Britten's ‘War Requiem’

Abstract

It is only the naïve and the cynical who imagine that the creative artist can be visited unwittingly, without an act of volition, by genius. We cannot doubt that Britten's War Requiem, hailed by many critics as his masterpiece after its first performance in Coventry Cathedral, represents not only an effort to mark worthily the official commemoration of a triumphant recovery from the ashes of war but also a conscious resolve to consummate his whole creative activity to that date in the expression of a personal abhorrence of the bestial wickedness by which man is made to take up arms against his fellow. Even the ground plan of the Requiem reflects this desire to give all, setting up within the one frame the resources of works as contrasted in style as the Sinfonia da Requiem and Cantata Academica, the Nocturne and the Missa Brevis. Yet ultimately we can compare this work only with the operas in its vast scope, as also in its development from the contemplation of a dramatic conflict. In choosing so audaciously to juxtapose the Office for the Dead with Wilfred Owen's bitter war poems, Britten dare not rely merely on the anthologist's good taste that has served him well elsewhere. Unless these two sources could be made to engage with one another, violently if need be, the result could only be disastrous. By now we are all familiar with the pattern of correspondences and analogies he was able to uncover, and the uncanny appropriateness with which such a triple link was forged as that between the Abraham of the liturgical text, of Owen's poem and of Britten's own canticle. The present article attempts to trace some of the musical links that bind the work; that it perhaps fails to do this in tones of clinical objectivity may be pardoned by readers to whom the sounds of this masterly work are still an overwhelming experience.