Prom 47 - 21.08.14: War Requiem, CBSO, Gritton / Spence / Müller-Brachmann / Nelsons

[BBMmk2]

Indeed, ams, that is so.

[euthynicus]

'Boys' Choir': what struck me was not so much the mix of boys' and girls' voices, which is after all common these days for understandable socio-cultural reasons, but the demotic Latin. Dipthongs sprinkled throughout (from Tay Daycet Himnous onwards). Britten wouldn't have stood for it (given his almost parodic Queen's English). But it's the modern way.

As indeed is Nelsons's footloose attitude to the letter of the score (making a far greater impact on the feel of the performance than the gender balance of the choirs), taking almost everything slower than the MMs for spurious monumental effect. Except, peculiarly, the Agnus, which could have done with a bit more air. In the anniversary performance in Coventry, at least from the perspective of the DVD, his tempi worked in a cathedral acoustic, and with a really fine, trained symphony choir. I'm afraid the Proms Youth Choir was horribly over-stretched.

What did strike me, following the score, was (apropos Holloway) how musically thin are many of the big choral sections. We know he wrote the piece in a hurry; that he lifted wholesale gestures from the Verdi and Mozart Requiems, probably against time to create the desired effect. But only the chamber sections feel like vintage Britten, characterised in a detailed way. Partly that was, the other evening, down to the eloquence of Mueller-Brachmann and especially Spence, who in this season of unthinking, mawkish 'celebration' of WW1, really did feel like the kind of young soldier remembered on the work's dedication page.

So I can think of plenty of Proms which have, on the strength of the technical qualities of their performances, more 'deserved' the Longest Silence Ever. But the reaction felt right at the time, and it's always welcome to hear an audience listening.

[mercia]

(Pears, Harper, Hemsley, RLPO, Charles Groves)

that has set me wondering - did Britten in any way encourage/recommend that future performances should if possible have an international trio of soloists [in a spirit of reconciliation] ?

[Mary Chambers]

that has set me wondering - did Britten in any way encourage/recommend that future performances should if possible have an international trio of soloists [in a spirit of reconciliation] ?

I don't think it was officially recommended - he was too practical for that - but obviously he thought it the ideal. I'm always pleased when I see it in modern performances.

[Nick Armstrong]

Andris Nelsons' and his forces' meticulous observance of Britten's score

Nelsons's footloose attitude to the letter of the score ... taking almost everything slower than the MMs for spurious monumental effect. Except, peculiarly, the Agnus, which could have done with a bit more air.

I've yet to hear this performance.... and don't have access to a score.

I'd appreciate the view of expert neutrals on the above apparently irreconcilable statements!

[bluestateprommer]

I've yet to hear this performance.... and don't have access to a score.

I barely made the 30-day cutoff, but finally got round to hearing the War Requiem Prom from the CBSO and friends. Overall, it was well done, although I did note the surprisingly slow pacing of the 'Dies irae' that others commented on, perhaps contrasting with the rather brisk opening of the 'Requiem aeternam'. It did sound a bit odd to recognize the vocal timbre of young female voices in the youth choir, although this may have been as much dictated by the simple wish to include as many young voices as possible, regardless of gender, to get more young people involved in a serious and demanding classical music work. One could also make a non-musical argument that sadly, in modern times, there are even reports of young female child soldiers. It was good to hear Toby Spence in much stronger form than a few years back, when he was working his way back into singing engagements after his serious illness. Both Susan Gritton and Hanno Muller-Brachmann were likewise very strong in their roles.

On the whole "PC" argument, I can see where Robin Holloway is coming from, in his extremely dismissive assessment of the work's ideology that he considers to be extremely simplistic. (Stanley Kramer's films like Judgement at Nuremberg, just about contemporary with the War Requiem, have some of that same quality.) Admittedly, as one example, Britten does fudge things in "Let us sleep now", where he cut lines that indicated that the two soldiers' souls had descended into Hell, which would contradict the juxtaposition of the original Owen poem with the text of 'In paradisum' ("Into Paradise may the angels lead thee"). And yes, it's easy to detect Verdi's 'Dies irae' too obviously in Britten's 'Dies irae', for those knowledgeable enough to detect such matters. Yet here's the catch, and to answer his question at the end of why people still react to the work: the War Requiem communicates to audiences directly, and overall, in terms of dramaturgy, it simply works. I kind of wonder if Holloway isn't expressing a subconscious resentment towards the War Requiem that he similarly feels towards the music of Shostakovich, whom he considers to be extremely overrated, namely that both Britten and DSCH have attained a popularity of their works that he himself has never enjoyed.

Credit also indeed to this Proms audience for the long silence at the end, all 1 min 45 sec of it.