For his first LSO Live recording, Gianandrea Noseda is joined by three of today’s most widely acclaimed singers for a magnificent performance of Benjamin Britten’s choral masterpiece.

Premiered 50 years ago on 30 May 1962, the 'War Requiem' was commissioned for the re-dedication of Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed by bombing raids during the Second World War.

Using the Latin mass of the dead, interspersed with texts by war poet Wilfred Owen, Britten, a pacifist and conscientious objector, created a work that both mourned the dead and pleaded the futility of war. The 'War Requiem' was to become one of the defining choral works of the 20th Century.

Gianandrea Noseda was the first foreign Principal Guest Conductor of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and over the past decade his reputation in the opera house and concert hall has blossomed. He regularly conducts the London Symphony Orchestra, as well as many of the world’s other great orchestras, and is Music Director of the Teatro Regio in Turin.

Ian Bostridge, Simon Keenlyside and Sabina Cvilak perform regularly in the world’s leading opera houses and are renowned for their performances in Britten’s music. The London Symphony Chorus and London Symphony Orchestra have both enjoyed long relationships with the composer and appeared on the first recording of the 'War Requiem', conducted by Britten himself.

"Noseda’s unashamedly dramatic interpretation held the audience transfixed. It was all so vivid … an overwhelming evocation of the grief, the waste and the pity of war" - The Times

"Noseda marshalled the finest War Requiem that I have heard. He showed total control of Britten’s vast structure" - The New Yorker

"Ms Cvilak brought a lustrous soprano voice and guileless sincerity to her singing. Mr Bostridge sang with ethereal beauty and vivid feeling for Owen’s words. And Mr Keenlyside brought a combination of muscular sound and poignancy to his impressive singing" - New York Times