The second performance of the War Requiem<\/em> came a week later in Colston Hall. We were large forces and disposed rather differently from when I sang the work there before. I was positioned round the side of the choir with a sideways-on view of the conductor and a fine view of the percussion section. (Like the Post<\/em>‘s reporter I was impressed with the number of instruments the main percussionist controlled with ease, but that is what you get with the professionals.)<\/p>\n So why do I still have reservations<\/a> about this piece? At least it doesn’t have one of Britten’s weak points, his rather arch sense of humour. My problem is that it presents itself as a radical piece of music without actually being so. There are some bits I find sublime: the Agnus Dei<\/em> and the transition to the children’s voices in the middle of the Offertory – the soldiers of a future generation. And the choral writing in the Recordare<\/em> and Confutatis<\/em> movements (the latter a cousin of the men’s chorus in the Gloriana<\/em> choral dances) is very fine. These are among the less apparently innovative parts of the Requiem – sometimes less can be more. I’m still playing the game of identifying allusions to other composers. Now I know the Grande Messe des Morts<\/i> I’ll throw that into the mix (the barely-moving voice parts in the Offertory), and just what is going on in the Owen setting at the end of the Sanctus\/Benedictus<\/i>? It sounds like Webern, but maybe it derives from late Stravinsky, with which I’m not very familiar (and might in that case partly explain Stravinsky’s reaction to the piece).<\/p>\n Finally, is there anyone out there, other than me, who cannot hear Britten’s setting of the word ‘knife’ without thinking of Hitchcock’s treatment of this word in his film Blackmail<\/em>?<\/p>\n Review in the Bristol Post<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The second performance of the War Requiem came a week later in Colston Hall. We were large forces and disposed rather differently from when I sang the work there before. I was positioned round the side of the choir with … Continue reading