War Requiem Op. 66 BRITTEN BENJAMIN

Classique

Contenu

Requiem aeternam
Dies irae
Offertorium
Santus
Agnus dei
Libera me

Description :

It is regarded by many as his masterpiece in the non-operatic sphere: Britten's War Requiem, premiered in 1962 to celebrate the opening of the new cathedral at Coventry, built to replace the one destroyed during the war. Britten used the opportunity to write a milestone of post-war music history: In memory of the war dead he combined texts of a Latin mass with 20th-century poems and set his deeply held pacifist and humanitarian beliefs to music. The requiem's direct style has overwhelmed audiences for more than fifty years. Benjamin Britten's War Requiem Op. 66 includes words from the Missa pro defunctis and the poems of Wilfred Owen. Commissioned to write a work to celebrate the rebuilding of the bomb-damaged Coventry Cathedral in 1962, Britten used the opportunity to write a large-scale composition embodying his deeply held pacifist and humanitarian beliefs. The result, the War Requiem, is a timeless expression of the brutality and inhumanity of war.