Britten War Requiem

My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity…
All a poet can do today is warn.

Benjamin Britten included these words by Wilfred Owen on the title page of his War Requiem. The work, an expression of his pacifism, was first performed during the Coventry Festival in 1962, in the rebuilt and newly consecrated Coventry Cathedral. The old cathedral had been virtually destroyed during the Blitz and, after the war, was rebuilt to a new design, in a spirit of reconciliation after conflict.

The work weaves together the Latin Mass text of a traditional requiem with the devastating war poetry of Wilfred Owen to produce a powerful denunciation of the wickedness of war and a warning to future generations of the senselessness of taking up arms against one’s fellow man. 2018 marks the centenary of the end of World War I – the war that was supposed to end all wars – and Britten’s timeless message of peace gives us the opportunity to acknowledge all those whose lives have been forever changed by conflicts across the globe in the hundred years since.

Basingstoke Choral Society, Southampton Philharmonic Choir, the Southampton University Philharmonic Choir, the London Mozart Players and the City of Southampton Orchestra combine their considerable forces for this unique performance, and will be joined by a children’s choir from The Pilgrims’ School, Winchester.