Combining the traditional Latin Mass for the Dead with the poetry of Wilfred Owen, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem premiered in 1962 at the reconsecrated Coventry Cathedral, destroyed during World War II. Britten wanted the soloists to represent Britain, Germany and Russia, but Soviet authorities prevented soprano Galina Vishnevskaya from attending. She does, however, feature on the 1963 recording. Here, Brett Weymark conducts the Festival Chorus and Sydney Youth Orchestra, with Eva Kong, Kyle Stegall and Jeremy Kleeman alongside the Conservatorium High School Treble Voices.

Limelight Editor’s Choice

We wish Britten’s War Requiem didn’t feel so relevant.  This music emerged from a world that was rebuilding after the harrowing trauma of World War II.  Today’s world is still torn by conflict and cruelty.  It’s easy to feel powerless, to feel numb in the face of suffering.  But Britten has given us music to make us think and help us heal.

You can hear the War Requiem as a lament.  You can hear it as a fierce call for peace.  Hope and consolation rub shoulders with violence and despair as Britten weaves the traditional Requiem texts with the poetry of Wilfred Owen, written in the trenches of World War I.  The music veers between intimacy, with tenor and baritone soloists giving voice to young men destroyed by war, and an almost brutal magnificence with more than a hint of Verdi.