RECORDING OF THE MONTH
Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)
War Requiem, Op. 66 (1962) [83:48]
Ian Bostridge (tenor)
Simon Keenlyside (baritone)
Sabina Cvilak (soprano)
Choir of Eltham College
London Symphony Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra/Gianandrea Noseda
rec. live, Barbican, London, November 2011
Sung texts included
LSO LIVE LSO0719 SACD [46:35 + 37:13]
It seemed curiously appropriate that I was listening to Britten’s own
performance of the War Requiem when I heard the sad news of Dietrich
Fischer-Dieskau’s death. He was the composer’s choice for the
baritone part at the premiere of this great work in 1962. His performance
in the subsequent Decca recording was simply unforgettable. Since then there
have been a number of fine versions, but for all their strengths none has
the immediacy and insight of the composer’s own. That said, Giulini’s
live Albert Hall performance in April 1969 (BBC Legends) comes closest to
it in spirit. Also, I was much impressed by Kurt Masur’s recording.
His baritone Gerald Finley is especially affecting (LPO).
First impressions of this newcomer are entirely favourable. Those strange,
twisting figures in the Requiem aeternam are as haunting as ever. The
notorious Barbican acoustic seems less of a problem too, although anyone familiar
with John Culshaw’s more spacious Decca recording will miss the sense
of a larger performing space. The upside is that the LSO Live account has
great clarity and tonal sophistication. The Eltham choir is crisp and well
balanced. By contrast Bostridge and Keenlyside are rather distant and their
presentation of the alliterative Anthem for Doomed Youth is less emphatic
than that of Pears and Fischer-Dieskau. As for the soprano Sabina Cvilak,
she sings most beautifully but is nowhere near as commanding as Vishnevskaya
in the vaulting Liber scriptus.
The LSO certainly play well and the brass in the Dies irae are especially
thrilling. As for the tam-tam in Be slowly lifted up it’s allowed
to sound and resonate to great effect. No-one could be unshaken by the music
that follows. Its ever-slowing tread and Cvilak’s perfectly scaled delivery
are simply superb. All else pales next to Bostridge’s deeply moving,
extraordinarily nuanced singing in Futility. Time stands still here,
and I can’t recall a finer account of Owen’s sad supplication
than this, either on record or in the concert hall. It’s also a measure
of Britten’s genius that this music never loses its power to astound.
The simplest means are used to convey the most complex of human emotions.
The LSO chorus deserve a mention in dispatches. Their quiet singing in Pie
Jesu is ineffably beautiful. It’s at moments like these that the
subtleties of this Super Audio recording are most evident. There are no problems
at the other end of the dynamic spectrum either. The muscular drum thwacks
and deep-throated brass in Sed signifer sanctus are very well caught.
Bostridge and Keenlyside’s Parable of the Young Man and the Old
is exquisitely done. The gorgeous harp and well-matched singers meld into
another of those heart-stopping epiphanies that seem to be a Britten speciality.
Gerald Finley and Anthony Dean Griffey blend well for Masur, whose live account
also has a dramatic intensity and seamlessness that’s very impressive
indeed.
The Sanctus, with its strange instrumental crescendi and angelus-like
orchestral/vocal swings, is certainly powerful. That said, it doesn’t
quite efface memories of Britten’s uniquely arresting version. Although
Cvilak doesn’t have the heft of Brewer or Vishnevskaya she does compensate
with a clean, wobble-free delivery. Once again Keenlyside sings most feelingly
- yet without a hint of false sentiment - in The End. As for Noseda
one has to applaud him for maintaining such a tight ensemble and for responding
so sympathetically to his soloists.
It just gets better. The instrumental/vocal rise and fall of the Agnus
Dei is as haunting as one could wish. The dry, metallic rumble of timps
in the Libera me is very effective too, adding its own garish hue to
this hellish scene. Indeed, I’ve rarely heard such a myriad of colours
and textures as revealed by this fine recording. If Culshaw and his team excelled
at the broad brush, the LSO Live engineers are masters of telling detail.
That said, the climactic moments of the Libera me are unleashed with
an unbridled energy that will take your breath away.
After that Bostridge and Keenlyside’s account of Strange Meeting
is indescribably moving. It’s another of those moments when nothing
else could possibly matter but the focused horror of this imagined, subterranean
encounter. Not surprisingly the hush in the hall - it’s a remarkably
subdued audience for November - is complete, everyone under Britten’s
spell. That’s where live recordings come into their own; few studio
ones offer that sense of deep communion, of shared, collective emotion. ‘I
am the enemy you killed, my friend’, one of Owen’s most powerful
lines, has a frisson like nothing else in this score. The music of
Let us sleep now and the solemn Requiescat speak of a healing
embrace and of comfort.
I doubt anyone in the hall was not moved - and moved mightily - by this most
profound performance. It seems almost sacrilegious, in this sombre context,
to cheer the conductor, soloists, orchestra, choirs and engineers but they
deserve it. This is a triumph for all concerned. What I would have given to
be at the Barbican that night. Still, we have an unforgettable record of that
event, even if - as is usually the case - it’s assembled from more than
one performance. Does it supplant Britten’s own? No, and I doubt anything
ever could. That said, I can’t emphasise more strongly how compelling
this newcomer is, and how important that anyone who knows and loves the War
Requiem should hear it.
Dan Morgan
http://twitter.com/mahlerei
Britten discography & review index: War
Requiem
I can’t emphasise more strongly how compelling this newcomer is, and
how important that anyone who knows and loves the War Requiem should
hear it.