on the

F-sharp. The tenor's final Latin prayer for peace comes as a direct reflection of the desires of humanity represented by the chorus. For the first time, Britten has given both sides the same collaborative prayer. It should be noted, however, that the chorus sings of being granted rest (requiem) while the tenor sings of peace (pacem)—which

Britten borrowed from the Ordinary of the Mass. This contradicts the message of uniformity, in that society wishes for rest after death, while the soldier's prayer is for peace.

The tenor's final lines are highly appropriate: "But they who love the greater

love lay down their life; they do not hate. Dona nobis pacem." By this point, Britten

has brought us through the war experience and his final message is one of quiet

resistance. This is indeed a final message, because following the Agnus Dei, the

"Libera me" shifts from the theme of sacrifice to one of reconciliation. There is a

certain degree of overlapping, which will be addressed in the following chapter; yet

there is a conclusiveness to the Agnus Dei that serves as an end to the earthly battles,

and a beginning to what is to follow—the voices from the grave. The audience has yet

to discover that the heroes—the soldiers—have indeed been sacrificed, but Britten

acknowledges this prior to the final movement. The relentless ostinato has stopped

and the tenor is free to utter his final plea for peace. "They do not hate" offers a

104 powerful pacifist statement that the violence of war is forced upon men, yet they hold no abhorrence toward their enemy as they are all victims. This declaration of peace serves to conclude the previous five movements of terror, pain and violence. The bugles are silent, the sounds of battle are gone for the moment, and the violent Dies irae seems to be a distant nightmare.

105 CHAPTER SIX

RECONCILIATION IN BENJAMIN BRITTEN'S WAR REQUIEM

The term reconciliation is defined as "the action of restoring humanity to

God's favour ... as through the sacrifice of Christ; the fact or condition of a person's or humanity's being reconciled with God."1 It is also considered "the purification or reconsecration of a desecrated church or holy place."2 Vatican Council II describes reconciliation as "unity among Christians, peace among nations and the sacrament of reconciliation."3 The common theme is that of humanistic and spiritual resolution and absolution.

Within the War Requiem, the concept of reconciliation stems from two of the three primary contributors. The first, which was examined in the first chapter, is

Spence, whose modern cathedral is a powerful visual symbol of healing, renewal and rebirth—the phoenix rising from the ashes. The second reconciliatory aspect can be found in Britten's juxtaposition of the traditional Requiem Mass with the modernism of Owen's poetry and the symbolism provided by his choice of soloists (the German baritone and English tenor). The themes of rebirth, peace, rest and forgiveness that are present in the physical areas of Coventry Cathedral and Britten's setting of the

War Requiem do not exist independently within the poetry of Wilfred Owen. It is

Britten's treatment of these poems, through his settings and alterations, that creates the message of unity and forgiveness. Britten's pacifist ideology is clearly

' Oxford English Dictionary 2nd ed., s.v. "Reconciliation." 2 Ibid. 3 New Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "Reconciliation, Ministry of," accessed January 29, 2011, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=GVRL&u=ureginalib>.

106 communicated through his editing and omitting of entire passages in order to impart those beliefs. A prime example is found in the final movement of the work, the

Libera me.

Gestures of reconciliation can be found, however fleeting, in the first five movements of the War Requiem, for instance, at the resolution of the tritone in the

"Kyrie" and at the end of the Dies irae (albeit a false resolution), as discussed above.

Yet nowhere is the theme more prominent than in the final movement of the work.

For the first time, all of the voices are brought together in one unifying plea for peace.

The "Libera me" and "Strange Meeting"

The final movement in the War Requiem is as terrifying as the Dies irae, as it too describes the day of judgment when the "skies and ground shall quake."

However, it does not begin with trembling and with the fires of hell; there is only the stagnant, hypnotic oscillating plea of the chorus for God to "free" them ("libera me").

See page 103 of the Appendix for the text of the "Libera me." Following the violence of the first three movements and the raw grief exhibited in the Agnus Dei, the audience is left wondering what remains of humanity's earthly struggle. Particularly striking is that neither the "Libera me" nor the "In paradisum" are formally contained

in the text of the Requiem Mass, although they have been included in musical works of the past.4 The "Libera me" is a sung response in first person singular from the

"Office of the Dead" (composed of First Vespers, Mass, Matins and Lauds).5 Thus,

4 Verdi's Requiem contains the "Libera me," Gabriel Faure's Requiem contains both the "Libera me" and "In Paradisum." Mozart's contains neither. 5 New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "Libera me," (by Adrian Fortescue) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10275b.htm (accessed November 22, 2010).

107 Britten chose the "Libera me" and "In Paradisum" to be included in the closing movement of his War Requiem, providing further significance to their content.

The "Libera me" is a musical recapitulation of the entire Requiem Mass up to this point. The movement restates many of the most significant musical motifs of the preceding movements-—particularly the Dies irae—in order to readdress all of the previous messages of sacrifice and violence, and move beyond them to a place of peace, rest or reconciliation. By reiterating the fanfare and battleground motifs of the past movements, particularly from the Dies irae, Britten demands an answer to the question: will the conflict end in destruction or peace? The answer comes in the form of Owen's moving poem "Strange Meeting," where the horrors of war are confronted one last time in a final haunting response to human suffering.

The sixth movement begins with a military march, a reinvention of the original in the Requiem aeternam, which resembled a procession, commencing with what Cooke calls, a "mere rhythmic skeleton," as the texture grows and each instrument and voice is added, one by one.6 The double bass begins a slower, more somber rendition of the opening theme from "Anthem," reminding the listener of the

"doomed youth" and also that the violence continues after the emotional climax of the

Agnus Dei. Gradually, the orchestra and chorus build in thickening texture, dynamic level and accelerando, as material from the Dies irae begins to emerge. The Latin text of both the "Libera me" and the Dies irae concentrate on the violence of hell and are centered musically around the "battlefield" key of G minor. What Evans calls, the

"nightmarish sequence and blind panic" of the recapitulation provides the audience

6 Cooke, Requiem, 73.

108 with one further glimpse of war, seen as hell on earth.7 Even the soprano can offer no solace, as her soaring "Liber scriptus " theme is replaced with the disjointed 'Tremens factus" (1 am made to tremble, and am afraid), which Evans describes as

"majesty...exchanged for quivering terror."8

Example 6.1 Soprano solo "Tremens factus" at RN 108

.SOLO PP

The - mens. go.. go..

JU, 1. orco ** 2- pfr*. VU -ppr

VI. H dim

Via. dim.

Wc. dim.

Ob. dim.

As the chorus joins the soprano soloist, a dominant pedal on D begins at RN

115, bringing the tension to a breaking point at "amara valde" ("great bitterness").

Britten described the climax, reached at RN 116, as being where "the chorus [is] overtaken by the steadily accelerating orchestra."9 Lundergan characterizes this as a metaphorical death for the soldiers who will appear in the following poem.10 Life has been "overtaken" by death, just as the orchestra overtakes the chorus at the climax

(RN 116) with a resounding G minor chord, which functions paradoxically as the key of the battlefield, but also the resolution of the tritone. The significance of the C-F-

7 Evans, Music of Benjamin Britten, 462. 8 Ibid., 463. 'Benjamin Britten quoted in Lundergan, "Musical Metaphor," 14. 10 Lundergan, "Musical Metaphor," 14.

109 sharp resolution to G also reinforces the interpretation that a life has ended or been

"overtaken," and the unrest of the diabolus in musica has ended.

Unlike in the Requiem aeternam or the Dies irae movements, the congregation (or humanity) represented by the chorus, is textually linked to the soldiers with depictions of Hades and hell. Lundergan states that the chorus is now aligned with the protagonists—the soldiers—and that "all the performing forces speak the same idiom, in a cataclysmic depiction of battle as hell."11 As the chorus ends their "libera me" lament, one by one the four sections are instructed in the score by

Britten to be seated. The tenor section is the last to be seated, and the tenor soloist begins the following poem from the grave, perhaps signaling a departure from the land of the living and the "death" of humanity.

As the tension disperses and the "Libera me" dies away, one is left with the eerie, quiet void reflecting a mood found initially in the Agnus Dei, with its oscillating chromatic line, (see the choir just before RN 117). The audience is brought down into the silence of the grave, or as Evans states, "the terrible calm of Hades."12

Thus begins Owen's most powerful poem, "Strange Meeting," at RN 118. Here, the dead are given a chance to speak, which may explain why Britten chose it, as the War

Requiem is dedicated to friends of his who died during the war. In the poem, Owen walks through a dream-like (or nightmare-like) setting, as he speaks out against all wars, not simply the present one. Silkin asserts that there are three possibilities in

"Strange Meeting:" 1) The figures are part of an actual reality as opposed to an imagined, visionary, or symbolic one. 2) The narrator exists within an actual reality,

11 Lundergan, "Musical Metaphor," 14. 12 Evans, Music of Benjamin Britten, 463.

110 but that what he narrates is a dream or vision. 3) The entire poem and the men in it, are a vision of the poet. The poet and the narrator are two distinct entities working on two different levels of reality.13

The third point appears to be the most significant, as it acknowledges what I suggest to be Owen's paradigm prior to re-entering the war in November of 1917.

Owen's resolve to continue fighting was the result of a determination to confront his two worst fears: being killed and killing another. This poem acknowledges both of these possibilities in a way that, although disturbing, contains a very peaceful ending—"Let us sleep now." Silkin interprets this phrase as the "angelic placating of men's enmities," where "the wolf shall lie down with the lamb."14

The tenor begins the delicate recitative, accompanied only by the chamber orchestra's sustained strings—marked "cold"—reflecting on what Kennedy calls the

"chill of the tomb."15 The texture is sparse and it is effectively minimal, no longer with sounds of battle, thus providing a sense of time suspended. There exists only the soldier and his "strange" companion, at first thought to be the corpse of another fallen soldier. Despite the sparse accompaniment and recitative style tenor solo, there remains an emphasis on the tritone pitches. Many of the final lines and phrases arrive on either C or F-sharp (G-flat)—for example, on "stirred" (C at RN 119-2) and

"stared" (F-sharp at RN 119) of the corpse. Even the "hands," which are "lifted as if to bless" arrive on G-flat. Given the precedence, these arrivals on the tritone pitches suggest a foreboding and a less than sincere blessing (See RN 120-2).

13 Silkin, Out of Battle, 241. 14 Ibid. 15 Kennedy, Britten, 213.

Ill The key remains in G minor—the key of the Dies irae and the battlefield—as the two soldiers confer about their lives and struggles. At the point where they reach recognition, "I am the enemy you killed, my friend," G minor is abandoned (ex. 6.3).

Example 6.2 "I am the enemy you killed, my friend" at RN 126

^ A 1 o Ft — * w f7\ Take CI in A Clin Blr

o Hn.inF | /U-9 1 — — •

p Simply pp Bnr. tV.il, = solo t om the e- ne-my you killed, my friend 1 knew you inthis dark, v- •"Ts ' VI 1 r ~ —fr 1 * '

a , « muted A ; . . O VI.U _j| i 1 ; ——_ —_ ™ pp v muted o Via JL it tr fr 7 J • ~* '• —- * PP— -J

Vc. ,/ir . -J—i * ;

In addition, the ever-present augmented fourth is transformed into a perfect fourth, on the lines "killed, my friend" and "loath and cold," (from G down to D) musically signifying the understanding between the two soldiers, as well as their unified supplication, "Let us sleep now..." in the mode D Lydian at RN 130+2. This is the greatest moment of reconciliation in the entire War Requiem. Not only are the soloists singing to each other in an acknowledgement of the "other's" existence, but the removal of the tritone provides a musical treaty as the music is in harmony, if only for the time being. The tonality of the boys' choir and chorus in A-major—the key signature of D Lydian—provides a uniformity to the movement's finale.

112 Britten made several alterations to the poem "Strange Meeting." He began by omitting lines 9 and 10: "And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall"—referring to hell.16 Britten removed this reference to hell, despite creating a musical scene that coincided with Owen's depiction of purgatory with the eerie quiet of the grave. One possible reason for its removal is that the "In Paradisum" (in paradise) follows the poem, where the boys' choir comforts the soldiers with promises of heaven and of eternal rest. If the soldiers are depicted as being in hell, the "In Paradisum" is redundant: Britten chose to eliminate that contradiction. Another interpretation is that

Britten did not want the audience to regard hell as existing in the religious sense of the word—as depicted in the Dies irae—because "hell" continues to rage on above the soldiers, in the form of war. This is reinforced by the reappearance of the tritone at the conclusion of the "Libera me" (RN 135 in the bells). Despite the references to

"sleep" and "requiem "(rest), the tritone reminds us that peace has not been achieved for the remainder of humankind, and spiritual rest has not been attained by the soldiers.

Britten also removed lines 30-31: "Courage was mine, and I had mystery, /

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery." Jerold asserts that these two characteristics

(courage and wisdom) "refer to the vision's pacifist plans" in that these are qualities prevalent in a pacifist, and by removing them Britten has thus removed what he deemed to be Owen's failings as a pacifist.17 As Brian McMahon contends, Owen considered himself an active pacifist, seeing it as his duty to participate in the war.

16 Beverly Jerold, "Benjamin Britten's Poetic Alterations," Choral Journal 40, no.7 (Feb 2000): 12. 17 Ibid.

113 Britten considered this to be contradictory to the pacifist message.18 By editing these lines, Britten may be suggesting that the pacifist cause is not lost, and that wisdom and courage are still present. Beverly Jerold reinforces this by stating: "Britten believed the goals of the pacifist could be realized by peaceful means, whereas Owen never claimed this to be so."19 In order for the War Requiem to be a message of peace, as well as a "warning,"20 the pacifist ideology had to remain in the poetry, providing a message of reconciliation and hope that peace is possible.

The most prominent theme of reconciliation in the War Requiem begins with the significance of the two soldiers and the nationality of the performers chosen by

Britten for the premiere. His selection of the specific soloists for the premiere demonstrates a bipartisan sentiment toward each soldier and each side of the conflict.

As Jerold states, "[Britten's] setting underscores the interpretation that the narrator meets his alter-ego in ["Strange Meeting"]."21 There are no sides or patriotic sentiments in this nether world. There is simply the image of the lost soldier discovering the futility of war by meeting his victim, or his other self. Lloyd

Whitesell asserts that the German soldier (who we assume is a German because of

Dieskau's nationality) is "the prime example of the stranger in angelic form. He is a martyr figure. Instead of showing anger, he 'lift(s) his hands as if to bless.'"22

Whitesell further suggests that Britten positions the listener to interact with a "deviant

18 Brian McMahon, "Why did Britten return to wartime England?" in Benjamin Britten: New Perspectives on his Life and Work, ed. Lucy Walker (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2009), 177. "jerold, "Benjamin Britten's Poetic Alterations," 12. 20 Wilfred Owen, The Poems of Wilfred Owen (London: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 2002), 101. "Warning" refers to Owen's incomplete introduction to a collection of poems which were planned for publication in 1919. In it he wrote, "All a poet can do today is warn." Britten quotes this on the title page of the War Requiem score. 21 Jerold, "Benjamin Britten's Poetic Alterations," 11. 22 Lloyd Whitesell, "Britten's Dubious Trysts," Journal of American Musicological Society 56, no.3 (Autumn, 2003): 646.

114 perspective," that of the perceived adversary, in order to reorientate our perception of the apparent enemy.23 This same reference to the gesture of "blessing" could also imply that the other is Christ. Britten removed lines that could reinforce this interpretation, including identifying the other as a "vision" in line 11, "with a thousand pains that vision's face was grained," or lines 37 to 39: "I would have poured my spirit without stint, / But not through wounds; not on the cess of war. /

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were." Although these lines could imply the wounds of Christ, including the crown of thorns—suggesting that "Strange

Meeting" is truly a continuation of the Agnus Dei and "One ever hangs"—Britten's removal of these lines eliminates further metaphors of Christ and places the emphasis strictly on the figure of the soldier.

The "In Paradisum" begins at RN 128 with the boys' choir, in unison, singing at a distance a chanting, rhythmically augmented variation of the Offertorium's

"Quam olim Abrahae." In addition to the boys, are the tenor and baritone soloists' sporadic repetitions of "Let us sleep now ..The boys' choir, as celestial beings, sings a final prayer for the angels to escort the soldiers to heaven. At RN 131 the horn appears, no longer as the trumpet of battle, or the bugle "singing," but rather as a lament mirroring the boys' "In Paradisum" passage. As the chorus joins in, singing the Latin of the boys' choir at RN 131 (ex. 6.3), the music is tonally elusive, drifting between A Mixolydian (prior to RN 132 in the altos, note the G-natural) and the key of A (RN 133), but also D Lydian as a result of the G-sharps. However, considering

A is the axis between the F# and C of the tritone and the significance of thirds

(discussed in the previous chapter) it is not difficult to accept an A-centric

23 Whitesell, "Britten's Dubious Trysts," 643.

115 interpretation.

Musical Example 6.3 The two choirs and soloists are united in the "In Paradisum" at RN 133—4

SOPfUfeO SOLO «y

ctc* Jc iv • so km pMTW

Urm - ciom •>*

As the chorus, male soloists and boys' choir blend into the increasing swell of music (building to as many as forty-seven staves), the soprano soloist enters at RN

133, singing a descant to the "In Paradisum" text. This section is the ultimate symbol of reconciliation, as Britten amalgamates all three parts or planes: chorus

116 (society/humanity), boys (divinity) and soloists (reality/war/pacifism). The unification of the three planes, both tonally and melodically, is finally realized with a common plea for peace, as Evans states, "giving a final significant emphasis to

[Britten's] impassioned musical indictment of the wickedness of war."24 And yet, the final portion of the War Requiem faces the same contradiction and irony as seen in the first movement with the return of the tritone bell. Lundergan states that:

The pitch-set C3o is restored to its place in the celestial sphere with the return of the tritone in the boys' choir, but there is no suggestion that the earthly battlefield has been elevated to the heavenly plane. Britten's vision is deeply and uncompromisingly tragic; the mutual forgiveness of the two soldiers in "Strange Meeting" ennobles but does not alleviate the suffering and death that have preceded it. 5

Rather than seeing the theme of reconciliation through to the end, Britten's musical and spiritual hierarchy overrides the unification of the "In Paradisum." At

RN 135 the boys' enter singing, "Requiem aeternam dona eis" ("grant them eternal rest") on the tritone pitches F-sharp and C, during nearly two bars of rests for the remainder of the singers. Their tritone-centered music appears to tonally engulf the other of the musicians. As Cooke observes, the chorus, overcome and defeated, adopts the familiar tritone for the "requiescant in pace" ("may they rest in peace").26

The boys' choir sings their tritone chant again at RN 136 and the chorus halts. There only remains the soprano soloist, who sings her monotone line "et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem" ("and with Lazarus once a pauper may you have rest eternal") and the male soloists who utter their "Let us sleep now .. one final time.

24 Evans, 464. 25 Lundergan, "Musical Metaphor,"18. 26 Cooke, Requiem, 77.

117 The tritone bells of the opening return as the chorus, unaccompanied and no longer among the soldiers or the angels, resolves to an unsettled F major chord bringing the piece to a close. To end with a resolution to G would have implied that the violence of war no longer exists—that the pacifist cause has been won. The lack of a grand final statement on Britten's part reminds the listener that work remains to be done for the pacifist cause, or as Evans states that "the War Requiem does not answer all the questions it poses."27 Just as in many of Britten's operas, such as Billy

Budd, Peter Grimes and Owen Wingrave, the hero does not arrive at a place of resolution. It is the message of peace that remains rather than a conclusive ending for the soldiers. To conclude the War Requiem with a grandiose, collaborative statement of peace would have been hypocritical and incongruent with the entire work. The bells tolling in the distance, and the choir singing the tritone pitches, rejects any notion of a joyful ending. The listener is left to ponder the uncertain fate of the soldiers and humanity.

27 Evans, Benjamin Britten, 464.

118 CONCLUSION

COVENTRY'S RECONCILIATION, BRITTEN'S PROVOCATION

It is the saddest of ironies, and at the same time entirely appropriate, that the poetry of fallen soldier Wilfred Owen was used in Coventry's commemoration. The message of the occasion was one of rebirth and renewal. It seems incongruous that a celebration of survival and resilience for the people of Coventry is juxtaposed with the tragic loss of life. Britten's contribution to the reconsecration of Coventry was not a celebratory, glorifying work, but rather a solemn observance for those who did not survive the war.

The themes that have been addressed—sacrifice, pacifism and reconciliation—are manifested to different degrees in the various forces. Basil

Spence's use of the old, bombed church in his design for the Cathedral reflects the sense of memorial for the people of Coventry. To simply build a new cathedral would appear to disregard the tragic loss of life, or the sacrifices made by the people of

Coventry. In addition, there are artistic references to Christ's sacrifice, for example the Passion of Christ portraying the crucifixion and the Pieta with the body of Jesus draped in his mother's arms.

Sacrifice permeates the poetry of Wilfred Owen through his depiction of soldiers who are likened to slaughtered animals ("these who die as cattle"); patriarchal sacrifice (Isaac); and the comparisons drawn between Christ's crucifixion and the deaths of soldiers ("At a Calvary Near the Ancre"). The ultimate message of sacrifice is present through Owen's tragic death. The notion of sacrifice in the War

119 Requiem is conveyed through Owen's poetry, yet by Britten's use of two "soldier" soloists we may consider Owen's poetry as representing or depicting all soldiers.

The themes of Coventry Cathedral's reconsecration were forgiveness and renewal. Spence's references to Germanic architecture in the medieval-style beams and vaulted ceiling, his creation of a Unity Chapel and his utilization of both modern and traditional styles serve to reinforce the message of reconciliation. Just as the old

Cathedral serves to remind the congregant of death and violence, the new Cathedral expresses the resurrection to come. Thus, reconciliation is achieved by coming to terms with the past and moving forward.

Owen's poetry does not allude to a peaceful or reconciliatory ending— ominous considering his own demise—he simply expresses the ongoing plea for the war to end. He does so at times as a harsh condemnation ("the whole sky burned with fury against them"1), at other times tenderly ("Let us sleep now .. ,"2). Reconciliation does exist, however, in Owen's attempt to heal from his post-traumatic stress and in coping with his own guilt. His poetry, although graphic and violent, was his attempt at coming to terms with the horrors of the Western Front. He must have been at least moderately successful because he returned to the Front, perhaps out of loyalty to his men.

In the War Requiem, reconciliation exists in Britten's choice of English,

German and Russian soloists; the balance between the sacred texts and secular poetry; and the traditional Latin combined with modern vernacular. All offer significant metaphors for peace and unity. Yet Britten refuses to bestow the occasion with a

1 "Spring Offensive" 2 "Strange Meeting"

120 saccharine conclusion. As James Herbert states, "reconciliation has been relegated to the realm of the divine."3 It does not necessarily exist in reality. Owen's tragic death, so close to the end of the Great War, haunts the listener as he or she attempts to find resolution. The two soldiers of "Strange Meeting" do not drift towards heaven with the angels, as one would perhaps assume or hope. They remain in the darkness—the unknown. They are lost, pleading for rest. Considering the event for which it was commissioned, the War Requiem offers little in the way of celebration. More precisely, it serves as a memorial and reminder that we must not forget the cost of war. Rather than simply providing a message of reconciliation and renewal, Britten is challenging humanity to demand peace.

More than any of the other themes that we have addressed, the polysemic nature of the term sacrifice creates the most powerful incongruity. It can imply martyrdom but also murder. What is revealed through an examination of this seemingly simple idea, is that the War Requiem is constructed of many differing denotations of sacrifice and reconciliation. The initial conventional perception—what can perhaps be considered the grand historical narrative of the War Requiem—is that the work exists as a plea for peace by the church, Benjamin Britten and Wilfred

Owen. On a biographical level, this narrative is complicated by the marginalization of both poet and composer in their personal lives. Philip Brett states:

The integrity of Britten's homosexual politics explains a great deal here, particularly the use of fellow pacifist and homosexual Wilfred Owen's poetry to transmit his anger about the fate of young men sent to their deaths by an unfeeling patriarchal system as well as his critique of empty religious forms in

3 Herbert, "Bad Faith at Coventry," 557.

121 collusion with that system; possibly a metaphorical extension can be made to all innocent victims.4

The War Requiem serves as a statement of society's disregard of their civil liberties in both a humanistic sense—Britten's and Owen's sexuality and pacifist beliefs—and also in a religious sense, since the church neither defended their anti-militaristic stance, nor accepted their sexual orientation.5

The research in this thesis reveals the themes of sacrifice and reconciliation within Owen's poetry and Spence's architecture. Yet, when one examines the music of the War Requiem and attempts to find such themes within the musical score, we are left at the mercy of Britten's interpretation of the poetry and perspective of the

Cathedral's reconsecration. The most significant feature within the War Requiem's score, what unifies the work as a whole, is the tritone. As 1 have observed, the jarring, sinister and relentless nature of the augmented fourth provides an almost constant reminder of what has been lost as a result of war (as in the "requiem aeternam" chant of the first movement) and also how fragile peace can be (as in the final "requiescant in pace" ("may they rest in peace"), where the tritone undermines the final appeal.

The lack of a true resolution from F-sharp to G in favour of a resolution down to F, reveals that the campaign for peace is on going; this is significant considering that the premiere took place at the height of the Cold War.

Despite any incongruous connotations of these themes, an analysis of the War

Requiem evinces Britten's personal aspiration: To create a work with the ultimate pacifist message. He achieved this objective by appealing to his listener's sense of

4 Grove Music Online, s.v. "Britten, Benjamin," by Philip Brett, et al., accessed January 29, 2011 http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/. 5 Grove Music Online, s.v. "Britten, Benjamin," by Philip Brett, et al., accessed January 29, 2011, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/.

122 faith and humanity. Various manifestations of faith are presented, from the conventional and ritualistic mass chorus, to the removed and isolated boys' choir, and finally the Sanctus movement's evocations of Eastern religion. All call into question the listener's own religious dogmas by juxtaposing them with the poetry of war.

Humanity is revealed in the immediacy of the Owen poetry, set in the vernacular and in a style that lends itself to dramatic narrative of the soldiers.

Thus, by considering the reconstruction of Coventry Cathedral and Spence's vision; by examining the genre of World War One poetry, the life and work of

Wilfred Owen; by exploring Britten's life as a pacifist; and finally, analyzing the score of the War Requiem through the lens of sacrifice and reconciliation, we discover why the work continues to be a significant part of the choral canon. As Colin

Mason stated: "[It is] almost certainly the most important work in the history of

English choral music since [Elgar's Dream of] Gerontius."6 Its universal message of non-violence resonates in such a way as to remain relevant to audiences regardless of nationality, politics or religion, far beyond the occasion for which the composition was intended.

6 Colin Mason, quoted in Mervyn Cooke's War Requiem, 90.

123 APPENDIX A

Text and Translation7

I Requiem aeternam

CHORUS Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine, Rest eternal grant them, Lord; et lux perpetua luceat eis and may everlasting light shine upon them.

BOYS' CHOIR Te decet hymnus, Deus Sion; Songs of praise are due to Thee, God, in Zion; el tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem; and prayers offered up to Thee in Jerusalem; exaudi orationem meam, hear my prayer, ad te omnis caro veniet all flesh shall come to Thee.

TENOR SOLO What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries for them from prayers or bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, - The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds "Anthem for Doomed Youth"

CHORUS Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy, Christe eleison, Christ have mercy, Kyrie eleison. Lord have mercy.

II Dies irae

CHORUS Dies irae, dies ilia, Day of anger, that day, Solvet saeclum in favilla, Shall dissolve this generation into ashes, Teste David cum Sibylla. With David and the Sibyl as witness.

7 Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press, from Mervyn Cooke's Britten: War Requiem, 92-100.

124 Quantus tremor est futurus, How much quaking there will be, Quando Judex est venturus, When the Judge will come, Cuncta stride discussurus. To weigh all things strictly.

Tuba mirum spargens sonum The trumpet pouring forth its awful sound Per sepulchra regionum Through the tombs of the lands Coget omnes ante thronum Drives everyone before the throne.

Mors stupedit et natura Death shall be stunned, and nature, Cum resurget creatura, When life shall rise again, Judicanti responsura. To answer for itself before the Judge.

BARITONE SOLO Bugles sang, saddening the evening air, And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear.

Voices of boys were by the river-side. Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad. The shadow of the morrow weighed on men.

Voice of old despondency resigned, Bowed the shadow of the morrow, slept. Untitled

SOPRANO SOLO AND CHORUS

Liber scriptus proferetur, A book inscribed shall be brought forth, In quo totum continetur, In which all is contained, Unde mundus judicetur From which the world shall be judged.

Judex ergo cum sedebit, When the Judge, therefore, shall sit, Quidquid latet, apparebit: Whatever is concealed shall appear: Nil inultum remanebit. Nothing unavenged shall remain.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? What am I, a wretch, to say then? Quem patronum rogaturus, To whom as defender shall I entreat, Cum vixJustus sit securus? Since the just man is scarcely safe?

Rex tremendae majestatis, King of fearful majesty, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Who freely savest those who are to saved, Salva me, fons pietatis. Save me, fountain of compassion.

TENOR AND BARITONE SOLOS Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death, Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland, - Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand. We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath, - Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe. He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed Shrapnel. We chorussed when he sang aloft; We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours! We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.

125 No soldier's paid to kick against his powers. We laughed, knowing that better men would come, And greater wars; when each proud fighter brags He wars on Death - for life; not men - for flags. "The Next War"

CHORUS

Recordare Jesu pie, Recall, kind Jesus, Quod sum causa tuae viae: That 1 am the reason for your being; Ne me perdas ilia die. Lest Thou do away with me on that day.

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus: Searching for me, Thou didst sit exhausted: Redemisti crucem passus: Thou hast redeemed me by suffering the cross: Tantus tabor non sit cassus So much toil should not be in vain.

Ingemisco, tamquam reus: I sigh, so great a sinner: Culpa rubet vultus meus: Guilt reddens my face: Supplicanti parce Deus. Spare the supplicant, God.

Qui Mariam absolvisti, Thou hast forgiven Mary, Et latronem exaudisti, And hast listened to the robber, Mihi quoque spem dedisti. And hast also given hope to me.

Inter oves locum praesta, Set me down amongst the sheep, Et ab haedis me sequestra, And remove me from the goats, Statuens in parte dextra. Standing at Thy right hand.

Confutatis maledictis, With the damned confounded, Flammis acribus addictis, To the crackling flames consigned, Voca me cum benedictis. Call me with your saints.

Oro supplex et acclinis, I pray kneeling and suppliant, Cor contritum quasi cinis: My heart worn away like ashes: Gere curam mei finis. Protect me at my ending.

BARITONE SOLO Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm, Great gun towering toward Heaven, about to curse;

Reach at that arrogance which needs thy harm, And beat it down before its sins grow worse;

But when thy spell be cast complete and whole, May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul! From "Sonnet: On Seeing a Piece of Our Artillery Brought into Action"

CHORUS AND SOPRANO SOLO Dies irae, dies ilia, Day of anger, that day, Solvel saeclum in favilla, Shall dissolve this generation into ashes, Teste David cum Sibylla. With David and the Sibyl as witness.

Quantus tremor est futurus, How much quaking there will be, Quando judex est venturus, When the Judge will come, Cuncta stride discussurus. To weigh all things strictly.

126 Lacrimosa dies ilia, That tearful day, Qua resurget ex favilla, On which shall arise again from the ashes, Judicandus homo reus, The sinner shall be judged, Huic ergo parce Deus. Spare him accordingly, God.

TENOR SOLO Move him into the sun - Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds, - Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? - O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all? "Futility"

CHORUS Pie Jesu Domine Kind Jesus, Lord, dona eis requiem. grant them rest. Amen. Amen.

Ill Offertorium

BOYS' CHOIR Domine Jesu Christe, Lord Jesus Christ, Rex gloriae, King of glory, libera animas omnium fidelium free the souls of all the faithful defunctorum de poenis inferni dead from the tortures of hell, et de profondo lacu. And from the bottomless pit: libera eas de ore leonis, free them from the mouth of the lion, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, that hell may not swallow them up, ne cadant in obscurum. nor may they fall into darkness.

CHORUS Sed signifer sanctus Michael But the holy standard-bearer Michael repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam. Shall bring them back into the holy light: Quam olim Abrahae promisisti as Thou once didst promise to Abraham et semini ejus. And his seed.

BARITONE AND TENOR SOLOS So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned both of them together, Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

127 Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps, And builded parapets and trenches there, And stretched forth the knife to slay his son. When lo! an angel called him out of heaven, Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, Neither do anything to him. Behold, A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns; Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. But the old man would not so, but slew his son, - And half the seed of Europe, one by one. "The Parable of the Old Man and the Young"

BOYS' CHOIR Hostias et preces Sacrifices and prayers tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus: we offer to Thee, Lord, with praise: tu sucipe pro animabus illis, receive them for the souls of those quaram hodie memoriam facimus: whose memory we recall today: Fac eas, Domine, make them, Lord, de morte transire ad vitam. to pass from death to life.

IV Sanctus

SOPRANO SOLO AND CHORUS Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Holy, holy, holy Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Lord God of Hosts. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua. Full are heaven and earth with Thy glory. Hosanna in excelsis. Hosanna in the highest.

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in excelsis. Hosanna in the highest.

BARITONE SOLO After the blast of lightning from the east, The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot Throne; After the drums of Time have rolled and ceased, And by the bronze west long retreat is blown,

Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth, All death will he annul, all tears assuage? - Fill the void veins full again with youth, And wash, with an immortal water, Age?

When 1 do ask white Age he saith not so: 'My head hangs weighed with snow.' And when I hearken to the Earth, she saith: 'My fiery heart shrinks, aching. It is death. Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified, Nor my titanic tears, the seas, be dried.' "The End"

128 V Agnus Dei

TENOR SOLO One ever hangs where shelled roads part. In this war He too lost a limb, But His disciples hide apart; And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

CHORUS Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, qui tollis peccata mundi, who takest away the sins of the world, dona eis requiem. grant them rest.

TENOR SOLO Near Golgotha strolls many a priest, And in their faces there is pride That they were flesh-marked by the Beast By whom the gentle Christ's denied.

CHORUS Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, qui tollis peccata mundi, who takest away the sins of the world, dona eis requiem. grant them rest.

TENOR SOLO The scribes on all the people shove And brawl allegiance to the state, But they who love the greater love Lay down their lives; they do not hate. "At a Calvary near the An ere"

CHORUS Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, qui tollis peccata mundi, who takest away the sins of the world, dona eis requiem sempiternam. grant them rest everlasting.

TENOR SOLO Dona nobis pacem Grant us peace.

VI Libera me

CHORUS AND SOPRANO SOLO Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, Free me, Lord, from eternal death, in die ilia tremenda: on that dreadful day. Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra: When the skies and ground shall quake: Dum veneris judicare When Thou comest to judge saeculum per ignem. our generation through fire Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, I am made to tremble, and am afraid, dum discussio venerit, until the trial shall come, atque ventura ira. and the anger arrive. Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, Free me, Lord, from eternal death, Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra. When the skies and ground shall quake Dies ilia, dies irae, that day, day of anger,

129 calamitatis et miseriae, of disaster and misery, dies magna et amara valde. a great day and intensely bitter. Libera me, Domine ... Free me, Lord . ..

TENOR SOLO It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as 1 probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. 'Strange Friend,' 1 said, 'here is no cause to mourn.'

BARITONE SOLO 'None,' said the other, 'save the undone years, The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also; I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world.

For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping something had been left, Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled. Now men will go content with what we spoiled, Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled. They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress. None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress. Miss we the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled. Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels, I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, Even from wells we sunk too deep for war, Even the sweetest wells that ever were.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.'

TENOR AND BARITONE SOLOS 'Let us sleep now...' "Strange Meeting"

BOYS' CHOIR, CHORUS AND SOPRANO SOLO In paradisum deducant te Angeli: To heaven may the Angel escort you:

in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres, on your arrival may the Martyrs accept you, et perducant te and lead you in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. to the sacred city Jerusalem. Chorus Angelorum tesuscipiat, May the Choir of Angels receive you, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere and with Lazarus, once a pauper, aeternam habeas Requiem. may you have rest eternal.

130 Requiem aetemam dona eis, Domine; Rest eternal grant them, Lord, el lux perpetua luceat eis. and may everlasting light shine upon them. Requiescant in pace. May they rest in peace. Amen. Amen.

131 Appendix B

Instrumentation

VOICES Soprano, Tenor and Baritone Solos Mixed Chorus Boys' Chorus

ORCHESTRA 3 Flutes (Fl. Ill doubling Piccolo) 3 Oboes English Horn 3 Clarinets (CI. Ill doubling CI. in E-flat and Bass CI.) 2 Bassoons Double bassoon 6 Horns in F 4 Trumpets in C 3 Trombones Tuba Pianoforte Organ (or Harmonium) Timpani Percussion (4 players) 2 Side Drums, Tenor Drum, Bass Drum, Tambourine, Triangle, Cymbals, Castanets, Whip, Chinese Blocks, Gong, Bells (C and F#), Vibraphone, Glockenspiel, Antique Cymbals (C and F#) Strings

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Flute (doubling Piccolo), Oboe (doubling English Horn), Clarinet (in B-flat and A), Basoon, Horn in F, Percussion (Timpani, Side Drum, Bass Drum, Cymbal, Gong), Harp, two Violins, Viola, Violoncello, Double Bass.

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Scores

Britten, Benjamin. War Requiem, Op.66. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1962.

. Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac. London: Boosey & Hawekes, 1952.

138 Recordings and Films

Britten, Benjamin. War Requiem. London Symphony Orchestra. Benjamin Britten. With the London Symphony Chorus, The Bach Choir, Highgate School Choir, Simon Preston, Melos Ensemble, Galina Vishnevskaya, Peter Pears and Dietrich Fischer- Dieskau. ® 1963. Original sound recording made by Decca Record Company Ltd. CDC 7 47034 2 and CDC 7 47035 2 (2 sound discs).

Britten, Benjamin. War Requiem. London Symphony Orchestra. Richard Hickox. With the London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Chamber Orchestra, Choristers of St Paul's Cathedral, Roderick Elms, Heather Harper, Martyn Hill and John Shirley-Quirk. ® 1992. Original sound recording made by Decca Record Company Ltd.

Britten, Benjamin. War Requiem. BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Martyn Brabbins. With the Scottish Festival Chorus, St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral Choristers of Edinburgh, George McPhee, Thomas Randle, Lynda Russell and Michael Voile. ® 1996. Naxos distribution. CDC 1 04291 3 (2 sound discs). Olivier, Laurence, Nathaniel Parker, Tilda Swinton, Sean Bean, and Nigel Terry. War Requiem, DVD. Directed by Derek Jarman. London: Anglo International Films and BBC, 1989.

WAR REQUIEM by Benjamin Britten © Copyright 1961 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd Reprinted by permission

CANTICLE II by Benjamin Britten © Copyright 1953 by Boosey & Co Ltd. Reprinted by permission

BRITTEN: WAR REQUIEM by Mervyn Cooke © Copyright 1996 Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press

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