‘BRITTEN’S WAR REQUIEM OFFERS AN OMINOUS MUSICAL LANDSCAPE THAT NEVER LOSES ITS RELEVANCE’

By Oliver Valentine ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Press Invite

As UK headlines increasingly challenge the British public to hear the battle cry ‘are we ready for war in Europe?’ Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, offers an ominous musical landscape that never seems to lose its relevance.

So, it seemed appropriate that the joint talents of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Choir, London Symphony Chorus and the Tiffin Children’s Choir with soloists soprano Natalya Romaniw, baritone Benjamin Appl, and tenor Paul Appelby should join together led by conductor Edward Gardner, to open the LPO season with Britten’s timeless work.

When Britten, a pacifist and conscientious objector, was commissioned to write a piece for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, whose original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed during the World War II blitz, he chose to juxtapose the words of the Latin Mass for the dead with nine poems about war by English Poet Wilfred Owen.

Owen was killed in action on 4 November 1918, aged 25, during the crossing of the Sambre–Oise Canal, France, just one week before the Armistice. Although Owen was virtually unknown at the time of his death, he has subsequently come to be revered as one of the great war poets.

In his War Requiem, Britten intended to show through Owen’s words the ‘The truth untold, the pity of war, the pity war distilled,’ in opposition to its glorification by government propaganda.

Britten’s War Requiem opens with Requiem aeternam, includes text from Owen’s ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth,’ and forthrightly asks ‘What Passing Bells for these who die as cattle?

War Requiem notably uses the tritone, which is also known as the ‘devil’s interval,’ which is woven throughout Britten’s Requiem to symbolise the discord and turmoil of war.

With a running time of approximately an hour and a half, the mixed diversity of musical elements makes Britten’s War Requiem a challenge both for musicians and singers. Like a master juggler, conductor Gardner, balances all the divergent elements together to make a whole.

What struck me immediately as the piece opened was the absolute accuracy of the choirs, whose tight diction, vocal attack and working together as one unit brought a much needed light and shade to this compelling piece.

Located out of sight, (as Britten directed because they represent innocence), the children’s chorus were particularly effective, and added an ethereal and sometimes slightly eerie effect to the piece as they seemed to come from nowhere but are always omnipresent.

Britten’s War Requiem is full of surprises. One striking juxtaposition is found where the tenor soloist sings of God’s promise to Abraham to kill his son Isaac as a test of faith but is then instructed to sacrifice a ram instead. Owen reframes this story in his poem ‘The Parable of the Old Man and the Young’, by retelling it as:’ But the old man would not so, but slew his son, and half the seed of Europe, one by one’, which is an uncompromising reference to the loss of young life as a result of the orders by the elderly generals of World War I.

Sumptuously voiced Ukrainian-Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw was on fire with Dies irae (day of wrath) while also displaying a more vulnerable voice in Lacrimosa dies illa.

I struggled slightly with the male soloists, whose general performances often felt histrionic, needed more worded clarity (thank goodness for the stage teleprompter), and sometimes lacked authenticity. It was not until the final ‘Strange Meeting’, where the two enemy soldiers meet each other in the “profound dark tunnel” of death and make their final peace with each other, that I felt any real connection to their performances.

Here, tenor Appleby and baritone Appl are at their most convincing as they sing: ‘I am the enemy you killed, my friend …Let us sleep now.’ The last four words are sung repeatedly over and over again, and as they build up it leads up to the forgiveness and hope of the concluding piece In Paradisum.

Despite being familiar with Britten’s 1963 legendary Decca recording of his War Requiem, I had never heard the piece live, and the effect was emotionally devastating. The long collective silence from the audience that followed the final “Amen” also seemed to reflect this.

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Photo Credit: Andy Paradise