Britten’s unflinching masterpiece, exploring the “pity of war”, makes for a deeply affecting ANZAC tribute.

Hamer Hall, Melbourne
June 12, 2015

Benjamin Britten was under no illusions about the difficulty and necessity of peace when he wrote the War Requiem. He lived through two World Wars and composed the work as nuclear weapons piled up on either side of the Iron Curtain. The War Requiem celebrated the consecration of the newly-built Coventry Cathedral in 1962, after the oringal cathedral was destroyed during the German bombardment of Britain during WW II. The première would have echoed out of the new building into the bomb-stricken ruins of the old. Britten was a committed pacifist throughout his life, it would have seemed kitsch or even disingenuous to try and represent peace, pure and simple.

Pacifist works from more peaceful times, such as Arnold Schoenberg’s sweetly naïve Friede auf Erden (1907) or happy-clapping 1980s anthems by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson attempt precisely this. “Come on” (they seem to say), “all it takes is a full English breakfast and a spot of dedication!” Instead, Britten follows the poet Wilfred Owen in advocating peace by exposing the pity of war. Owen is quoted on the...