Tag: The Bach Choir

Wednesday 30 October 2024

Westminster Cathedral London

*****

A moving and passionate performance of Britten’s pacifist masterpiece

“My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity…
All a poet can do today is warn.”

Preface to Wilfred Owen’ s Poems (1920), quoted by Britten on the title page of the score

Benjamin Britten’s classic recording of his War Requiem of 1962 was released by Decca in 1963 and has just been re-released in high definition/Dolby Atomos versions. The adult chorus on that version were the Bach Choir, who sang in last Wednesday evening’s superb concert at Westminster Cathedral in London.

In December 1963, Britten wrote in a letter to The Times that he had written the piece, ‘for a big reverberant acoustic, and that is where it sounds best.’ Westminster Cathedral was an appropriate setting; there was sufficient room for the performers to be separated according to Britten’s wishes. The small chamber orchestra that accompanied the two male soloists in settings of Wilfred Owen’s war poems were at the front, very near conductor David Hill. The soprano soloist, Elizabeth Watts was placed, symbolically, in the pulpit so that her liturgical incantations soared above the audience. The main orchestra and adult choir were in the middle, presenting excerpts from the Latin Mass in dramatic, often operatic style. Behind them, and completely hidden in the Apse (East End) of the Cathedral were the boys’ choirs and chamber organ, delivering plainsong-like excerpts from the Requiem Mass.

When the War Requiem was premiered, it was only 17 years from the end of World War II. And World War I, which took place over a century ago now, had ended just 44 years earlier. Britten wrote the solo parts for the German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the English tenor Peter Pears and the Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, to represent the reconciliation of nations that fought in WW II. According to the bitter sarcasm of Owen’s The Next War (used in the ‘Dies Irae’), ‘better men would come/ And greater wars’ would come after WWI, which was described at the time as the war to end all wars. In context, the ‘greater wars’ included WWII, but since that war ended there have been at least 25 conflicts according to the Imperial War Museum website, so the casting of soloists from three of the WWII countries has become less relevant with time. Last week, all the soloists were English – Elizabeth Watts (soprano), Andrew Staples (tenor) and Mark Stone (baritone). Ironically, Vishnevskaya wasn’t allowed by the Soviet authorities to perform at the premiere in 1962, although they did allow her to take part in his recording in January 1963. She was replaced by the British soprano Heather Harper.

Requiem Aeternam

The work began with the first statement of the Latin Requiem Mass, with bells that were so much like church bells that they could have been sounding the half hour in the cathedral itself. The precision and intensity of the adult choir was evident as they sang the opening ‘Requiem Aeternam’, marked pp (very soft) in the score. The Bach Choir’s attention to dynamics, under conductor David Hill, was stunning, rising to forte (loud) on the words ‘ex lux perpetua luceat eis’ (let everlasting light shine upon them] and down to pppp (incredibly soft) at the end of the movement.

This was the first opportunity to hear the boys’ choir, made up of the London Youth Junior Boys & Cambiata Boys Choirs, hidden from the audience until they appeared at the end of the concert for well-deserved applause, when it became apparent just how young some of them were. Their contribution throughout was robust and enthusiastic; they clearly relished Britten’s writing for children’s voices (see also the writing for the fairies in the recent Opera North production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream).

The movement also featured the first Owen poem, Anthem for Doomed Youth, sung by tenor Andrew Staples, who engaged the audience with his precise diction, sometimes sounding like the great Peter Pears, as in the moving final words, ‘And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.’ He was accompanied by a chamber orchestra of 12 players to the right of David Hill, who conducted the main orchestra and choir as well; in the premiere, Britten confined himself to conducting the chamber orchestra and the male soloists, leaving the rest to Meredith Davies.

Hill brought out the detail and intensity of the word-painting in the writing for chamber orchestra, with limpid textures, in what Katherine Richman in her programme note described as ‘a much more stark, often virtuoso, style’ than the deliberately more convention style of much of the writing for choir and main orchestra.

The movement ended with the choir singing the ‘Kyrie Eleison’ [lord have mercy upon us], using the ambiguous and unsettling tritone interval on the notes C and F#, with gorgeous waves of sound, perfectly balanced. The resolution from the anguished F# to the final, consonant chord of F major was spellbinding.

Dies Irae

The ‘Dies Irae’ was the longest movement at nearly half an hour. It began with an operatic chorus, Britten drawing on all his experience as a composer of ten operas by the time he wrote the War Requiem. There were strong parallels with Verdi’s Requiem, first performed in 1874, described by the German conductor Hans von Bülow as, ‘Verdi’s latest opera, in ecclesiastical dress.’ Mervyn Cooke wrote that Britten’s interest in the Requiem text,

“…sprang more from an awareness of its dramatic possibilities than from a keen interest in liturgical observance… [Britten’s] musical response to the Latin words bears all the hallmarks of the sophisticated musico-dramatic techniques he had developed as a composer of stage works.”

The opening featured superb articulation from the Bach Choir, rhythmic precision and intense concentration, evident on the singers’ faces. Joined by a rumbling bass drum, and splendid brass fanfares, the spatial effect in the Cathedral’s acoustic was formidable. Although there was bitter irony in the way Britten juxtaposed the Latin texts of organised religion with the English language texts, the effect of the music for the chorus was excitingly visceral, making the contrast even more bleak. Soprano Elizabeth Watts joined this movement, her voice soaring from the pulpit above the nave of the Cathedral. Her delivery was less histrionic than that of Vishnevskaya in Britten’s recording, but her voice was still declamatory and oracular, bringing out the full irony of the Latin text. Her majestic performance throughout the work was extraordinary.

In contrast, baritone Mark Stone, heard here first in ‘Bugles sang‘, had a rich, warm, expressive voice, gentle, sparing in vibrato, with a bass timbre, sounding very human. There was perfect ensemble in his duet with tenor Andrew Staples on ‘Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to death’, stressing the camaraderie between soldiers from both sides in WWI. As the English poet and composer Ivor Gurney wrote,

“In the mind of all the English soldiers I have met there is absolutely no hate for the Germans, but a kind of brotherly though slightly contemptuous kindness – as to men who are going through a bad time as well as themselves.”

Letter from Ivor Gurney to Marion Scott 17 February 1917

The men of the choir were superbly drilled, singing as one voice in ‘Confutatis maledictis’ [when the damned are cast away], leading to the terrifying description of a ‘Great gun towering toward Heaven’, sung with superbly robust tone and diction by Mark Stone. A horrifyingly dramatic climactic return of the ‘Dies Irae’ theme led to a beautifully fragile rendition of Owen’s poem, Futility by Andrew Staples, and the choir’s intensely moving plea for eternal rest for the dead.

Offertorium

The ‘Offertorium’ is another deeply ironic juxtaposition of Latin text from the Requiem Mass with an Owen poem, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young. The Latin text promises that the Archangel Michael will bring the souls of the dead, ‘in lucem sanctam’ [into holy light], as God promised to ‘Abraham and his seed’. Owen’s poem is a shocking reversal of the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. Rather than Abraham sacrificing a Ram as in the Biblical account, he instead sacrifices his son Isaac, and so slaughters half of the future generations, ‘half the seed of Europe, one by one.’

The boys’ choir began with a passionate prayer for delivery of the souls of the faithful ‘de poenis inferni’ [from the pains of hell]. Another Verdian sequence, operatically sung by the main choir led to a huge climax describing God’s promise to Abraham. The two male soloists took up Owen’s version of the story in a sweet-toned duet, with divine intervention brought by an angel calling Abraham from heaven to spare his son and sacrifice the ram instead. In Britten’s devastating coup de théâtre, the male soloists described the death of ‘half the seed of Europe’, whilst from afar the boys’ voices continued to offer ‘hostias et preces’ [sacrifices and prayers] to God in return for His promise to Abraham.

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Pacificism and Conscription

Britten was 25 and his partner Peter Pears was 29 when WWII broke out. All males between the ages of 18 and 41 were conscripted to fight in the war. Britten and Pears spent the early part of the war in North America, for several reasons including their conscientious objection to the war, but returned to England in 1942 to face tribunals exempting them from service. Pears was granted immediate exemption and Britten was successful on appeal.

It’s fascinating to compare Owen’s view of war. It’s easy to assume from his poetry that he must also have been a conscientious objector, but in fact he volunteered to fight and indeed was killed in the war. As Mervyn Cooke wrote in his book Britten War Requiem,

“Such is the emotive power of Owen’s anti-war poetry that it has become necessary to remind ourselves that he was not conscripted.”

Cooke illustrates in detail the progress of Owen’s battle with his conscience. In late 1914 he wrote The Ballad of Peace and War in which he said that ‘peace was passing sweet’, but ‘sweeter still and far more meet/To die in war for brothers’, a huge contrast to the later – and much more famous – poem Dulce et Decorum Est (written in 1917/18) which overturned the ‘old lie’ that it’s sweet and fitting to fight for one’s country. In late 1914 he wrote to his mother saying, ‘my life [as a poet] is worth more than my death to Englishmen’, ending with the anguished request, ‘Write immediately what I am to do.’ Six months later he wrote again saying, ‘I now do most intensely want to fight.’

Owen joined the Artists’ Rifles in October 1915 and the Manchester Regiment in June 1916, and in January 1917 he became a Second lieutenant in that regiment. He suffered concussion and ‘shell shock’, spending several months rehabilitating in Craiglockhart War Hospital, where he met another WWI poet, Siegfried Sassoon. He died in battle on 4 November 1918, only a week before the war ended.

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Sanctus

There was more theatre, again superbly executed, in the ‘Sanctus’. Soprano Elizabeth Watts shone in the opening declamations, ‘Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus’ [Holy, holy, holy] and there was an astonishing moment when the choir built up to a remarkable climax, ‘freely chanting’ (as the score says) the words ‘Pleni sunt ceoli et terra gloria tua’ [Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.] This passage can be difficult to bring off, but the Bach handled it beautifully. Later in this section, Watts exhibited a warm, rich lower range, before soaring again to operatic high notes.

Mark Stone returned with a climax of a different kind, The End, Owen’s rumination on the horrors of WWI, which will never be assuaged. The formidable music for choir and orchestra was followed by the inward-looking intensity of the poetry, which Stone sang with a warm majesty, and the angular, modernist writing for chamber orchestra, as powerful in a different way as the drama of the ‘Sanctus’ section.

Agnus Dei

As Mervyn Cook points out, the short ‘Agnus Dei’ is the only movement in which, ‘the Owen poetry and liturgical texts are in complete accord’, the poetry describing, ‘the presence of Christ on the modern battlefield, sustaining bodily wounds to atone for the sins of mankind.’

The movement was made even more poignant by the presence of the Rood Cross in the Cathedral, a thirty foot high wooden image of Jesus, hanging above the choir. The text of the ‘Agnus Dei’ which described a Christ-like figure hanging above,

“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.“

[Extract from ‘At a Calvary Near the Ancre’ by Wilfred Owen]

The ‘Agnus Dei’ expressed the central pacifist message of the work as a whole,

“But they who live the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.”

[Ibid.]

The movement ended with the incredibly moving words, poignantly sung by Andrew Staples in a gorgeous head voice, ‘dona nobis pacem’, [grant us peace], the only time either of the male soloists sang in Latin. At Peter Pear’s suggestion, Britten replaced the original words of the Requiem Mass, ‘dona eis requiem’ [grant them rest], a significant change bearing in mind his pacifist views.

Libera Me

The closing ‘Libera Me’ reached another terrifying climax, beginning with ominous rumbling of thunderous drums, the choir singing the words, ‘Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna’ [Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death] with a doleful, mournful tone, beautifully controlled by conductor David Hill. The music reached a stunning climax, with superb orchestral playing. The sense of dread was heightened by Elizabeth Watts joining on the words, ‘Tremens factus sum ego’ [I am seized with fear], as if singing from the depths of hell. The ‘Dies Irae’ theme returned, and the choir’s plaintive plea for deliverance gradually died away.

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A Strange Meeting underground

The final Owen poem set by Britten is Strange Meeting, describing the surreal underground meeting of an English soldier with a dead German soldier. Britten removed some important lines from Owen’s poem,

“And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand fears that vision’s face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground…“

By removing those lines, Britten removes the scene from Hell and specifically back into the trenches of WWI, taking us away from the intensely religious text of the Latin ‘Dies Irae’ and into the intensely personal. The English soldier is addressed by the dead German soldier in some of the most poignant and deeply ironic words ever written about war,

‘I am the enemy you killed, my friend.’

As Mervyn Cooke points out, Britten set the words ‘ strange friend’, sung by the English soldier, to the tritone interval, ‘which here suggests the paradox of companionship between hunter and hunted.’ When the German soldier replies, he sings with ‘perfect fourths [Cooke’s emphasis] which shape his melodic lines signifying his resignation to fate.’

The German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who fought in WWII and sang the part of the German soldier at the premiere, was moved to tears during the rehearsals. He wrote in his autobiography,

“…the first performance created an atmosphere of such intensity that by the end I was completely undone; I did not know where to hide my face. Dead friends and past suffering arose in my mind.”

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The chamber orchestra played single held chords beneath the first part of the poem, creating a captivating atmosphere. Andrew Staples’ intensely rapt performance drew us in to the trench with him, but also into a world beyond time, beyond the specifics of that war and into the pity and futility of all wars, giving a warning to the future as the words in Owen’s Preface suggest.

Mark Stone’s warm-voiced, reassuring reply was profoundly moving and human. The key words, ‘I am the enemy you killed my friend’ (see above) were left unaccompanied, giving them greater resonance, as were the next few lines of poetry, punctuated by the precision-tooled anguish of the chords from the chamber orchestra.

The poem ended with a deep sense of resignation from the two male soloists, a very human yearning for sleep, ‘let us sleep now’ that contrasted with the more public, ceremonial expression of the Latin ‘in paradisum’, with the promise of eternal rest in Paradise, Elizabeth Watts soaring brilliantly above the massed forces. But again, as if from beyond the veil the ambiguous tritone-heavy music of the boys’ choir, the ‘Requiem aeternam’ with the bells of the opening section, reappeared.

In a very moving gesture, the Bach choir raised their scores to cover their faces at the end. Conductor David Hill kept silence for a short time to allow brief reflection on the moving and passionate performance of Britten’s pacifist masterpiece we had just heard, then smiled unassumingly as he turned to face the audience’s applause.

Performers

David Hill conductor
Elizabeth Watts soprano
Andrew Staples tenor
Mark Stone baritone
The Bach Choir
London Youth Junior Boys & Cambiata Boys Choir
Philharmonia Orchestra

Sources

Reed, Philip, Obituary: Meredith Davies: Conductor with a special passion for English music (The Guardian 30 March 2005)
Cooke, Mervyn, Britten War Requiem (Cambridge Music Handbooks 1996)
Programme note by Katherine Richman
Gurney, Ivor, War Letters (MidNAG Publications 1983)
Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich, Echoes of a Lifetime (Macmillan, 1989)