Composer: Benjamin Britten
Performer: Ian Bostridge, Simon Keenlyside, Sabina Cvilak, London Symphony Chorus, Choir of Eltham College
Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Gianandrea Noseda
Number of Discs: 2
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: LSO
Release: 2012
Size: 1.33 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
War Requiem, Op. 66
CD 01
01. i. Requiem Aeternam – Requiem aeternam
02. ii. Requiem Aeternam – Te decet hymnus
03. iii. Requiem Aeternam – “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”
04. iv. Requiem Aeternam – Kyrie eleison
05. v. Dies Irae – Dies irae
06. vi. Dies Irae – “Bugles sang, saddening the evening air”
07. vii. Dies Irae – Liber scriptus
08. viii. Dies Irae – “Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death”
09. ix. Dies Irae – Recordare Iesu pie
10. x. Dies Irae – Confutatis maledictis
11. xi. Dies Irae – “Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm”
12. xii. Dies Irae – Dies irae
13. xiii. Dies Irae – “Move him into the sun”
14. xiv. Dies Irae – Pie Iesu Domine
15. xv. Offertorium – Domine Jesu Christe
16. xvi. Offertorium – Sed signifer Sanctus
17. xvii. Offertorium – “So Abram rose, and clave the wood”
18. xvii. Offertorium – Hostias et preces tibi
CD 02
01. xix. Sanctus – Sanctus
02. xx. Sanctus – “After the blast of lightning from the East”
03. xxi. Agnus Dei – “One ever hangs where shelled roads part” Agnus Dei
04. xxii. Libera Me – Libera me
05. xxiii. Libera Me – “It seemed that out of battle I escaped”
06. xxiv. Libera Me – ” ‘None’, said the other”
07. xxv. Libera Me – “Let us sleep now…” In paradisum
08. xxvi. Libera Me – Requiescant in pace
For his first LSO Live recording, Gianandrea Noseda is joined by three of today’s most widely acclaimed singers for a magnificent performance of Benjamin Britten’s choral masterpiece.
Premiered 50 years ago on 30 May 1962, the ‘War Requiem’ was commissioned for the re-dedication of Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed by bombing raids during the Second World War.
Using the Latin mass of the dead, interspersed with texts by war poet Wilfred Owen, Britten, a pacifist and conscientious objector, created a work that both mourned the dead and pleaded the futility of war. The ‘War Requiem’ was to become one of the defining choral works of the 20th Century.
Gianandrea Noseda was the first foreign Principal Guest Conductor of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and over the past decade his reputation in the opera house and concert hall has blossomed. He regularly conducts the LSO, as well as many of the world’s other great orchestras, and is Music Director of the Teatro Regio in Turin.
Ian Bostridge, Simon Keenlyside and Sabina Cvilak perform regularly in the world’s leading opera houses and are renowned for their performances in Britten’s music. The LSO and LSC have both enjoyed long relationships with the composer and appeared on the first recording of the ‘War Requiem’, conducted by Britten himself.