SMS 4: Harrowingly / Benjamin Britten: War Requiem

Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra
Slovenian Philharmonic Choir
Vienna Boys' Choir
Solists:
Nadežda Pavlova, soprano
Ian Bostridge, tenor
Matthias Goerne, baritone

Programme:
Benjamin Britten, War Requiem, Op. 66
 

Britten’s War Requiem is considered one of the most harrowing musical creations of the twentieth century. It combines the text of the Latin requiem mass with a heart-breaking poem about the futility of war by English poet Wilfred Owen, who himself lived through the horrors of World War I as a soldier and was killed in battle just a week before the armistice was signed on 11 November 1918.

A requiem that does not comfort the living; sometimes it doesn’t even let the dead rest in peace