Memorial Day

Britten's "War Requiem"

On today's date in 1962, Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem" for solo soprano, tenor, baritone, chorus and orchestra, had its premiere performance at Conventry Cathedral in England. The Cathedral had been virtually destroyed in war-time bombing, and Britten's big choral work was commissioned to celebrate its restoration and reconsecration.

Britten was a committed pacifist, and his "War Requiem" text combines poems by Wilfred Owen, who had been killed in World War I, with the traditional Latin text of the Mass for the Dead. Despite using poems written during the First World War, Britten's choice of soloists reflected nations who participated in the Second.

With Britten's life-time partner, tenor Peter Pears, representing England, the plan was to have a German baritone, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and a Russian soprano, Galina Vishnevskaya, for the 1962 premiere. As a young man, Fischer-Dieskau had been drafted into the German army, and had been a prisoner of war, but was eager to participate. Unfortunately, the Soviet authorities wouldn't issue a visa for soprano Vishnevskaya to sing in the new Britten piece: "How can you, a Soviet woman, stand next to a German and an Englishman and perform such a political work," they told her. The British soprano Heather Harper substituted for her.

For many, Britten's "War Requiem" is his masterpiece, and shortly after its premiere, Britten wrote to his sister: "The idea did come off, I think . . . aren't those poems wonderful, and how one thinks of that bloody 1914-18 war especially. I hope it will make people think a bit."