The Bach Choir: Britten’s War Requiem

Programme

The scars of war never heal. Few know this better than Benjamin Britten, a lifelong pacifist who used the poetry of Wilfred Owen to depict the horrors of war in his 1962 War Requiem.

The work was composed to honour the new Coventry Cathedral after the 14th-century cathedral was destroyed by German bombs in World War II. The Bach Choir made a celebrated recording of the War Requiem in 1963, conducted by Britten himself, and it has always held a special place in the choir’s repertoire.

Wilfred Owen documented the sorrow and hardship of war directly from the battlefield, where he was killed in action in 1918. His words still resonate uncomfortably over a century later: “We laughed, knowing that better men would come, And greater wars.”

Contrasts hang heavy in the air throughout Britten’s setting of Owen’s poetry, interspersed between movements of the Latin Requiem Mass that it’s paired with. The tritone interval (or ‘The Devil’s Interval’) is conjured up frequently by the piece’s huge ensemble and choirs. It strives for resolution and peace, but never fully finds it. It’s a powerful metaphor for war and reconciliation.