‘War Requiem’ in
cathedral
BRITTEN’S War Requiem is, by any standards,
a great work — probably his greatest and certainly the greatest ever
written in the cause of
peace.
Many composers in the past
two centuries have set, in many
different styles, the Latin text
of the Mass for the Dead. But
only the convinced pacifist
Benjamin Britten has dared to
mix with it the poetry of an
English contemporary victim
of war.
As a result no music could
more vividly or pitifully ex-
press the poignancy and passion of the sacrifice and futility
of war.
:
It is difficult to realise that
this Requiem is now 25 years
old and is now being sung and
heard, 10 years after the composer’s "death, by choirs and
audiences who have no direct
experience of war. But there is
no glorification of battle —
only anger and deep sympathy.
A cathedral setting is obviously ideal for its performance
— the first was in the resurrected Coventry Cathedral in
1961 — and at Guildford last
Saturday it received a deeplyfelt, sometimes fervent, treat-
ment
from
Guildford
Philharmonic Choir and
Orchestra, augmented by the
University of Warwick Chorus
and the boy choristers of the
cathedral.
The conductor was Simon
Halsey, choral director of both
choirs, in his first major engagement since taking over at
Guildford in 1984.
At first sight the massed
forces looked almost too large
for the occasion, but they were
so judiciously spread that there
was little distortion from the
cathedral’s awkward acoustics
and Mr. Halsey, in dedicated
and ardent control, managed
the dynamics to perfection,
even on accasion obtaining degrees of pianissimo unexpected
in the circumstances.
In the fairly rare moments of
full power, the large chorus
produced a volume of co-ordinated sound splendid in its
grandeur and never false to
Britten’s unique harmonic patterns. The chattering and shuddering crescendo of the
transition for Sanctus to Benedictus, with fading echoes of
the fierce Dies Irae, produced
effects I have never heard in
the cathedral.
;
The choirboys, too, elevated
to the organ gallery, provided
several
ethereal
ripieno
moments, their alternating treble and alto lines in the Offertorium refined in silvery tone
and clarity.
One of Britten’s imaginative
plans was the separation of the
Latin text to soprano soloist
and choir and the moving
poems of Wilfred Owen to the
two male soloists, accompanied
by
a° smaller
chamber
orchestra.
:
This arrangement most viv-
idly
expresses
the
bitterness
and final resignation of the
war-worn poet, emphasised or
placated by the age-old words
of the Mass. But the bitterness
is maintained throughout by
the leit-motiv use of the tritone
(once called ‘“the devil in
music”). I doubt that the modern generation knows (though
Britten did) that it was the interval used for the last war’s
air-raid warnings!
One of England’s leading sopranos, Sheila Armstrong, was
in full and sympathetic voice,
radiantly so in her entry into
the Sanctus, ringing out
against the carillon of bells
from the percussion section.
Her Lacrimosa was a tenderly |
compassionate model of grief.
Early on I had doubts
whether the tenor soloist had
the power to fill the cathedral
with his seemingly dry tone,
but it soon became evident
that Christopher Gillett’s clear
articulation was a distinct
necessity for many of his passages — the touching phrases
of “Move him into the Sun,”
for instance, and the suddenly
unaccompanied climactic line
“I am the enemy you killed,
my friend” in the solemn Libera Me revelations.
Michael George made fine.
use of his grave, deep baritone
both in his duets with the tenor and in one of the few theat-
rical episodes, the appeal for
God’s curse on the guns. Britten’s trumpets never blare, but
their distant calls, combined
with the remotely bugle effects
of the strings, were even more
imperatively menacing.
The GPO, led by Arthur
Price, with John Ludlow leading the chamber group, were
ever discreet and fully conversant with Britten’s individual
designs of orchestration, eloquent in their dynamics under
the potent baton of Mr. Halsey