War Requiem

”The scribes on all the people
shove and bawl allegiance to the state, But they who love the greater love lay
down their life; they do not hate.” 

While politicians put aside an hour of their time each November to stand
before the cenotaph, give platitudes and continue the prosecution of more
institutionalised killing, Britten’s War Requiem brings us up against a truly
pacifist contemplation of the whole horrible business.

Despite Britten’s unerring sense
of the theatrical, and the mighty climax that is the “Libera me,” the work is
an unsensationalised meditation that reflects the pity more than the horror of
war.  For that reason, it’s best to hear
it in the concert hall, not in a half-baked staging that strains for dramatic
effect, something we’re threatened with during the coming Britten
celebrations.  Trying to turn choral work
into theatre hardly ever works.

There was an added poignancy in
the Bach Choir and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance this autumn, with
the music world on the verge of marking the composer’s centenary throughout
2013, and, more personally, the recent death of their vice-president and
long-time colleague Sir Philip Ledger, to whom the evening was dedicated.

The line-up of solo vocalists was
stellar: Sally Matthews, John Mark Ainsley and Alan Opie, although the latter’s
nasal delivery and unclear diction are an indication that this fine artist’s
career may be coming to an end.  Miss Matthews
sang with her usual purity, as did the cherubs of the Eltham College Trebles,
and Ainsley displayed the impeccable Britten voice we’ve come to expect, while
the massed choir acquitted itself well. 
The Royal Philharmonic, under David Hill, played, at times, with less
refinement than one would like in this work but raised the roof when
appropriate.

Britten’s score suggests a wide
range of influences, Verdi’s Requiem the most obvious but also with shades of
Stravinsky in oratorio mode, Shostakovich in war mood and even Ravel, in the
ladies’ chorus of the “Recordare.”  The
War Requiem, with its unique mix of the latin mass and poems by Wilfred Owen,
is a work that will never cease to move and awe, and we’ll no doubt have many
opportunities to hear it over the coming year.

– Simon Thomas