Britten’s War Requiem

 It is not a requiem to console the living; sometimes it does not even help the dead to sleep soundly. It can only disturb every living soul, for it denounces the barbarism more or less awake in mankind with all the great authority that a great composer can muster. There is no doubt at all ... that it is Britten’s masterpiece.

These words, by the English music critic William Mann, appeared in The London Times on May 25, 1962, five days before Britten’s War Requiem received its first performance in the new Coventry Cathedral, which had been erected next to the ruins of the ancient cathedral destroyed in World War II. After the premiere, critics and audiences alike were deeply moved by this passion­ate plea against war, expressed in music of surpassing power and beauty. In the years since, the War Requiem has entered the repertoire as one of the greatest choral works of the 20th century.

Britten had long wanted to compose a large-scale choral work, and the commission from the Coventry Cathedral Festival gave him an opportunity to express his lifelong pacifist beliefs. (Both he and his partner, tenor Peter Pears, had registered as conscientious objectors during the war.) He decided to compose a setting of the Latin Requiem Mass, interspersed with texts by English poet Wilfred Owen. Tragically killed in action at age 25 — just a week before the armistice that ended World War I — Owen left a small body of poetry that denounced war in extremely vivid terms.

In combining Latin liturgy with English anti-war poetry, Britten had an important antecedent: Vaughan Williams’s 1936 cantata Dona nobis pacem. But Britten exploited the dramatic contrasts between these texts more strongly than his compatriot, often making them clash within the same movement. Britten also had a personal stake in the composition. He dedicated the work to the memory of four friends, three of whom had been killed in World War II and the fourth, also a war veteran, who had committed suicide in 1959. The four names listed on the first page of the score — Roger Burney, Piers Dunkerley, David Gill, and Michael Halliday — stand as four tombstones representing many more graves, marked and unmarked, of victims of the war.

The War Requiem opens with a languid, wandering orchestral line and the quiet tolling of bells — emphasizing the tritone (known as the “devil in music” during the Medieval era) — as the chorus whispers the words “Requiem aeternam” (Grant them eternal rest). This slowly builds to a menacing climax before the children’s chorus responds with a more uplifting interlude, “Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion” (A hymn, O God, becomes You in Zion). Soon, the proceedings are interrupted by the entrance of a separate chamber orchestra. Accompanied by agitated figurations in the harp and a nervous motive in the strings, the tenor soloist intones the first of Owen’s lines: “What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?” This distinction — large orchestra accompanying the Latin Requiem text, chamber ensemble accompanying the English poems — is maintained throughout the entire work.

Some of the most moving moments in the piece, however, have no orchestral participation at all. The first movement, for instance, ends with a series of other-worldly chords sung by the unaccompanied chorus in triple pianissimo, punctuated only by two bell strokes. The same music returns two more times at important junctures in the work.

At the beginning of the Dies irae — the longest movement of the War Requiem — the stark horn calls of the Last Judgment contrast with the relentless, asymmetrical march rhythm of the chorus. The baritone soloist answers the chorus with a poem about the bugles of war. The Day of Wrath, one realizes, is not an event taking place in an uncertain, mythical future, but one that has already arrived on the battlefield.

Unlike the tenor and baritone soloists, who carry the Owen poems, the soprano soloist (along with the chorus) is always assigned to the Latin text. The soloist first enters with “Liber scriptus proferetur” (A book will be brought forth) to an angular melody in dotted rhythm, accompanied only by wind instruments. The apocalyptic vision is linked to a modern one, in which the soldiers recognize Death as an “old chum,” though the harmonic clusters and persistent percussion ostinatos seem to suggest otherwise. The intimate “Re­cordare Jesu pie” (Remember, sweet Jesus) a prayer for salvation sung by the chorus, is countered by a breathless “Confutatis maledictis” (When the damned are dismayed) sung by the tenors and basses. The baritone soloist’s next poem, “Be slowly lifted up,” is a haunting evocation of a gun about to be fired. Without pause, this leads into a cataclysmic restatement of the opening Dies irae. Following this, the achingly beautiful “Lacrimosa dies illa” (What weeping that day will bring) — for soprano solo with chorus — is fused with the poem “Move him into the sun,” a wrenching memorial for a fallen soldier.

The Offertorium opens in a bright, chant-like fashion with the children’s chorus and organ, which soon leads directly into Owen’s bitter retelling of the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac (with music based partially on Britten’s Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, written in 1952). In Owen’s version, Abraham does not heed the voice of God’s angel and instead goes through with the of Isaac, along with “half the seed of Europe, one by one.” While the two soloists relate this shocking turn of events, Britten, with tragic irony, brings in the children’s chorus, singing of the sacrifices offered in remembrance of the dead. Subsequently, the chorus’s recapitulation of the line “Quam olim Abrahae promisisti et semini ejus” (Which You once promised to Abraham and his seed) takes on a whole new, chilling meaning.

The soprano soloist intones the Sanctus, a proclamation of God’s holiness, to the accompaniment of bells and mallet percussion, a timbre influenced by Britten’s fascination with Balinese gamelan. The words “Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua” (Heaven and earth are full of Your glory) are declaimed by the chorus, chanting in free rhythm over a sequence of constantly rising pitches which eventually encompass all 12 notes of the chromatic scale. The cries of “Hosanna,” by contrast, are firmly anchored in D major, with exultant flourishes in the wind instruments. Soon, another Owen poem arrives to contradict the triumphant mood: death, not life, is eternal and the scars of the earth will never heal.

The Agnus Dei text is completely merged with Owen’s poem “One ever hangs where shelled roads part,” and for once, there is no contradiction between the two: the image of the Lamb of God is amplified by Owen’s related image of Christ, who loses a limb in battle but inspires love by His presence. Despite the large forces employed in this movement, the textures are extremely simple.

The concluding Libera me is the emotional high point of the entire work. After a final evocation of the Last Judgment, we witness the reconciliation of two former enemies — an English soldier and a German soldier — and the eternal rest of which the text speaks finally becomes reality. The children’s chorus then sings the liturgical “In paradisum deducant te Angeli” (May the Angels lead you into paradise) while the tenor and the baritone repeat the final line of Owen’s poem: “Let us sleep now.” This monumental gesture of peace involves all the performers on stage, but the final words are sung by unaccom­panied chorus: “Requiescant in pace” — May they rest in peace.

For the work’s 1962 premiere, Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya — one of Britten’s selected soloists — was unable to appear due to Soviet travel restric­tions. Instead, Irish soprano Heather Harper stepped in with only 10 days’ notice. Eight months later, Vishnevskaya joined the other premiere soloists — tenor Peter Pears and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau — to make a studio recording of the work, which sold nearly 250,000 copies in the first few months of its release. At that point, Britten’s original vision was fulfilled, with three prominent singers from three major countries involved in World War II — Russia, England, and Germany — joining their voices to denounce war and pray for everlasting peace.

— adapted from a note by Peter Laki

Peter Laki is a musicologist and frequent lecturer on classical music. He is a visiting associate professor of music, emeritus, at Bard College and was The Cleveland Orchestra’s program annotator from 1990 to 2007.

Sung Texts

Texts from the Latin Requiem Mass and poetry by Wilfred Owen (1893 – 1918)

I. Requiem aeternam

CHORUS
Requiem aetemam dona eis Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis. 

CHILDREN’S CHORUS
Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion,
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam,
ad te omnis caro veniet. 

TENOR
What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, —
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires. 

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

— “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (1917)

CHORUS
Kyrie eleison.
Christe eleison.
Kyrie eleison.

II. Dies irae

CHORUS
Dies irae, dies ilia,
solvet saeclum in favilla,
teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando Judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus.

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulchra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.

Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.

BARITONE
Bugles sang, saddening the evening air,
And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear.

Voices of boys were by the river-side.
Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad.
The shadow of the morrow weighed on men.

Voices of old despondency resigned,
Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept.

— “But I Was Looking at the Permanent Stars” (c. 1917)

SOPRANO AND CHORUS
Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.

Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet, apparebit,
nil inultum remanebit.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quern patronem rogaturus
cum vix justus sit securus?

Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me, fons pietatis.

TENOR & BARITONE
Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death;
Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland, —
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We’ve sniffed the green thick odour of his breath, —
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn’t writhe.
He’s spat at us with bullets and he’s coughed
Shrapnel. We chorused when he sang aloft;
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier’s paid to kick against his powers.
We laughed, knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars; when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death — for Life; not men — for flags.

— “The Next War” (1917)

CHORUS
Recordare Jesu pie,
quod sum causa tue viae.
Ne me perdas ilia die.

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus.
Redemisti crucem passus.
Tantus labor non sit cassus.

Ingemisco, tamquam reus,
culpa rubet vultus meus:
Supplicanti parce Deus.

Qui Mariam absolvisti,
et latronem exaudisti,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.

Interoves locum praesta,
et ab hoedis me sequestra,
statuens in parte dextra.

Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis,
coca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis,
gere curam mei finis.

BARITONE
Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
Great gun towering toward Heaven, about to curse;

Reach at that arrogance which needs thy harm,
And beat it down before its sins grow worse;

But when thy spell be cast complete and whole,
May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul!

— “Sonnet On Seeing a Piece of our Heavy Artillery Brought into Action” (c. 1917)

CHORUS & SOPRANO

Dies irae, dies ilia …

Quantus tremor est futurus …

Lacrimosa dies ilia,
qua resurget ex favilla,
judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus.

TENOR
Move him into the sun —
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds, —
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved — still warm — too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
— O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth’s sleep at all?

— “Futility” (1918)

CHORUS
Pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem.
Amen.

III. Offertorium

CHILDREN’S CHORUS
Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae,
libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum
de poenis inferni et de profundo lacu!
Libera eas de ore leonis,
ne absorbeat eas Tartarus,
ne cadant in obscurum.

CHORUS
Sed signifer sanctus Michael,
repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam,
quam olim Abrahae promisisti
et semini ejus.

BARITONE & TENOR
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in the thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son, —
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

— “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young” (c. 1918)

CHILDREN’S CHORUS
Hostias et preces tibi Domine,
laudis offerimus.
Tu suscipe pro animabus illis
quarum hodie memoriam facimus —
fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam,
quam olim Abrahae promisisti
et semini ejus.

CHORUS
Quam olim Abrahae promisisti
et semini ejus.

IV. Sanctus

SOPRANO & CHORUS
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
Dominus Deus Sabaoth!
Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua!
Hosanna in excelsis!
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis!

BARITONE
After the blast of lightning from the East,
The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot Throne;
After the drums of Time have rolled and ceased,
And by the bronze west long retreat is blown,

Shall life renew these bodies? Of a truth
All death will He annul, all tears assuage? —
Fill the void veins of Life again with youth,
And wash, with an immortal water, Age?

When I do ask white Age he saith not so:
“My head hangs weighed with snow.”
And when I hearken to the Earth, she saith:
“My fiery heart shrinks, aching. It is death.
Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified,
Nor my titanic tears, the sea, be dried.”

— “The End” (c. 1916)

V. Agnus Dei

TENOR
One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with him.

CHORUS
Agnus Dei,
qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona eis requiem.

TENOR
Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ’s denied.

CHORUS
Agnus Dei,
qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona eis requiem.

TENOR
The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.

— “At a Calvary near the Ancre” (c. 1917)

CHORUS
Agnus Dei,
qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona eis requiem sempiternam.

TENOR
Dona nobis pacem.

VI. Libera me

CHORUS
Libera me, Domine, de morte aetema,
in die illa tremenda,
quando coeli movendi sunt et terra,
dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.

SOPRANO & CHORUS
Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo
dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira;
quando coeli movendi sunt et terra.
Dies illa, dies irae,
calamitatis et miseriae,
dies magna et amara valde.
Libera me, Domine …

TENOR
It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.

And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”

BARITONE
“None,” said the other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world.

For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

Miss we the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even from wells we sunk too deep for war,
Even the sweetest wells that ever were.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.”

TENOR & BARITONE
“Let us sleep now …”

— “Strange Meeting” (c. 1918)

SOPRANO, CHORUS & CHILDREN’S CHORUS
In paradisum deducant te Angeli;
in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres
et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem.
Chorus Angelorum te suscipiat
et cum Lazaro quondam paupere
aeternam habeas requiem.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Requiescant in pace.
Amen.