The War Requiem , opus 66 is a Requiem not Liturgique composed by Benjamin Britten. This vocal work requires three soloists (Soprano, Ténor, Baryton), a chorus, a chorus of children, a Orgue, and two Orchestre S (a full orchestra and a Chamber orchestra). Its execution requires approximately 85 minutes.
Genesis of work
The War Requiem was created on May 30th 1962 for the reconsecration of the cathedral of Coventry, destroyed during the war by bombardments. The cathedral had been rebuilt on a plan of Basil Spence and the work of Britten was ordered to him for the inaugural ceremony of this one. For this ceremony also Michael Tippett wrote an opera: King Priam .It was not a question for Britten of carrying out a work exciting the victorious British army. Well rather, it saw an occasion there to express its rejection of the war and its atrocities. Thus it had the brilliant idea to associate the ceremonial of the Roman Requiem with the poetry of Wilfred Owen. This last, poet much more known in England than in continental Europe, was one of best capable testifying to the horror of the war insofar as, volunteer at the time of the First World War, it had had to pay heaviest tribe with this one. It is in the trenches of Flandres which he will write a text of a bitterness cuisante on what he lived as a soldier of the British army, before dying the November 4th 1918, one week before the Armistice. Let us add to that Owen was of public notoriety homosexual and it will be understood there that Britten had found exactly the sensitivity that he sought to give to his work.
The distribution of creation deserves to be noted because it expresses well the intention of Britten. It includes/understands German baritone indeed (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau), a Russian soprano (Galina Vichnevskaïa), as well as an English tenor (Peter Pears). Conceived in an ambition of reconciliation and having common of all the people to avoid the reiteration of such a conflict, War Requiem is a meditation, sometimes extrèmement painful, on the losses sucitées by the wars and which do not save anybody.
Orchestration
The musicians are divided into three groups which alternate and interact throughout work. The Soprano soloist is accompanied by the orchestra in entirety, the soloists Baryton and Ténor is accompanied by the Chamber orchestra, the chorus of boys is accompanied by small a portable Orgue (ideally this last group is placed at a certain distance from the orchestra). The soprano and the chorus sing the traditional mass of requiem in Latin while the tenor and the baritone sing Poésie S of Wilfred Owen.
The Offertoire exposes a seizing juxtaposition, a running away alternating 6/8 and 9/8 at the time when the chorus sings God' S promised to Abraham . This form frames the worms of Owen on the offering of Isaac, when the angel called to Abraham:
- “… offer the RAM off pride instead off him.”
- Goal the old man would not so, goal slew his its,
- and half the seed off Europe, one by one.
- Goal the old man would not so, goal slew his its,
While the male soloists sing the last line on several occasions, the boys sing Hostias and tibi preces, Domine putting in parallel the sacrifice of the mass with the sacrifice half the seed off Europe (a reference to the First World War).
Movements and structures
Work is made up of six movements:- Requiem aeternam (10 minutes)
- Requiem aeternam (chorus chorus of boys)
- " What passing bells" (tenor solo)
- Dies irae (27 minutes)
- Dies irae (chorus)
- " Bugles sang" (baritone solo)
- Liber scriptus (soprano solo and chorus)
- " Out there, we walked quite friendly up to death" (tenor and baritone soli)
- Recordare (chorus of women)
- Confutatis (chorus of men)
- " Be slowly lifted up" (baritone solo)
- Taken again Dies irae (chorus)
- Lacrimosa (soprano and chorus) intermingled with " Move him, move him" (soprano solo and chorus; tenor solo)
- Offertorium (10 minutes)
- Dominates Jesu Christe (chorus of boys)
- Quam olim Abrahae' (chorus)
- Isaac and Abram (" So Abram rose") (tenor and baritone soli)
- Hostias and preces tibi (chorus of boys)
- Taken again off Quam olim Abrahae (chorus)
- Sanctus (10 minutes)
- Sanctus and Benedictus (soprano solo and chorus)
- " After the blast off lightning" (baritone solo)
- Agnus Dei (4 minutes)
- Agnus Dei (chorus) intermingled with " One ever hangs" (chorus; tenor solo)
- Released to me (23 minutes)
- Libera me (soprano solo and chorus)
- Strange Meeting (" It seems that out off battle I escaped") (tenor and baritone soli); the end is combined with
- In paradisum (chorus of boys, then chorus and soprano solo) and
- Requiem aeternam (chorus of boys)
First and other representations
For the first, it was planned that the soloists are Galina Vishnevskaya (Russian), Peter Pears (English) and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (German) in order to show a spirit of unit. Unfortunately the the USSR did not make it possible Vishnevskaya to go to Conventry for the concert and it was replaced at the last time by Heather Harper.First leu the May 30th 1962 had in the rebuilt cathedral of Coventry with the orchestra of the town of Birmingham and the Melos unit. This representation was directed by Meredith Davies and the type-setter. There was a deep silence between the last notes and the applause but it was a triumph. After the first, Britten wrote with his/her sister with the suhet of her music: " I hope that will make reflect the gens" a little;. Britten put on the title page of the partition this quotation of Wilfred Owen: " My subject is War, and the pity off War/The Poetry is in the pity…/All has poet edge C today is warn. "
The first of the southern hemisphere took place with Wellington in New Zealand on July 27th 1963. It played by the National orchestra of New Zealand and the Royal Musical Christchurch Society with for soloists Peter Baillie, Graeme Gorton and Angela Shaw. The leader was John Hopkins. The American northern first took place this same day with Tanglewood with Erich Leinsdorf directing the Boston Symphony Orchestra with as soloists Phyllis Curtin, Nicholas Di Virgilio, Tom Krause and with the Chorus Pro Musica and the Columbus Boychoir .
The first Dutchwoman took place during the Holland Festival in 1964. The Concertgebouw Orchestrated Amsterdam and the Chorus of Dutch Radiophony was directed by Bernard Haitink; the chamber orchestra (compound of musicians of Concertgebouw Orchestra was directed by Britten itself. The soloists were Vishnevskaya, Fischer-Dieskau and Pears, in their first public appartion enseUmble.
An interpretation of this requiem was played by the English Chamber Choir with Your Country Needs You , one évênement gathering of the voice being opposed to the war organized by the The Crass Collective in November 2002.
Recordings
The most known recording is that of the London Symphony Orchestra directed by Britten with as Vishnevskaya soloists, Fischer-Dieskau and Pears, produced in 1963. It was quickly sold to 200000 specimen, an exceptional number for a traditional piece of music at that time. The John Culshaw sound engineer reports that Vishnevskaya protested during the recording because she thought that she was to be placed with the soloists man rather than with the chorus. Another recording is also available with Elisabeth Söderström, Robert Tear, Thomas Allen and the City off Birmingham Symphony Orchestra directed by Sir Simon Rattle. This interpretation was also recorded by Kurt Masur, Carlo Maria Giulini, Richard Hickox, Martyn Brabbins, John Eliot Gardiner and Robert Shaw.
Adaptation to the cinema
In 1989 the realizer Derek Jarman adapted the War Requiem in a film without dialog using the recording of 1963 and with Nathaniel Parker playing Wilfred Owen and Lord Laurence Olivier playing an old soldier. It was the last appearance of Olivier before his in July 1989 death, after having suffered from disease the twenty last years of its life.
Distribution
- Lord Laurence Olivier: An old soldier
- Nathaniel Parker: Wilfred Owen
- Tilda Swinton : A nurse
- Sean Bean: A German soldier
- Nigel Terry: Abraham
- Patricia Beam: a mother
The turning of the fim took place in a hospital of the Kent, began on October 17th, 1988 and lasted 18 days. It is sorit in Great Britain on January 6th, 1989, in Canada on September 12th, 1989 and the United States on January 26th, 1990.
Sources
External bonds
- Text of the '' War Requiem ''
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