About the work
War Requiem, Op. 66, is a large-scale work for soloists, choirs and orchestra by Benjamin Britten, written mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. It was commissioned for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which replaced the medieval building destroyed in a German air raid during the Second World War. It premiered in Coventry on 30 May 1962, with Meredith Davies conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Britten himself leading the Melos Ensemble.
Plot
Britten interweaves the Latin Mass for the Dead (Missa pro Defunctis) with nine English poems by Wilfred Owen, who was killed in France on 4 November 1918, one week before the Armistice. Soprano, mixed chorus and full orchestra carry the liturgy, a boys' choir accompanied by a small organ sounds as if from afar, and tenor and baritone sing Owen's war poems with a chamber orchestra. Only in the final movement do all the forces unite: in 'Strange Meeting' a soldier encounters the enemy he has killed, and the voices merge together into the 'In paradisum'.
Cultural significance
A work by the pacifist Britten, it is regarded as one of his major compositions and was hailed as a contemporary masterpiece right after its premiere. As a sign of reconciliation, the solo parts were intended for a Russian soprano (Galina Vishnevskaya), an English tenor (Peter Pears) and a German baritone (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau); when the Soviet authorities refused to let Vishnevskaya travel, Heather Harper stepped in. Britten's 1963 recording sold 200,000 copies within five months and was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2019.