War requiem / Benjamin Britten.

Format:

Sound recording

Author/Creator:

Britten, Benjamin, 1913-1976, composer.

Owen, Wilfred, 1893-1918, author.

Contributor:

Vaness, Carol, singer.

Hadley, Jerry, singer.

Hampson, Thomas, singer.

Wong, Samuel, 1962- conductor.

Masur, Kurt, conductor.

American Boychoir, singer.

Westminster Symphonic Choir, singer.

New York Philharmonic, instrumentalist.

Series:

Naxos Music Library.

Language:

English

Latin

Subjects (All):

Requiems.

Owen, Wilfred, 1893-1918--Musical settings.

Owen, Wilfred.

Genre:

Requiems.

Live sound recordings.

Musical settings.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 sound file)

Place of Publication:

Hamburg, Germany : Teldec, [1998]

Language Note:

Sung in English and Latin.

System Details:

digital

audio file

Summary:

Public awareness of Benjamin Britten's person and works advanced dramatically -- even explosively -- twice during his lifetime. The first time was in 1945, when his opera Peter Grimes was produced for the postwar reopening of Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. The second time followed the premier at Coventry and the subsequent series of performances all across Europe and North America of the War Requiem. Except to those provincials who thought that milky pastoral was the only idiom appropriate for an Englishman and who also found the young Britten too clever by half, the triumph of Peter Grimes marked not just the confirmation of a prodigious talent; it represented a moment of hope that, for the first time since the death of Henry Purcell in 1695, England had produced a composer of international stature. The impact the War Requiem made 17 years later was wider and deeper by far. Britten, approaching 50, had become an artist whose every new utterance was awaited with the most lively interest and the highest expectations. The War Requiem, moreover, was tied to a pair of events that were heavily freighted with history and emotion: the destruction of Coventry Cathedral in an air raid during the night of November 14-15, 1940, and its reconsecration more than 21 years later. Its first performance was planned as an international event with respect both to participants and audience. Most importantly, the War Requiem was a weighty and poignant statement on the subject of piercingly urgent concern to much of humankind. In the War Requiem, Britten drew on forces larger and more complex than in any previous work of his. The basic division of the performers is into two groups, reflecting the dual source of the words; the libretto stands in a relation of text (the Latin Missa pro defunctis) and commentary (the nine Owen poems). The Latin text is essentially the province of the large mixed chorus, but from this there is spillover in two opposite directions: the solo soprano represents a heightening of the choral singing at its most emotional, while the boys' choir represents liturgy at its most distanced. The mixed chorus and solo soprano are accompanied by the full orchestra; the boys' choir, whose sound should be distant, is supported by an organ. All this constitutes one group. The other group consists of the tenor and baritone soloists, whose province is the series of Owen songs; they are accompanied by the chamber orchestra. - Program notes / Michael Steinberg.

Participant:

Carol Vaness, soprano ; Jerry Hadley, tenor ; Thomas Hampson, baritone ; American Boychoir ; Westminster Symphonic Choir ; New York Philharmonic ; Samuel Wong, Kurt Masur, conductors.

Notes:

Words from the Missa pro defunctis and the poems of Wilfred Owen.

Commissioned for the Festival to celebrate the Consecration of St. Michael's Cathedral, Coventry, May 1962.

Recorded live, 1997 February, in Avery Fisher Hall, New York.

Hard copy version record.

Other Format:

Source record: Britten, Benjamin, 1913-1976. War requiem.

OCLC:

1353790128

Publisher Number:

DEA809705800

DEA809705900

DEA809706000

DEA809706100

DEA809706200

DEA809706300

DEA809706400

DEA809706500

DEA809706600

DEA809706700

DEA809706800

DEA809706900

DEA809707000

DEA809707100

DEA809707200

DEA809707300

DEA809707400

DEA809707500

DEA809707600

825646919932 Teldec

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.