Britten's War Requiem
The War Requiem is getting a lot of performances at the moment, marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. It was first performed in the early sixties as part of the inauguration of the new Coventry Cathedral. There is a very good article about it by Tom Strini, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
I remember that first performance rather well, with Heather Harper singing the soprano part so much better than Vishnevskaya ever did in the recording. But the symbolism of a British Singer, a German Singer, and a Russian Singer was important, I suppose. I wish the Heather Harper version had been recorded too. So much less vibrato in the Lacrymosa, making it much more poignant.
At the time, it seemed to be much more than a dedication work for the new Coventry cathedral. It was essentially a part of the building. Since this was the beginning of what we now look back on as the 60s, there was a certain spirit in the air. A mere 16 years after the end of the War, (as close then as the fall of the Berlin Wall is to us now) the Cathedral was an amazingly confident, forward-looking humanitarian venture. It was, in its very fabric, a confident espousal of the arts and of modernism and a search for a new theology. The fact that the ruins of the old Cathedral are still there, as you mention, and always visible through the clear glass of the Western Door, seemed to emphasize that even the oligarchic church was turning its back on a discredited past. With the Piper Baptistry window, giving the impression of bright sunlight even on the gloomiest of English days, the Sutherland tapestry of an apparently pregnant Christ, the whole iconoclastic architectural scheme of Basil Spence - and with Bonhoeffer a recent protestant martyr, and Tillich a possible new prophet, the restrained cynicism and overt ambiguity of the War Requiem was, as it were, the audible component of a single, huge, integrated statement of commitment to an unknown future.
I think the emblamatic moment in the music is the a cappella cadence, the one that ends the first, and other, movements, and that eventually ends the entire work. Constantly starting with, and returning to, the tritone; then suddenly, completely unexpectedly, granting us the balm of the F major triad. An interrupted cadence indeed. But what a difference! Instead of the hoped-for, expected, resolution being frustrated, (as in, say, the last movement of Mahler 9) here we have given up all hope of true rest or resolution - the tritone is the single central thematic fact of the work - and then, interrupting our acceptance of denial, suddenly, from nowhere, peace is granted. It occurs to me that it is a musical depiction of the doctrine of grace.
That, and the very ambiguous working out of the Latin text, made it all an intrinsic part of this Cathedral. After the War, after the two Wars, there HAD to be a different way forward. And it would have to be something as yet unforeseen. Something that required the inventiveness and originality of artists to lead the way.
Of course, this rather utopian hope didn't quite work out, and nowadays has become parodied to the point of meaninglessness by phrases like "innovative", "thinking outside the box", "mission statement" - but it felt real then; the hope was real.
I was not present at the first performance, I was just a kid in High School, but with my musical friends we sat around an AM radio and heard it, and within days we had all worked out and memorized that awesome a cappella cadence. It amazed us.
It is a difficult work to bring off in the Concert Hall, as the acoustics of Coventry were a central part of the experience. Britten found the acoustics impossible, but they worked wonders for us, the listeners. Understanding the power of monastic chant involves acknowledging the acoustic. The big basilicas, Cathedrals, Duomos, Chapels, are musical instruments, just as big organs are. The acoustics magically enhanced that F major cadence, since, as the choristers sounded the consonance, the preceding dissonance was still echoing, gradually fading and dying to reveal the astonishing consonance. In a concert hall, that generally simply does not happen.
I do not, generally speaking, think that detailed social background information is necessary for understanding music, and that is true of this piece also. It can stand up for itself. But there was so much more to it than that at the time.
© AJM 2005
I remember that first performance rather well, with Heather Harper singing the soprano part so much better than Vishnevskaya ever did in the recording. But the symbolism of a British Singer, a German Singer, and a Russian Singer was important, I suppose. I wish the Heather Harper version had been recorded too. So much less vibrato in the Lacrymosa, making it much more poignant.
At the time, it seemed to be much more than a dedication work for the new Coventry cathedral. It was essentially a part of the building. Since this was the beginning of what we now look back on as the 60s, there was a certain spirit in the air. A mere 16 years after the end of the War, (as close then as the fall of the Berlin Wall is to us now) the Cathedral was an amazingly confident, forward-looking humanitarian venture. It was, in its very fabric, a confident espousal of the arts and of modernism and a search for a new theology. The fact that the ruins of the old Cathedral are still there, as you mention, and always visible through the clear glass of the Western Door, seemed to emphasize that even the oligarchic church was turning its back on a discredited past. With the Piper Baptistry window, giving the impression of bright sunlight even on the gloomiest of English days, the Sutherland tapestry of an apparently pregnant Christ, the whole iconoclastic architectural scheme of Basil Spence - and with Bonhoeffer a recent protestant martyr, and Tillich a possible new prophet, the restrained cynicism and overt ambiguity of the War Requiem was, as it were, the audible component of a single, huge, integrated statement of commitment to an unknown future.
I think the emblamatic moment in the music is the a cappella cadence, the one that ends the first, and other, movements, and that eventually ends the entire work. Constantly starting with, and returning to, the tritone; then suddenly, completely unexpectedly, granting us the balm of the F major triad. An interrupted cadence indeed. But what a difference! Instead of the hoped-for, expected, resolution being frustrated, (as in, say, the last movement of Mahler 9) here we have given up all hope of true rest or resolution - the tritone is the single central thematic fact of the work - and then, interrupting our acceptance of denial, suddenly, from nowhere, peace is granted. It occurs to me that it is a musical depiction of the doctrine of grace.
That, and the very ambiguous working out of the Latin text, made it all an intrinsic part of this Cathedral. After the War, after the two Wars, there HAD to be a different way forward. And it would have to be something as yet unforeseen. Something that required the inventiveness and originality of artists to lead the way.
Of course, this rather utopian hope didn't quite work out, and nowadays has become parodied to the point of meaninglessness by phrases like "innovative", "thinking outside the box", "mission statement" - but it felt real then; the hope was real.
I was not present at the first performance, I was just a kid in High School, but with my musical friends we sat around an AM radio and heard it, and within days we had all worked out and memorized that awesome a cappella cadence. It amazed us.
It is a difficult work to bring off in the Concert Hall, as the acoustics of Coventry were a central part of the experience. Britten found the acoustics impossible, but they worked wonders for us, the listeners. Understanding the power of monastic chant involves acknowledging the acoustic. The big basilicas, Cathedrals, Duomos, Chapels, are musical instruments, just as big organs are. The acoustics magically enhanced that F major cadence, since, as the choristers sounded the consonance, the preceding dissonance was still echoing, gradually fading and dying to reveal the astonishing consonance. In a concert hall, that generally simply does not happen.
I do not, generally speaking, think that detailed social background information is necessary for understanding music, and that is true of this piece also. It can stand up for itself. But there was so much more to it than that at the time.
© AJM 2005
posted by Andrew Massey at
6/06/2005 12:49:00 PM
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