MEMORIAL MUSIC FOR TODAY AND AN EARLIER TIME
For the most memorable oratorio of the 20th century, I would propose Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” (1961), an extra-ordinary large-scale paean to those who served and never survived, now revived by the S.F. Symphony and Chorus.
This is a work that leaves the listener profoundly moved on several levels, recalling those who fell in the world wars as well as the destruction of the hallowed Coventry, England Cathedral in the 1940 Blitzkrieg, then its reconstruction. It also provides us with a profound and timely call for peace and reconciliation. The bilingual texts are partly from the Latin mass of the dead, partly from the poetry of the awe-inspiring young English poet (and pacifist) Wilfred Owen, a soldier who had died on the First World War’s front lines just a week before the armistice. Britten’s underlying message involved linking the religious and secular, the Anglican-Protestant and Catholic, and the military and the pacifistic.
This is an extraordinary, relevant way to focus on both our Memorial Day and the barbaric on-going war in Ukraine resulting in countless civilian deaths, seemingly victims of deliberate targeting.
To serve the lofty call, the SFS summoned an all-star aggregation including the maestro of the Vienna State Opera and a trio of opera singers. They recreated the 81-minute outpouring, combining traditional English reserve with composer Britten’s neoclassical invention whose best-known stylistic antecedents included Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms.” You don’t look for resonant romantic sonic gush nor the well-known peaceful English countryside moods, but rather the clarity and articulation we remember from Bach and Mozart with a more modern palette.
The structure of this Requiem is akin to a solar system with multiple planets, as elaborate as the Bach Passions which Britten clearly knew well. Apart from the two contrasting languages, the orchestra too is divided into a banda of about a dozen plus a large ensemble, with multi-level music to match. And the mixed choir, sometimes unaccompanied, gives way now and then to a boys’ choir with solo organ here pushed offstage for lack of space and largely inaudible. The complexity itself is inspiring.
The texts give us the pleas to the Almighty for salvation within the Mass for the Dead and its “Dies Irae,” plus Owen’s deft lines telling of “the long black arm” of the canons, and his unforgettable anti-war finale, “I am the enemy you killed, my friend.”
The Swiss Philippe Jordan, who runs the elite Vienna State Opera, led all this with poise and understatement, and myriad cues; at the end he bowed his head in silence for an eternity before allowing the accolades to erupt on May 18.
At the Coventry world premiere of this chancy work, composer-pacifist Britten, 47, had attended, pocketing a flask of his favored beverage for the occasion, per a magazine’s revelation. Uneasy? Many others faced with such a complex premiere and such broad media exposure would prefer lugging at least two such flasks.
BRITTEN’S ‘WAR REQUIEM,’ with San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, soloists, plus Ragazzi Boys Choir, Philippe Jordan conducting, May 18-20, Davies Hall, S.F. For info: (415) 864-6000 or go online, www.sfsymphony.org.
