Britten’s War Requiem – Sheet Music & Scores

“My subject is war, and the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity… All a poet can do today is warn.” Wilfred Owen

These are the haunting words on the title page of Benjamin Britten’s masterpiece, the War Requiem. Where many composers aimed to bring peace to lost loved ones, and to lay souls to rest with their Requiem, Britten, being a conscientious objector, chose rather to denounce the barbarism and futility of war, and seek an end to all violent conflict. Browse our sheet music and scores, and explore all the wonderful editions of this ground-breaking work with Stretta Music today.

The War Requiem – Where Poetry and Liturgy Meet

The Venue

The scene for the premier of the War Requiem was Coventry Cathedral. The Cathedral was destroyed in a Second World War bomb raid in 1940, and when the cathedral committee decided to rebuild this magnificent building, Benjamin Britten was the only choice to provide the consecrating work.

The Commission

Britten himself was in America when Coventry Cathedral was razed. His pacifism was nurtured at a young age by his friend and mentor Frank Bridge, and he passed a tribunal on his return to England in 1942 to be on the official conscientious objectors’ register. When the commission came through in 1958, he had been working with texts by English poet Wilfred Owen for the song cycle Britten’s Nocturne op.60. Owen was killed in 1918 in France, one week before the end of the First World War, and it gave Britten the idea to intertwine the Latin text with Wilfred Owen’s anti-war poetry.

The Forces

The War Requiem is made up of the traditional Latin text, and nine English Poems. The work is set for Soprano, Tenor and Baritone Soloists, Full Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Chorus, Boys’ Choir and Organ. These forces are divided into three groups: The Soprano Soloist sings Latin text, accompanied by the Chorus and Full Orchestra, the Tenor and Baritone Soloists sing Wilfred Owen’s English text, accompanied by the chamber orchestra, and the Boys’ Choir sing Latin text accompanied by Organ. It is only at the end of the final movement, that all three groups come together.

The Premier

The premier took place on the 30th of May 1962. The Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya was supposed to sing the premier, but due to International tensions, the Soviet Union did not permit her to travel. The soprano Heather Harper stood in with ten days’ notice, Peter Pears sung the tenor and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau the baritone. Britten had planned to conduct, but unfortunately, he was suffering from shoulder pain, so Meredith Davies stepped in. Not wanting to miss this monumental event, Britten chose to conduct the Tenor, Baritone and Chamber Orchestra group, thus starting an unintentional tradition of having two conductors. On Britten’s request, there was no applause at the end of the premier. The work was a huge success, and remains one of the most important Requiem settings to this day.

More Related Links

• Benjamin Britten – Sheet Music
• Requiem – Sheet Music
• Masses for Peace – Sheet Music
• Spiritual Songs for Peace – Sheet Music
• Songs for Peace – Sheet Music
• Verdi’s Requiem – Sheet Music
• Mozart’s Requiem – Sheet Music
• Britten’s Nocturne op.60 – Sheet Music
• Berlioz’ Grande Messe des Morts – Sheet Music
• Tippett’s A Child of Our Time – Sheet Music
• Karl Jenkin’s The Armed Man – Sheet Music