Review of:
Benjamin Britten, War Requiem
Saturday, 17 November 2012 - 7:30pm
Guildford Cathedral
Soloists: Alla Kravchuk (Soprano), Philip O’Brien (Tenor) and Gareth Brynmor John
(Baritone)
Vivace Chorus, Freiburg Bachchor, Tiffin Boys’ Choir, Brandenburg Sinfonia
Conductor: Jeremy Backhouse
Britten’s War Requiem will, one can confidently predict, receive numerous performances
across the globe between now and the end of 2013, the composer’s centenary year. It is
not, though, a work that it is advisable to hear too often, particularly live: the emotional
impact is considerable, and can be searing, and is not guaranteed to blunt on repeated
hearings. The performance at Guildford Cathedral on 17 November gave full measure to
the most intense moments. Gareth Brynmor John’s solo in the later stages of the setting
of Wilfred Owen’s ‘Strange Meeting’, the emotional heart of the work, was particularly
fine, displaying the intelligence, control, and range of nuance one associates with the
baritone for whom the part was written, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. He was also excellent
in the more declamatory ‘Be slowly lifted up thou long black arm’, with its terrifying —
and terrifyingly high — final note. In both he was well supported by polished and
energetic playing from the chamber orchestra.
The chorus’s chorale at the end of the work, and its two earlier manifestations, was also
particularly well done. Singing unaccompanied, with harmony that is not easy to pitch,
everyone needs to hold their nerve here, for it is the parting gesture, and the success of
the performance depends heavily upon it. That it came off so well is testimony to the hard
work of the chorus and the skills of the conductor, Jeremy Backhouse, who conducted
throughout with incisive clarity and judicious pacing. The one quibble I have with the
latter is the approach to the climactic chord of the ‘Libera Me’, the loudest event in the
work. Britten writes in the score that there should be a slow acceleration to this point, but
Backhouse put in a slight slowing down just before. It is a small point, but the slowing
down tends to signal the arrival of the chord; if the acceleration continues unabated the
chord explodes upon you before you know what’s happening. The extent to which this
might be a more accurate representation of the battlefield most of us fortunately will
never know.
At
its
first
performance
War Requiem
employed
two
conductors,
such
are
the
complexities of holding it together. The very large forces are ranged over many square
feet, and maintaining exactitude of ensemble, especially in a reverberant building like the
Cathedral, is not easy. So there were inevitably some small inaccuracies: the strings’ lines
in the opening movement were not always precisely together, for instance, and there was
some hesitancy in the semi-chorus in the ‘Quid sum miser’ section of the Dies Irae’.
There were some occasional balance problems, too, though some potential ones were
triumphantly overcome. The normal positioning of the solo soprano in performances of
the work is at the front of chorus, behind the orchestra. This presents some challenges of
projection. The rather steely tone of the singer for whom it was written, Galina
Vishnevskaya, was well suited to dealing with these challenges, and Alla Kravchuk found
a nice blend of steel and lyricism, soaring luminously at the climax of the ‘In paradisum’
section.
Anyone singing the solo tenor part is in the invidious position of being compared with
Peter Pears. Philip O’Brien doesn’t quite have Pears’s ability to float, or his range of
tone, so that the end of the ‘Agnus Dei’ was a tad prosaic, though the melodic line in
general was strongly shaped and communicated, and he was particularly strong in the
more dramatic passages. It is a great shame, though, that he chose to return to his seat
after his passage in ‘Strange Meeting’, thus limiting the impact of ‘togetherness’ that
Britten is aiming for there.
A final word on the boys’ chorus, from Tiffin School: they were terrific. I can’t imagine
their part being better done.
Christopher Mark