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Aled Jones presents a complete performance of Britten’s War Requiem, marking Remembrance Sunday, and the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I. Benjamin Britten conducts The London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, The Bach Choir, Highgate School Choir and the Melos Ensemble, with Galina Vishnevskaya (soprano), Peter Pears (tenor) and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone).

Britten’s War Requiem was composed to mark the opening of the new Coventry Cathedral in 1962, after the original building had been destroyed in the air-raids of the Second World War. Britten made a deliberate effort in this work to create something universal, something that would speak to as wide an audience as possible – and it seems he succeeded. It has become one of his best loved works, and is frequently heard marking Armistice Day around the world.
At first glance it might seem an odd choice of work for Remembrance Sunday – given it’s obvious anti-war themes. War is wrong and fighting is wrong – Britten was unequivocal about these things. But alongside his pacifist message, Britten succeeded in creating a work that also paid genuine tribute to those who died, and one which brought, and still brings solace to a society wounded by warfare.
The premiere recording of the work features soloists from three of the countries that were once at war – Britain, Germany and Russia. It remains one of the definitive performances and is presented here in a digitally re-mastered edition, released by Decca in 2006.

BRITTEN, Benjamin: War requiem (Op.66)
London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, The Bach Choir, Highgate School Boys' Choir, and Melos Ensemble, conducted by Benjamin Britten, with Galina Vishnevskaya (soprano), Peter Pears (tenor), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone) and Simon Preston (organ)
DECCA 475 7511 5 DOR 2.