What happened to classical musicians during World War 2?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
What were the most popular songs during World War II?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
What are the lyrics to Britten\u2019s War<\/a> Requiem?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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Britten\u2019s\u00a0War Requiem<\/em>\u2026 what went wrong?<\/h2>\n
War Requiem <\/em>had\u00a0a complicated score that organised the performers into three distinct but overlapping groups: full orchestra, chorus and soprano soloist for the Latin texts; a chamber ensemble with tenor and baritone soloists for Owen\u2019s verses; and a distant boys\u2019 choir whose role is ambiguous. When the writer of the programme book for the first performance wanted to describe them as \u2018an angelic chorus\u2019, Britten vetoed that as \u2018too specific\u2019 and suggestive of Walt Disney. The adjective was changed to \u2018innocent\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n
Angelic boys, though, were the least of Britten\u2019s problems, which began in earnest when he visited the Cathedral site in 1960. \u2018Our impressions weren\u2019t awfully favourable,\u2019 he wrote afterwards, singling out the concrete stucco on the walls as \u2018being what scientists ominously call acoustic\u2019. As events proved at the first performance, the acoustic was awful.<\/span><\/p>\n
But there was worse. Having requested a specific choir as his chorus, Britten got instead a trawl of choral societies from throughout the diocese whose efforts he found \u2018deplorable\u2019. Having asked for the London Symphony Orchestra, he got the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a band he considered \u2018second-rate\u2019. And, refusing to use CBSO players as the chamber instrumentalists, he booked the Melos Ensemble whose fee demands upset the budget.<\/span><\/p>\n
Increasing costs caused problems with the Cathedral clergy who, from the start, weren\u2019t sure they were getting the piece they wanted. Britten complained of \u2018Trollopian clerical battles\u2019. And things came to a head during the final rehearsals, which happened against the noise of workmen still finishing the building. The chancel proved too small for the chorus. Suggestions that some singers should drop out provoked a near-riot. And requests for platforms so that everyone could all see the conductor were dismissed as impossible.<\/span><\/p>\n
Who performed and conducted Britten\u2019s War Requiem<\/em> at its premiere?<\/h2>\n
As 30 May, the date for the premiere, approached, there was a sense of panic. And behind it lay the biggest problem of all, for which Britten alone was responsible: the last-minute lack of a soprano. <\/span><\/p>\n
He had begun assembling his soloists the year before, and chosen Peter Pears<\/strong> (English), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau<\/strong> (German) and Galina Vishnevskaya<\/strong> (Russian) to represent reconciliation between the three front-line casualties of 20th-century European conflict. But for Vishnevskaya he needed permission from the Soviet Minister of Culture, sending off his request in August 1961. The answer was no. It was the height of the Cold War, and the Soviets considered the Requiem a political statement that made propaganda for West Germany (which they wrongly saw as the source of funding for the rebuilt cathedral).<\/span><\/p>\n
Britten wrote more letters and got more refusals \u2013 which, bizarrely, he ignored. Vishnevskaya\u2019s name was printed in the programme book. And as she happened to be in England during May 1961, for a run of Aida<\/i>s at Covent Garden, he seems to have assumed that, come the day, the Soviets would relent and she\u2019d slip up to Coventry. But he was wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n
When the Aida<\/i>s finished she was summoned back to Moscow \u2013 and with less than a fortnight to go, Britten had no soprano. Enter Heather Harper<\/strong>, who had perfect pitch, could sing at sight, had a repertoire that ranged from Mozart to Schoenberg (she sang the British stage premiere of the latter\u2019s Erwartung<\/i> in 1960), and was the new Helena in Britten\u2019s own Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u2018He knew I was a fast learner,\u2019 she says, \u2018so I was summoned to St John\u2019s Wood where he had a flat, and we went through\nit on the piano. But I only had my own line of music, nothing else. It wasn\u2019t until I got to Coventry that I had any idea how it sounded. How big it was.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n
Asked what she recalls of Britten during the rehearsals, she says \u2018he was tetchy, very tetchy. But it was difficult. The sound was bad. None of us liked the place \u2013 that tapestry with Jesus looking like a man in a skirt, horrible. But I don\u2019t remember much else. I was focused on the notes. That\u2019s all I could do.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n
Britten\u2019s tetchiness was increased by the fact that on the night of the premiere the clergy refused to open all the Cathedral doors \u2013 which meant it took longer than planned to get the audience seated and forced Britten to delay the start, complaining it was \u2018like a market-place\u2019. And as he hadn\u2019t wanted to conduct the premiere at all (though listed in the programme as \u2018conductor\u2019, he ended up sharing the task with Meredith Davies), it became a painful experience.<\/span><\/p>\n
When the performers left the platform \u2013 in silence, because the audience had been instructed not to applaud \u2013 Britten\u2019s only backstage comment was a crushed \u2018Well, the idea was good\u2019. The BBC producer responsible for the live broadcast was less reticent in his report, describing the performance as close to disaster.<\/span><\/p>\n
How was Britten\u2019s War Requiem<\/em> received by the public?<\/h2>\nSurprisingly, though, it was no disaster to the listeners who tuned in and wrote to the BBC commending even the long silence at the start, which they attributed not to problems with closed doors but a pause for spiritual reflection. In fact, the combination of critical acclaim and popular appeal was so relentless that Britten found it oppressive \u2013 not least because it inspired from certain other composers wounding expressions of jealousy. To criticise the War<\/i> Requiem<\/i>, said Stravinsky<\/a><\/strong>, was \u2018as if one had failed to stand up for God Save the Queen<\/i><\/strong><\/a>\u2026 Behold the critics as they vie in abasement.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n
In 1963 when Decca\u2019s famous recording came out, it sold 200,000 copies in 12 months. Sadly for Heather Harper, the Soviet authorities had by then softened their stance and Vishnevskaya bounced back into the picture as soprano soloist (behaving so badly at the recording sessions that at one point, according to the producer John Culshaw, she lay on the floor and shrieked).<\/span><\/p>\n
Five essential works by Benjamin Britten<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
Top 20 Britten recordings<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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