Rather like Mahler’s monumental Eighth Symphony, performances of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem are few and far between. But as Shostakovich reportedly wrote to his friend Rostropovich after listening to the 1962 recording on repeat: ‘I’m absolutely sure it’s the most genius composition of the entire twentieth century’.
Premiered in 1962 by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for the opening of the newly consecrated Coventry Cathedral – its ashes rising from the original 14th century remains after the city was flattened by devastating Luftwaffe bombing raids at the beginning of the Second World War – Britten’s music is a work of reconciliation. For British conductor Duncan Ward (37) who will conduct the massed forces of Phil Zuid, the Netherlands Radio Choir, Studium Chorale and Schola Puerorum (a youth-based choir linked to the Cathedral Basilica of St. John in ‘s-Hertogenbosch) in performances this weekend in Heerlen and Eindhoven, it is a work he knows intimately after performances in his youth as organist with the UK National Youth Orchestra in 2007. First in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, and two days later in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall under Richard Hickox, himself a Britten devotee, famous for his legendary 1991 Chandos recording.
Britten’s War Requiem in Heerleen and Eindhoven
Hot on the heels of an unexpected week conducting the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, stepping in for Joana Mallwitz who is currently on maternity leave, we speak online before three days of intense rehearsals which will see him travel the length of the country bringing together all the different components. Ward is positively fizzing with anticipation for a work which is clearly close to his heart.
‘How interesting’, he says, ‘to be doing this work so shortly after performances of Henze’s Ninth Symphony at the beginning of the month in Berlin and Lucerne… itself a kind of Requiem, telling of the attempted escape of seven prisoners from a Second World War concentration camp with a beautiful, haunting text inspired by Anna Seghers’ novel The Seventh Cross. Composed thirty-five years later and written from a German perspective, it is a very different sound world to Britten. But there are similarities in emotional range, intensity, timeless relevance, and challenges of balance and clarity across enormous forces.
‘Britten’s music is timeless,’ he contends. ‘Seventy years on, it still speaks to a global audience. All from such simple and deliberate means, revolving around that one interval: the augmented 4th, the tritone – C to F#. Two irreconcilable opposing forces. A very simple tension. Truly strong stuff!’
Britten’s War Requiem
What makes Britten’s War Requiem special is how he intertwines a setting of the Latin requiem mass with the poetry of Wilfred Owen, a British soldier on the Western Front who was tragically killed just one week before the end of the First World War. Britten’s Requiem does indeed have the power to leave audiences speechless.
As a teenager, Ward studied Owen’s poetry at school, including Strange Meeting, used By Britten to great effect towards the end. ‘Those incredible poems, and the Siegfried Sassoon ones as well, are so beautiful,’ he enthuses. ‘Both the language and the images are so striking yet gut-wrenching in their power. And I think Britten’s music is like that too. Extreme theatrics and power on the one hand; and on the other, extreme simplicity. One harmony, one phrase with just one note (think the opening whispered “Requiem aeternam”) leaves you in tears. What a bold but genius idea to juxtapose sacred texts with Owen’s stunning poetry.’
‘I have a couple of friends who were at the premiere,’ he continues, ‘And the stories of the challenges (including replacing Britten’s chosen soprano Galina Vishnevskaya at short notice after the Russian Minister of Culture failed to grant the necessary visa application – her role, famously taken at short notice by Heather Harper) were just immense. Britten was promised that the new Coventry Cathedral’s acoustics would be glorious, but after the event, he used some quite strong words: “Orchestra second-rate, chorus despicable, acoustic lunatic, and cathedral staff waging Trollopian clerical battles.”’
Cathedral or concert hall?
Discussion regarding where best to perform this essentially religious work still persists. Just last week, Richard Morrison’s comments in The Times regarding Edward Gardner’s performance with soprano Natalya Romaniw and the London Philharmonic reflected his initial concerns that “the very dry acoustics and mundane ambience of the Festival Hall in London might rob the work of some impact”, but how instead, he found “clarity of textures […] disclosing expressive details he’d rarely heard.”
Ward implies that this might be the case in Heerlen, and especially in Eindhoven’s Muziekgebouw, an auditorium famed for its clean, crisp acoustics and regularly used for recording.
‘There’s so much detail in Britten’s writing. It’s almost three scores in one, each different ensemble layered over one another. A large orchestra, soprano and choir singing the Latin mass; chamber orchestra, tenor and baritone soloists representing two soldiers bringing Owen’s nine poems to life; and a distant boys’ choir accompanied by the organ also singing the liturgical Latin text. To have such a wash of sound is quite something. But even on certain recordings, you don’t always get the clarity. My goodness, when you let that counterpoint sparkle… the Muziekgebouw is the perfect space. It has unbelievable clarity, but also a sense of glow with a little more resonance than London’s Festival Hall.’
Citing an example, he refers to their concert last week in Heerlen performing Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Takemitsu’s From me flows what you call time for five percussionists positioned around the orchestra: ‘We could really hear everything. It was thrilling!’
Performances in the Netherlands
Ward agrees that performances of Britten’s work are rare, especially in the Netherlands. Even the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, despite giving the Dutch premiere in 1964 will both Bernard Haitink and Britten on the podium as part of the Holland Festival, have only performed the requiem on three subsequent occasions: in 1967 and 1985 – with Haitink at the helm, and again in 2018 under Gianandrea Noseda. The timing of this week’s performance, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Britten death (in December 1976) is not deliberate. He simply believes that ‘Britten’s humane, peaceful protest against the butchery and pointlessness of war is sadly as topical now as it was then.’
The musicians are excited!
Does Ward identify with a particular recording, or is he instead a conductor who creates a sound world in his head? ‘Hickox’s Chandos recording is very beautiful, but as is always the case, when I know a work intimately, I often struggle to find one that completely satisfies… I suppose that’s part of the hunger and passion of being a conductor!’
Connections with the past
Instead, he thinks back to his time assisting Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2013, Britten’s centenary year. What did he learn from Rattle, a conductor renowned for distinctive readings of his fellow compatriot’s work?
‘Just last night I came back to the original 1963 Decca recording conducted by the composer himself and was amazed by how metronomic and rhythmically strict it was. Those spooky octave melodies in the full orchestra felt a bit rushed for how I feel now. Simon in contrast was very elastic, really letting the music breathe and flow. To have its own pace and not be rigid.
‘He also had various insights. Britten’s partner, Peter Pears who sang in the premiere and numerous subsequent performances, shared stories about the Agnus Dei’s amazing tenor solo, and how in part, this came from Ben’s overwhelming grief and slight shame that during the Second World War he had escaped to America when so many of his friends, holding similar beliefs, had stayed in the UK and either suffered, or died. Michael Tippett, also famously a pacifist, stayed. He saw this movement in particular as some sort of offering.’
Of all the choral masterpieces he could have chosen, why this requiem I ask? And why now?
‘Simply because it is the absolute choral masterpiece that you have to do.’
Will he remain true to Britten’s intentions for the three soloists to hark from Germany, Britain and Russia?
What is more important I learn is having soloists with strong voices who can convincingly tell Owen’s powerful stories. Intentionally or not, the international mix will be in full voice as American soprano Jacquelyn Wagner is joined by American-German tenor Brett Sprague (who will return in the Spring for Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with Phil Zuid principal horn Peter Hoeben) and British Frankfurt-based baritone Simon Bailey.
‘Britten’s music feels very close and natural somehow. He’s so specific – you have to be very faithful to his markings. There is a story to be told, and it has to sing.’
Duncan Ward, chief conductor of Phil Zuid, conducts Britten’s War Requiem on October 2nd at the PLT Theater Heerlen, and October 4th at the Muziekgebouw, Eindhoven
See upcoming performances of Duncan Ward
Watch the live BBC 1962 broadcast and hear the first resolution of that tritone at the end of the Agnus Dei
Fun facts about the 1964 Dutch premiere
As always, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s archive is a treasure trove of delight. Above, the archive records the 1964 Dutch premiere of Britten’s work as part of the Holland Festival which also happens to be the very first time that Britten’s three intended soloists sang together in public after Vishnevskaya was denied her initial visa application for the 1962 premiere, but later granted for the 1963 Decca recording, and here again for performances in Amsterdam.
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