Britten - War Requiem (first performance from Coventry Cathedral)
£11.35
Usually available for despatch within 2-3 working days
Despatch Information
This despatch estimate is based on information from both our own stock and the UK supplier's stock.
If ordering multiple items, we will aim to send everything together so the longest despatch estimate will apply to the complete order.
If you would rather receive certain items more quickly, please place them on a separate order.
If any unexpected delays occur, we will keep you informed of progress via email and not allow other items on the order to be held up.
If you would prefer to receive everything together regardless of any delay, please let us know via email.
Pre-orders will be despatched as close as possible to the release date.
Label: Testament
Cat No: SBT1490
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 7th October 2013
Contents
Artists
Peter PearsHeather Harper
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Melos Ensemble
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Conductors
Meredith DaviesBenjamin Britten
Works
War Requiem, op.66Artists
Peter PearsHeather Harper
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Melos Ensemble
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Conductors
Meredith DaviesBenjamin Britten
About
Hearing History
‘The first performance created an atmosphere of such intensity that by the end I was completely undone; I did not know where to hide my face,’ Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau wrote in his autobiography of the War Requiem premiere. ‘Dead friends and past suffering arose in my mind.’ Fischer-Dieskau was a somewhat gruff, paternalistic character of whom Britten would grow wary, but he perfectly captured the emotional intensity of the occasion. Nor was he exaggerating: a few days after the first performance on 30 May Britten wrote to a friend about how Peter Pears had to help Fischer-Dieskau from his seat at the concert’s end. By the time of this letter the ripples from the premiere had travelled far and the profound impact of the work was quickly acknowledged in reviews and correspondence. Yet even Britten was caught unawares by the public resonances of the piece and the emotional responses it inspired.
The commissioners gave Britten a remarkably broad brief. ‘The new work they seek could be full length or a substantial 30/40 minutes one: its libretto could be sacred or secular.’ Britten opted for both sacred and secular, which gave him the opportunity to undermine the former with the latter. He had been thinking about such a piece for a few years, telling a friend in January 1957, ‘I am just starting a Mass myself, a rather sad 20th century, European, affair.’ Typically Britten’s big compositions were some years in the making. Usually at least the librettist, story or poems were pinned down early on, but in the case of this sad mass, Britten had not yet established the form it would take. By the time he thought of his bold scheme to juxtapose Owen’s bitter take on Judeo-Christian beliefs and the Old Men of church and state who shrouded themselves in these beliefs as they marched young men off to war, Britten was wracked with the sort of uncertainty that governed all his major works. ‘I go on working at the Coventry piece,’ he told director Basil Coleman in 1961, a month or so before finishing it. ‘Sometimes it seems the best ever, more often the worst – but it is always so with me.’
Extracts from the note by Paul Kildea
Sound/Video
Paused
-
1What Passing Bells
-
2Dies Irae
-
3Liber Scriptus
-
4Out There, We Walked Quite Friendly Up To Death
-
5Recordare
-
6Be Slowly Lifted Up
-
7Domine Jesu Christe
-
8Sanctus, Hosanna, Benedictus
-
9Agnus Dei
-
10Let Us Sleep Now
Europadisc Review
Now, to coincide with the date of the centenary itself, come arguably two of the most important releases of all. The Testament label once more have us in their debt with the first official release of the War Requiem’s premiere, on 30 May 1962 in the newly-consecrated Coventry Cathedral, transferred from the original BBC tapes. Paul Kildea’s liner notes detail some of the performance’s rough edges and flaws, and Britten was unhappy with both the Coventry Festival Choir and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, which are nevertheless held together valiantly by conductor Meredith Davies. Providing the backdrop for the male soloists, Peter Pears and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the Melos Ensemble under Britten himself fare much better, while Heather Harper (standing in for Galina Vishnevskaya after the latter was denied a visa by the Soviet authorities) gives a radiant account of the soprano solos. The boys’ choirs of Holy Trinity, Leamington and Holy Trinity, Stratford together with John Cooper at the organ add some highly atmospheric moments.
Warts-and-all it may be, but the transcendent quality of the solo singing – including the desperately moving final pages – and the tangible sense of occasion make this performance something very special indeed, and considerably more than the sum of its parts. Given the provenance of the recording (in an acoustic that Britten described as ‘lunatic’), the mono broadcast sound is acceptable, if rather muffled in the Libera me, and this disc will now surely become an essential adjunct to Britten’s studio recording from the following year, as well as an historic document in its own right.
From the very first recording of the War Requiem to the most recent: Antonio Pappano’s reading on Warner Classics, taken from concert performances in Rome this June. The forces are the Chorus and Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, who are on blistering form, thrilling in the louder passages with immaculate ensemble, sensitive and finely-etched in the more reflective music. Non-British forces often throw new light on this music, and it’s not entirely fanciful to sense that the work’s indebtedness to Verdi’s Requiem is brought out here. The children’s voices of the Voci Bianche di Santa Cecilia are imaginatively distanced, enhancing the music’s liturgical echoes, while the main chorus is wonderfully ominous in the sotto voce opening of the Dies irae, with biting brass and percussion.
The soloists, drawn from three nations, are exceptionally distinguished. Anna Netrebko soars commandingly in the Liber scriptus and movingly in the Lacrimosa. Thomas Hampson may be a shade less characterful than Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, but he’s no less sensitive or touching, while Ian Bostridge once again proves to be the most compelling Britten tenor since Pears himself. With flawless sound and a wide dynamic range, this is one of the finest and most movingly shaped accounts of the War Requiem in many years, benefiting hugely from Pappano’s innate sense for dramatic pacing. Full sung texts are provided, whereas Testament’s are available only online in PDF format.
Error on this page? Let us know here
Need more information on this product? Click here