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War Requiem
3
Transcript
War Requiem: Benjamin Britten
"My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity…
All a poet can do today is warn."
Coventry Cathedral
Premier - 1962
- Commissioned in 1958, completed 1961
- Meredith Davies conducted full orchestra, Britten conducted the chamber orchestra
- Soprano soloist had to be replaced
- Broadcast live on BBC, recording still available
Poetic Elements
Requiem aeternam: Anthem for Doomed Youth
Dies irae: The Next War
Sonnet On Seeing a Piece of our Heavy Artillery Brought into Action
Futility
Offertorium: The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
Sanctus : The End
Agnus Dei: At a Calvary near the Ancre
Libera me: Strange Meeting
Organization of the Work
- Nine poems used, one per movement except in the Dies Irae
- Tenor - British Soldier, Baritone - German Soldier
- Silence contains the most tension
- Brilliant integration of poetic and Latin texts
- 'Tuba mirum' and 'Bugles sang'
- 'Requiescent in pace' and 'Let us sleep now'
- 'Quam olim Abrahae' and Owen's paraphrase of Abraham and Issac (Genesis 22)
- Text: Requiem and poetry of Wilfred Owen
- Performing Forces:
- SATB mixed chorus, Soprano solo, full orchestra
- TB soloists, chamber orchestra
- Boys choir and organ
- Use of spacial planning
- All three only perform together at the very end
Compositional Elements
- Recurrent tritone presented many ways
- Tubular bells chiming
- Begins phrase on C and ends on F# or visa versa
- Enharmonic equivalent (C - Gb) in 'Passing Bells'
- Frequent use of 2nds (Offertorium) and 7ths (Dies Irae)
- Many lines are inverted
- Consonance appears only three times - F major chord sung by the choir - end of the first movement, end of second movement (approx. halfway), and the last chord
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