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The War Requiem, Op. 66, is a choral and orchestral composition by Benjamin Britten, composed mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. [1] The War Requiem was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, in the English county of Warwickshire, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid.
Britten's War Requiem (1963) is the first recording of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. It featured Galina Vishnevskaya , Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Peter Pears with the London Symphony Orchestra , the Melos Ensemble , The Bach Choir and the Highgate School Choir, and was conducted by Britten himself.
The Latin text, which was compiled by Bernhard Wyss , is based on the charter of the university, as well as older orations praising Basel. [1] [2] Britten wrote out the text for the work on the pages of his old preparatory-school German exercise book. He later used the same book to plan his War Requiem. [3]
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His text interspersed the traditional Requiem Mass with poems by Wilfred Owen. Matthews writes, "With the War Requiem Britten reached the apex of his reputation: it was almost universally hailed as a masterpiece." [115] Shostakovich told Rostropovich that he believed it to be "the greatest work of the twentieth century". [116]
Clarinet Concerto (incomplete: 1st movement only, 1942/3, orch. by Colin Matthews, who later added two further movements from 1940s Britten sketches, incl. Sonata for Orchestra; resulting work, Movements for a Clarinet Concerto, first published 2008)
Meredith Davies—Versatile conductor who in 1962 took charge of Britten's War Requiem at the historic consecration of Coventry Cathedral [dead link ], The Times, 2 April 2005. Retrieved 2008-06-26. Meredith Davies, 1922–2005, Britten-Pears Foundation, 12 April 2005. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
A Child of Our Time has survived periods of indifference, particularly in America, to be ranked alongside Britten's War Requiem as one of the most frequently performed large-scale choral works of the post-Second World War period. [47]