I have two 15 year old children. How would I not be moved by this tribute to our 18 year olds who died because we sent them to war? Life deserves to be lived.
When I was 19, 20, having had to leave college, come home 3000 miles to a mundane world, grateful for any income as a cashier at an upscale women's clothing store, going to art fine art lessons at night, I would listen to this very recording before work, and listen to it in my head all day, all those around me unaware. I wrote new programs for our rudimentary "cash register", NCR sought to hire me as a programmer, I refused, I greeted guests, became the fashion illustrator there...this music kept me sane enough to peform my job. A visual artist, I made a living, but for circumstance migh have been an IT person, rich as creasus, or gone into music. Playing Chopin on my old Chickering piano at home kept me sane.
Anna thank you for such a moving story. Please never give up playing on an old Chickering creating from your own voice and soul. Riches makes no sound nor remains in your heart.Britton's musical miracle is tattooed on ours. On winter nights far behind the silent trees the bell haunts the bone littered ground. Oh lord save us,oh lord save us, let us sleep now.
What a wonderful musician is Heather Harper - she learned her part in two weeks and sounded simply divine. And Britten really understood what sounds he was after.
I performed this piece only a few months ago as a tenor (in the chorus, of course). It is as beautiful as ever. It was surreal performing it then… it’s still surreal listening to it now. This is truly one of, if not, my favorite, choral work of all time.
I want to listen to it again and again. It’s hard to think of another 20th century work that succeeds so completely on so many levels. As a composer, I’d love to see Britten’s rough manuscripts to see perhaps how he came to include this or that idea. The piece is a master class in every aspect of setting words to music: the overall shape, the drama of the text, tension-relaxation, bitterness-sweetness, etc. I’m so grateful for the existence of this piece.
3 years later but Im sure your mind on the work hasn't changed: if you ever find yourself in Suffolk, UK make sure you visit Britten's house and ask to see the MSS for War Req
In the chorus, I have sung both. There is no comparison, literally no comparison. Like comparing filet mignon to ribeye. Both, in their own ways, are magnificently beautiful.
@@marieconstantia4441 In my opinion they are not comparable. The Dufrufle is within a classical tradition. The Britten is unique. In terms of preference I go Dvorak, Faure, Britten.
A youth who loved me while we were in college, he learned of my love of Britten and at great pains arranged for us an evening at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion to hear this live in 1975. One of the finest gifts, if not the finest, ever given me with such open heart. He didn't know Britten. How tenuous was my connection to knowing him from a high school companion...too complicated to remark here.But this, for me ranks as alway the most moving experience of my life, almost too painful in its beauty and horror, that I can only on occasion revisit it. glad to find it here. Greatful for the internet and RUclips. No "Networks" and corporations putting profit first, ruining art, butrying it, or relegating to the graveyard of no memory.
I sang with the LA Master Chorale for 27 years, and had the privilege of performing this with the LA Phil at least 3 times at the Pavillion and once at Disney Hall. I joined in 1983 or 84 so I wasn't in the performance you heard. It was always a special piece to perform.
Oh my God I think this is the same recording I own of it! oh my! to SEE it!. oh my!Given the tech of the day, a miracle, they were able to record all these choruses! So faithfully! breaks my heart , gives me joy.
I didn't know that this prom performance was available on disc. I know two Britten-Pears recordings: the first is the 1962 performance at Coventry Cathedral (with a wondrous Heather Harper), the other is the 1963 Kingsway Hall recording (with Vishnevshkaya for whom it was written) (ruclips.net/video/rsSMCq7pl_k/видео.html).
I remember performing this with The Cleveland Orchestra when I was in the Children's Chorus. God bless all of them who protect us from the evil of War. The conductor at the time, Loren Maazel wept at the end of the performance. Not a dry eye was found = mission accomplished. The Sanctus movement as Robert Page said, "Imagine when you enter the courts of the Lord. God sitting on the Throne, Gets up and walks toward you with arms open wide saying, Welcome my child, Well Done, Welcome home!"
Sometimes there is the one time, the perfection, the artist/composer, with the vision, the artists, the the very jewel a perfect gem, given in a moment in time. This is one such.
The BBC ought to perform the WAR REQUIEM in memory of Maestra Patricia Burda Janeckova, the great Slovak soprano who passed away last year after a brave and heroic battle with cancer.
Television camera lens reception is so much better today than in was in the 1960's. But such is the nature of progress. Heather Harper is superb (Soprano who substituted for the preferred Galina Vishnevskaya) Pears is, Pears- the theme of war universal, the music rich, ominous and penetrating. Would have loved to have been part of this historic event. Excellent post.
@@mckavitt I know what you mean, "Bee sloowlee leefted up dow long bleck arrm! towrring abuff heaven eh-bout to curze!" Yes DFD just 'makes it happen somehow' doesn't he?. Totally brilliant.
There are two orchestras in this piece: A large, full orchestra which accompanies the full chorus, and a smaller chamber-orchestra which accompanies the Wilfred Owen poems. Hence: two conductors.
Peccato non ci sia il baritono Dieter Fischer Dieskau che era presente alla 1^ esecuzione mentre gli altri due interpreti il tenore Peter Pears e il soprano Heather Harper sono presenti.Io ho avuto la fortuna di partecipare da ragazzo nel 1963,quale cantore del Coro di Voci Bianche della RAI di Renata Cortiglioni alla sua 1^ esecuzione romana sotto la direzione di Fernando Previtali per l'Accademia di S.Cecilia a Roma e 23 anni dopo sempre per la medesima Accademia col mio Coro di Voci Bianche dell'Arcum nel 1986 sotto la direzione di Mstival Rostropovich ( il soprano stavolta era la moglie Galina Vishnevskaja per cui Britten aveva composto la parte e che è presente nella 1^ incisione diretta da Britten) e nel 1992 nell'Akropolis di Nizza diretti sempre da Rostropovich e infine nel 1995 sempre per l'Accademia di S.Cecilia e sempre con il mio Coro sotto la direzione di Wolfgang Sawallisch. Per un britteniano di ferro come me una bella fortuna!
Mr Baker passed away recently in Nov 2018 just a week after the 100th anniversary of the end of WW1 - here in this recording he is introducing a performance commemorating the 50th anniversary of the start of WW1
First violinist makes a moving tribute to his first meeting & later association w Jacqueline Du Pré in Christopher Nupen's WHO WAS JACQUELINE DU PRÉ? (DVD)
Thank you for your post, John! I saw this video at The Red House,during 2014 Aldeburgh Festival. I was very moved and was looking for this video. I am a Japanese painter, but since I saw this film, I have been drawing pictures on the theme of "War Requiem". would you mind me to share this video with those who watch my work? I am going to have an exhibition in St.Petersburg with this theme, and would like to introduce this film during my artist talk. It is absolutely,great music!
The camerawork is very good for television of that era but why couldn't they have recorded in stereo? Fortunately Decca made the first recording soon after the premiere (Britten conducting) in their finest tradition of outstanding technical achievement.
As the conductor Gianandrea Noseda was *born* in April 1964, I don't think he is rightly mentioned here as the conductor in this performance of August 1964. Even as a a child prodigy, he looks older than four months. :-) So who IS the conductor here?
There are two orchestras in this piece: A large, full orchestra which accompanies the full chorus, and a smaller chamber-orchestra which accompanies the Wilfred Owen poems. Hence: two conductors.
There were hundreds of performances since the first performance, and they used British singers, and at the Proms all was different, including the choirs and orchestra. And it was also about money!! Bringing in a German singer would have been a lot more expensive for the BBC to fund on the license. Coventry was different and funded differently.
I think that Heather Harper is so much more telling than Vishnevskaya, the Russian soprano who appears on the Decca recording. Also like Thomas Hemsley very much..
When it was written, for the reopening of Coventry Cathedral, the three soloists were English, Russian, and German. Pears, Vishnevskaya, and Fischer-Dieskau.
@@patrickedwards5804 Britten never intended for that to become the practice - at the first performance in Coventry, he planned to conduct the whole thing, but developed shoulder issues, and decided to restrict himself to the chamber orchestra. Plenty of performances take place with just one conductor for both groups.
I wish Britten had conducted the whole thing. I've head that originally at the premiere he had planned to do that but since there were so much issues going on.... the quality of the choir, etc. that he passed of the main ensemble to Davies. Btw, I love your home videos of Tippett. So great that you posted those.
How beautifully articulate radio announcers (esp this one) sounded back then. Today? I’m away! PS. This announcer failed to mention the entry of Heather Harper!
The distinguished announcer is at fault NOT to mention Heather Harper as she is the 3rd soloist & enters, albeit above, at the same time as the two men. I cannot help but think this omission was deliberate. PS: How the gorgeous British accent has changed (US "movies" no doubt). Even the word "American" was pronounced w a rolled 'r' before the latter word became the word the most pronounced in our 24-hour day on television, radio, the mouths of everyone, mostly the Americans themselves. :-(
Una Barry I am relieved to know that, but then why omit mention of her? Still stymied. Just because she was deliberately separated from the male soloists for reasons we all know is no reason not to mention her. She was so well-known, admired for both her voice, singing & professionalism.
@@mckavitt Richard Baker's death was announced today. He wasn't infallible, having once introduced Malcolm Williamson (in his presence) as Malcolm Arnold (despite having tried to train himself not to say 'Malcolm Arnold' all afternoon).
Makes its points extremely feebly and slowly; the Expressionist technique requires an intellectual compact with the audience which more visceral music can forego. It is also self-defeating: if you are going to create syncopated ugly noises to evoke war, can you at any point find empathy with an individual - as Tippett does? It seems that the answer is no. Generously-scored Church bells and fragments of Berg will only take us only so far. What we have here is a bourgeois parody of the idea of war. The real problems are :(1) Britten has no Christian belief, so is ill-suited to set the Mass . I guess he never even attended mass once, voluntarily (2) The poetry of Wilfred Owen while good is not up to a transcendental text. The Dies Irae is a poor imitation of the Symphony of Psalms - with none of the charm. Other parts, even Walton has done better; and the seventh dissonance at 17:51 would seem to require the services of a dentist. Here Britten is - hereditarily - in a position to know! It is to be hoped that he will pick up the tab for the anesthetic! Only a man who had not seen active service or thought seriously about the issues involved (not registering a conscientious objection, but preferring to flee to America to safety) could have written such a socially distanced, cold piece. And worse still - have pretended that he knew - emotionally - what he was doing! Poor Richard Baker: one feels for him!
It is about the horrors of war, so not meant to give instant pleasure. This music needs to be listened to a number of times, and over time the love and emptions begins to grow..
Television so much cooler back then. What an incredible experience.
I have two 15 year old children. How would I not be moved by this tribute to our 18 year olds who died because we sent them to war?
Life deserves to be lived.
When I was 19, 20, having had to leave college, come home 3000 miles to a mundane world, grateful for any income as a cashier at an upscale women's clothing store, going to art fine art lessons at night, I would listen to this very recording before work, and listen to it in my head all day, all those around me unaware. I wrote new programs for our rudimentary "cash register", NCR sought to hire me as a programmer, I refused, I greeted guests, became the fashion illustrator there...this music kept me sane enough to peform my job. A visual artist, I made a living, but for circumstance migh have been an IT person, rich as creasus, or gone into music. Playing Chopin on my old Chickering piano at home kept me sane.
Anna thank you for such a moving story. Please never give up playing on an old Chickering creating from your own voice and soul. Riches makes no sound nor remains in your heart.Britton's musical miracle is tattooed on ours. On winter nights far behind the silent trees the bell haunts the bone littered ground. Oh lord save us,oh lord save us, let us sleep now.
What a wonderful musician is Heather Harper - she learned her part in two weeks and sounded simply divine. And Britten really understood what sounds he was after.
Heather była wspaniała odeszła
I performed this piece only a few months ago as a tenor (in the chorus, of course). It is as beautiful as ever. It was surreal performing it then… it’s still surreal listening to it now. This is truly one of, if not, my favorite, choral work of all time.
I want to listen to it again and again. It’s hard to think of another 20th century work that succeeds so completely on so many levels. As a composer, I’d love to see Britten’s rough manuscripts to see perhaps how he came to include this or that idea. The piece is a master class in every aspect of setting words to music: the overall shape, the drama of the text, tension-relaxation, bitterness-sweetness, etc. I’m so grateful for the existence of this piece.
3 years later but Im sure your mind on the work hasn't changed: if you ever find yourself in Suffolk, UK make sure you visit Britten's house and ask to see the MSS for War Req
I. Requiem Aeternam
6:40 Requiem aeternam (chorus & boys choir)
12:32 “What passing bells” (tenor solo)
14:47 Kyrie eleison (chorus)
II. Dies Irae
16:33 Dies irae (chorus)
20:40 “Bugles sang” (baritone solo)
22:59 Liber scriptus (soprano solo & semi-choir)
25:56 “Out there, we walked quite friendly up to death” (baritone & tenor solo)
27:42 Recordare (womens chorus)
31:03 Confutatis (mens chorus)
23:12 “Be slowly lifted up” (baritone solo)
34:00 Dies Irae - reprise (chorus)
35:00 Lacrimosa (soprano solo, choir & tenor solo interspersed)
This is one of the best pieces of music ever written. Ever.
I agree
How does this requiem compare to the Duruflé requiem? I personally feel the same about his requiem but I have never heard the Britten.
@@marieconstantia4441 I prefer the Britten. By far. I like the D, but Love the B.
In the chorus, I have sung both. There is no comparison, literally no comparison. Like comparing filet mignon to ribeye. Both, in their own ways, are magnificently beautiful.
@@marieconstantia4441 In my opinion they are not comparable. The Dufrufle is within a classical tradition. The Britten is unique. In terms of preference I go Dvorak, Faure, Britten.
A youth who loved me while we were in college, he learned of my love of Britten and at great pains arranged for us an evening at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion to hear this live in 1975. One of the finest gifts, if not the finest, ever given me with such open heart. He didn't know Britten. How tenuous was my connection to knowing him from a high school companion...too complicated to remark here.But this, for me ranks as alway the most moving experience of my life, almost too painful in its beauty and horror, that I can only on occasion revisit it. glad to find it here. Greatful for the internet and RUclips. No "Networks" and corporations putting profit first, ruining art, butrying it, or relegating to the graveyard of no memory.
I sang with the LA Master Chorale for 27 years, and had the privilege of performing this with the LA Phil at least 3 times at the Pavillion and once at Disney Hall. I joined in 1983 or 84 so I wasn't in the performance you heard. It was always a special piece to perform.
Oh my God I think this is the same recording I own of it! oh my! to SEE it!. oh my!Given the tech of the day, a miracle, they were able to record all these choruses! So faithfully! breaks my heart , gives me joy.
I didn't know that this prom performance was available on disc. I know two Britten-Pears recordings: the first is the 1962 performance at Coventry Cathedral (with a wondrous Heather Harper), the other is the 1963 Kingsway Hall recording (with Vishnevshkaya for whom it was written) (ruclips.net/video/rsSMCq7pl_k/видео.html).
I remember performing this with The Cleveland Orchestra when I was in the Children's Chorus. God bless all of them who protect us from the evil of War. The conductor at the time, Loren Maazel wept at the end of the performance. Not a dry eye was found = mission accomplished. The Sanctus movement as Robert Page said, "Imagine when you enter the courts of the Lord. God sitting on the Throne, Gets up and walks toward you with arms open wide saying, Welcome my child, Well Done, Welcome home!"
Sometimes there is the one time, the perfection, the artist/composer, with the vision, the artists, the the very jewel a perfect gem, given in a moment in time. This is one such.
I listen to one version or another of this piece every year on November 11. Nothing else is so suitable to that day.
The BBC ought to perform the WAR REQUIEM in memory of Maestra Patricia Burda Janeckova, the great Slovak soprano who passed away last year after a brave and heroic battle with cancer.
Thank's it's a historical document.
Jesús Rodríguez Picó Thanks, but it is also more than that! :-)
This was an amazing piece to perform in. It's one of my favorite pieces of all time.
Hughes: Thank you, thank you so much for preserving this stunning work!
So love this work, this Benjamin Britten, this performance.
Thank you ❤️🙏
Such great music. Powerful and sensitive.
WOW! Benjamin Britten conducted this! ELEMENTARY!
Benjamin Britten, he himself as conductor. How wonderful and up to date. Poor goose bumps. Thank you so much!
Heather Harper is extraordinary!
Heather Harper died 22/4/2019. R.I.P.
I hadn't heard that!! R.I.P. to such a great artist and person.
Thank you so much.
Television camera lens reception is so much better today than in was in the 1960's. But such is the nature of progress. Heather Harper is superb (Soprano who substituted for the preferred Galina Vishnevskaya) Pears is, Pears- the theme of war universal, the music rich, ominous and penetrating. Would have loved to have been part of this historic event. Excellent post.
A wonderful performance, particularly by the baritone Thomas Hemsley.
Colin Howard You are right, ofc. But I so loved the original, I miss DFD.
Colin Howard AND Heather Harper. She always knocks me "sideways" in this.
@@mckavitt I know what you mean, "Bee sloowlee leefted up dow long bleck arrm! towrring abuff heaven eh-bout to curze!" Yes DFD just 'makes it happen somehow' doesn't he?. Totally brilliant.
This is brilliant! Thanks so much for preserving and sharing.
The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
The "Agnus Dei" movement should have been subtitled "Calvary"; it's a moving retelling of the Crucifixion.
Both of them conduct - Benjamin Britten and Meredith Davies - because of so many musicians and singers. At this work today it's the same too.
There are two orchestras in this piece: A large, full orchestra which accompanies the full chorus, and a smaller chamber-orchestra which accompanies the Wilfred Owen poems. Hence: two conductors.
Messrs. Britten and Davies shared the conducting duties at the world premiere.
Peccato non ci sia il baritono Dieter Fischer Dieskau che era presente alla 1^ esecuzione mentre gli altri due interpreti il tenore Peter Pears e il soprano Heather Harper sono presenti.Io ho avuto la fortuna di partecipare da ragazzo nel 1963,quale cantore del Coro di Voci Bianche della RAI di Renata Cortiglioni alla sua 1^ esecuzione romana sotto la direzione di Fernando Previtali per l'Accademia di S.Cecilia a Roma e 23 anni dopo sempre per la medesima Accademia col mio Coro di Voci Bianche dell'Arcum nel 1986 sotto la direzione di Mstival Rostropovich ( il soprano stavolta era la moglie Galina Vishnevskaja per cui Britten aveva composto la parte e che è presente nella 1^ incisione diretta da Britten) e nel 1992 nell'Akropolis di Nizza diretti sempre da Rostropovich e infine nel 1995 sempre per l'Accademia di S.Cecilia e sempre con il mio Coro sotto la direzione di Wolfgang Sawallisch. Per un britteniano di ferro come me una bella fortuna!
the announcer is the wonderful Richard Baker, who is still alive at the age of 93. I met him once years ago.
Mr Baker passed away recently in Nov 2018 just a week after the 100th anniversary of the end of WW1 - here in this recording he is introducing a performance commemorating the 50th anniversary of the start of WW1
Marvelous performance. Does anyone have the BBC Prom radio performance from the 1963 season please.
If this is available please share
i was in the chorus.
I was in the Boys Choir - from Emanual School
magnificent
Amazing !
❤️🙏
First violinist makes a moving tribute to his first meeting & later association w Jacqueline Du Pré in Christopher Nupen's WHO WAS JACQUELINE DU PRÉ? (DVD)
Thank you for your post, John! I saw this video at The Red House,during 2014 Aldeburgh Festival. I was very moved and was looking for this video. I am a Japanese painter, but since I saw this film, I have been drawing pictures on the theme of "War Requiem".
would you mind me to share this video with those who watch my work? I am going to have an exhibition in St.Petersburg with this theme, and would like to introduce this film during my artist talk. It is absolutely,great music!
Great. I'm so glad you enjoyed it. It's certainly fine with me for you to share this copy with anyone you think would like it. :)
starts 06:30 min
Premiered #otd in 1962 🌺🌺🌺
Isn't the camerawork superb too. BBC were the best.
The camerawork is very good for television of that era but why couldn't they have recorded in stereo? Fortunately Decca made the first recording soon after the premiere (Britten conducting) in their finest tradition of outstanding technical achievement.
As the conductor Gianandrea Noseda was *born* in April 1964, I don't think he is rightly mentioned here as the conductor in this performance of August 1964. Even as a a child prodigy, he looks older than four months. :-)
So who IS the conductor here?
There are two orchestras in this piece: A large, full orchestra which accompanies the full chorus, and a smaller chamber-orchestra which accompanies the Wilfred Owen poems. Hence: two conductors.
Why B.B is not the middle Conductor
Amazing performance. Ready to do this with Yale YSO and Glee Club and Camerata April 3 at Woolsey Auditorium under the baton of Jeffrey Douma.
"BBC Chorus & Choral Society ...... London Philharmonic Chorus"
I miss Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, as good as Thomas Hemsley is.
Umm... Thomas Hemsley is the baritone soloist in this performance, not D. F.-D.
KozenaFan That I why i miss Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in this performance.
Got it! Duh...
There were hundreds of performances since the first performance, and they used British singers, and at the Proms all was different, including the choirs and orchestra. And it was also about money!! Bringing in a German singer would have been a lot more expensive for the BBC to fund on the license. Coventry was different and funded differently.
Una Barry So true. And Hemsley is so v. good. It's just that DFD (Dieter to the Brittens:) was astoundingly moving in his first & later performances.
My dad sang this at the Albert hall when he was a kid. Pretty cool!
I must have sang with him! I too was in the Boys choir. We came from Emanual School Wandswoth
I think that Heather Harper is so much more telling than Vishnevskaya, the Russian soprano who appears on the Decca recording. Also like Thomas Hemsley very much..
When it was written, for the reopening of Coventry Cathedral, the three soloists were English, Russian, and German. Pears, Vishnevskaya, and Fischer-Dieskau.
18:36
Starts at 6:41
Wow! Does anyone know the name of the venue?
Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
@@johnrandolph6121 Thank you!!
The photo shown on this performance of the WR is not of BB, ironically, but of Meredith Davies?
RUclips randomly chooses three thumbnails from the video to choose from and none of them were of Britten unfortunately.
However, I just figured out how to do a customized thumbnail.... voila.... I think the new one is much better.
John Randolph Much better! Good show!
1:11:44
Fabulous performance, but very strangely changes conductor halfway through the first movement from Meredith Davies to Benjamin Britten!
It doesn't change. Britten conducts the chamber orchestra, tenor and baritone, Davies conducts the great orchestra, choir and soprano.
bigbadbasso the piece is actually scored for a chamber orchestra and a larger orchestra and obviously then requires two conductors.
@@patrickedwards5804 Britten never intended for that to become the practice - at the first performance in Coventry, he planned to conduct the whole thing, but developed shoulder issues, and decided to restrict himself to the chamber orchestra. Plenty of performances take place with just one conductor for both groups.
♥️🎩
1:22:59 "Mvt. 6"
Great film but the conductor isn't Britten. It's Meredith Davies.
There were two conductors. Britten conducted the chamber orchestra. Meredith Davies is listed in the video info.
Thanks. Just realised. What a great piece this is.
I wish Britten had conducted the whole thing. I've head that originally at the premiere he had planned to do that but since there were so much issues going on.... the quality of the choir, etc. that he passed of the main ensemble to Davies. Btw, I love your home videos of Tippett. So great that you posted those.
Tippett was an inspiration to me as a kid playing in the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra. Happy days!!
The work requires two conductors and both were conducting.
How beautifully articulate radio announcers (esp this one) sounded back then. Today? I’m away! PS. This announcer failed to mention the entry of Heather Harper!
heather Harper suffers a lot
The distinguished announcer is at fault NOT to mention Heather Harper as she is the 3rd soloist & enters, albeit above, at the same time as the two men. I cannot help but think this omission was deliberate. PS: How the gorgeous British accent has changed (US "movies" no doubt). Even the word "American" was pronounced w a rolled 'r' before the latter word became the word the most pronounced in our 24-hour day on television, radio, the mouths of everyone, mostly the Americans themselves. :-(
Yes, that was a big omission but why would you do you think it was deliberate?
John Randolph Think about it. It will surely come to you.
I doubt if Richard Baker, the announcer, omitted Heather deliberately as he was always a great fan of hers
.
Una Barry I am relieved to know that, but then why omit mention of her? Still stymied. Just because she was deliberately separated from the male soloists for reasons we all know is no reason not to mention her. She was so well-known, admired for both her voice, singing & professionalism.
@@mckavitt Richard Baker's death was announced today. He wasn't infallible, having once introduced Malcolm Williamson (in his presence) as Malcolm Arnold (despite having tried to train himself not to say 'Malcolm Arnold' all afternoon).
I will always regret that Pavarotti never sang this work.
Thank goodness he didn't. He was the ultimate at passion but not at resignation.
Makes its points extremely feebly and slowly; the Expressionist technique requires an intellectual compact with the audience which more visceral music can forego. It is also self-defeating: if you are going to create syncopated ugly noises to evoke war, can you at any point find empathy with an individual - as Tippett does? It seems that the answer is no. Generously-scored Church bells and fragments of Berg will only take us only so far. What we have here is a bourgeois parody of the idea of war. The real problems are :(1) Britten has no Christian belief, so is ill-suited to set the Mass . I guess he never even attended mass once, voluntarily (2) The poetry of Wilfred Owen while good is not up to a transcendental text. The Dies Irae is a poor imitation of the Symphony of Psalms - with none of the charm. Other parts, even Walton has done better; and the seventh dissonance at 17:51 would seem to require the services of a dentist. Here Britten is - hereditarily - in a position to know! It is to be hoped that he will pick up the tab for the anesthetic! Only a man who had not seen active service or thought seriously about the issues involved (not registering a conscientious objection, but preferring to flee to America to safety) could have written such a socially distanced, cold piece. And worse still - have pretended that he knew - emotionally - what he was doing! Poor Richard Baker: one feels for him!
WHat baloney. "Expressionist Technigue". What nonsense.
what are you yapping on about
@@AndrewRudin I am saying that it is a grossly overrated piece of music
@@shostakovichsymphonyno10 Now Shostakovich is a more convincing composer. I can't offhand remember any melody by Britten.
@@MartinSmithMFM well I can. try harder or something idk
I understand this is a very important video. but it's a very boring music. you can't listen to that even twice.
This music is among the most beautiful I have heard in my whole life.
People differ. That's o.k.
I think you meant "I can't listen to that even twice"
It is about the horrors of war, so not meant to give instant pleasure. This music needs to be listened to a number of times, and over time the love and emptions begins to grow..
Premiered #otd in 1962 🌺🌺🌺