Benjamin Britten - Sinfonia da Requiem

I realised that I haven't written any proper posts on Benjamin Britten yet, which is a bit silly because he is actually one of my favourite composers. My lack of writing on him is partly because I love his operas so much and I don't yet know how to post on opera in here, and how to do the genre justice (I'm sure some posts on opera will appear soon though). Of course 2013 is going to be Britten-year which is rather exciting! Peter Grimes on the beach at Aldeburgh! How amazing will that be? Very, I tell thee.

Anyway, for now I'd like to talk about Britten's Sinfonia Da Requiem - not to be confused with his actual requiem which I did write about briefly here. The Sinfonia da Requiem is more of a symphony, and is in fact the largest purely orchestral piece Britten wrote. The origin of the piece is somewhat interesting, as it's reported that Britten originally started writing it as a requiem to his parents, as a reaction to WWII and expression of his own pacifism (also very apparent in the War Requiem but also after being commissioned (via the British consulate) to write a piece for Japan. The Japanese didn't seem to approve of the piece as it was considered to gloomy and Christian for their particular celebration, and then Pearl Harbour happened which obviously put a damper on the Britain-Japan relations. The piece was therefore premiered in New York, in March 1941.

My favourite part is the second, "Dies Irae" (as always) - but thankfully youtube has a video of the entire thing:


Benjamin Britten - Sinfonia da Requiem (I Lacrimosa, II Dies Irae, III Requiem Aeternam)

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) was an English composer who's definitely most well-known for his operas (including Peter Grimes, The Turn of the Screw, Death in Venice and The Rape of Lucretia) and his War Requiem. In general his compositions for voice (so the operas, cantatas, songs etc) are to die for. He was really good friends with Mistislav Rostropovich and his wife Galina Vishnevskaya and of course Shostakovich, who admired him greatly. In fact, Britten conducted the first non-Russian premiere of Shostakovich's Symphony No.14. He and his partner Peter Pears launched the Aldeburgh Festival which is still going strong to this day. Here is my favourite picture of him, with Galina Vishnevskaya:

Requiems

Today I want to talk about Requiems. They used to be my most-hated classical genre, I didn't get the attraction, they just made me nervous. But then I realised that really, requiems are pretty much the most badass thing in the world. They're the perfect excuse for a composer to write REALLY LOUD things because you can't go "Oh no, day of wrath!" quietly, right?

Requiems are an interesting medium anyway, because they generally have the same structure. They can have the Introit (Requiem Aeternam), Kyrie, Gradual, Tract, Sequence (Dies Irae), Offertory, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, Communion, Pie Jesu, Libera Me and In Paradisum. All these sections have set lyrics, from Latin church texts (apart from the Kyrie which is in Greek), used in Mass. There's some obvious exceptions to this though, Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem was the first requiem set in vernacular (in this case, German) text, and is still one of the few. Britten's War Requiem not only uses the Latin texts, but also poems by Wilfred Owen.

Now, because there's quite a few versions of the Dies Irae I'm posting here, it might be worthwhile explaining a bit more about that piece in particular. The Dies Irae is quite a late hymn, it was written in the 13th century, probably by Thomas of Celano and it describes the day of judgment. It's actually no longer a part of the Roman Rite Mass, because apparently it's too dark and medieval. They might have a point though, the opening words are "Dies irae! Dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla" which means "The day of wrath! that day will dissolve the world in ashes". Needless to say, these words have inspired a lot of music.


1. Camille Saint-Saëns, the Dies Irae from his Requiem (written in 1878). I never liked organs before I heard this requiem, maybe because I imagine that Saint-Saëns finished writing his requiem and thought "OH CRAP, I FOROT THE ORGAN" so added in a few random chords really loudly so no one else could possibly forget about organs. I like the random chords though, and it's a beautiful piece of music. I listen to it a lot to calm me down and cheer me up (I know requiems shouldn't be cheerful, but c'mon the organ's pretty hilarious!).


2. Giuseppe Verdi, the Dies Irae from his Requiem (1874). BAM BAM BAM BAM! If I was a zombie, this would definitely be my preferred 'here-I-am-I'm-gonna-eat-everyone' music.


3. György Ligeti's Requiem (1963-65) (this is part 2 out of 3, this requiem does not have the same structure the others do). Now this is something else, this requiem is actually not loud at all but it is without a doubt the creepiest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. There's a minimal amount of instruments used, it's mostly voices doing creepy things like screaming and ehm, being creepy. I don't know how else to describe it, I find it an incredibly beautiful but deeply disturbing piece of music. Essential listening.


4. Antonín Dvořák, the Dies Irae from his Requiem (1890). I kind of fear that all these Dies Irae's will sound alike to you, but I hope they won't. Dvorak's requiem is probably the one I listen to most, I find it incredibly comforting and powerful, sort of a friendly kick in the behind.


5. Benjamin Britten's second part of Libera Me, from his War Requiem (1961/62). Britten is one of those composers who I really want to learn more about and hear more by. This War Requiem is an exceptional piece of music, it's almost painfully moving.


6. The Dies Irae from Hector Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts (1837). I really want to see this live someday because I imagine it'll be the loudest thing in the world, it's scored for a massive orchestra and usually performed with a choir of about 400. Here's a video of a performance at the BBC Proms with Sir Colin Davies, look at how massive the choir is and how many percussionists there are! Of course the music is amazing and actually very moving as well, not just loud, but I do like to emphasize loudness because I consider it a very good thing.

Because a lot of these requiems (except those by Ligeti and Saint-Saëns) are around 90 minutes, which is rather long, I've only posted relatively short pieces of each. If you like what you hear (and keep in mind, I do tend to post the loudest bits, so if it's a bit too much, don't discount requiems straight away) please please check out the rest of these pieces, you can find pretty much anything on youtube. And if you're really intereseting, some other requiems to listen to are Brahms' German Requiem, Fauré's Requiem and Rossini's Petite Messe Solemnelle (not officially a requiem, but it sort of is). Also, some of you might like Mozart's effort, but that's the only requiem that just doesn't sound right to me.. it's almost good, but not quite.

Hope you enjoy!