CD1
1. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 1: My mind beats on (Aschenbach)
2. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 1: Who's that? (Aschenbach)
3. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 1: I have always kept a close watch over my development (Aschenbach)
4. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 2: Hey there, hey there, you! (Youths)
5. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 2: Overture
6. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 3: Ah Serenissima! (Aschenbach)
7. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 3: Mysterious gondola (Aschenbach)
8. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 4: We are delighted to greet the Signore (Hotel Manager)
9. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 4: So I am led to Venice once again (Aschenbach)
10. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 4: The Lido is so charming, is it not? (Hotel Guests)
11. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 4: How does such beauty come about? (Aschenbach)
12. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 5: The wind is from the West (Aschenbach)
13. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 5: Le bele fragole (Strawberry Seller)
14. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 5: Ah, how peaceful to contemplate the sea (Aschenbach)	
15. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 5: Adziu, Adziu! (Chorus)            play
16. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 5: As one who strives to create beauty (Aschenbach)
17. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 6: Aou'! Stagando, aou'! (Gondolier)
18. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 6: Naturally Signore, I understand (Hotel Manager)
19. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 6: There you are, Signore, just in time (Hotel Porter)
20. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 6: I am become like one of my early heroes (Aschenbach)
21. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 6: A thousand apologies to the Signore (Hotel Manager)
22. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 7: Beneath a dazzling sky the sea ? (Chorus of Hotel Guests)
23. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 7: No boy, but Phoebus of the golden hair (Chorus)
24. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 7: See where Hyacinthus plays (Chorus)
25. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 7: Phaedrus learned what beauty is (Chorus)

CD2
1. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 7: First, the race! (Chorus)
2. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 7: Try your skill (Chorus)
3. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 7: Young discobolus (Chorus)
4. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 7: Up and over (Chorus)
5. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 7: Measure to fight (Chorus)	
6. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act I Scene 7: The boy, Tadzio, shall inspire me (Aschenbach)
7. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II: Orchestral Introduction
8. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II: So, it has come to this (Aschenbach)
9. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 8: Guardate, Signore (Hotel Barber)
10. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 9: Do I detect a scent? (Aschenbach)
11. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 9: And now I cannot let them out of sight (Aschenbach)
12. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 9: Kyrie eleison (Chorus)	
13. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 9: Gustav von Aschenbach, what is this path you have taken? (Aschenbach)
14. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 10: This way for the players, Signori! (Hotel Porter)
15. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 10: La mia nonna always used to tell me (Leader of the Players)
16. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 10: Fiorir rose in mezo al giasso (Leader of the Players) play
17. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 10: One moment, if you please (A Young English Clerk) - Scene 11
18. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 12: So it is true, true, more fearful than I thought (Aschenbach)
19. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 12: So - I didn't speak! (Aschenbach)
20. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 13: Receive the stranger god (Voice of Dionysus)
21. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 14: Do what you will with me! (Aschenbach)
22. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 15: Yes! a very wise decision, if I may say so (Hotel Barber)
23. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 16: Hurrah for the Piazza (Aschenbach)
24. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 16: Does beauty lead to wisdom, Phaedrus? (Aschenbach)
25. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 17: The wind still blows from the land (Hotel Manager)
26. Death in Venice, Op. 88: Act II Scene 17: Ah, no! (Aschenbach)

Personnel:
Gustav von Aschenbach - Philip Langridge
The Traveller - Alan Opie
The Elderly Fop - Alan Opie
The Old Gondolier - Alan Opie
The Hotel Manager - Alan Opie
The Hotel Barber - Alan Opie
The Leader of the Players - Alan Opie
The Voice of Dionysius - Alan Opie
The Voice of Apolle - Michael Chance

BBC Singers
City of London Sinfonia
Richard Hickox, 2005

Benjamin Britten was a composer far beyond his time, a musician with a genius for orchestration, for intellectually stimulating and emotionally profound operas, and a man who is one of the few composers who has been able to write in the English language and find the music hidden there. His final opera is a tough one, a challenging story (Thomas Mann) translated into a dignified libretto by Myfanwy Piper, and a work that is primarily a monologue for tenor set against myriad scenes that change as quickly as the wind.

When Britten composed 'Death in Venice' he was in his last days of heart disease and though he never saw the opera composed for his lover, brilliant tenor Peter Pears, he did hear the premiere at Aldeburgh on his radio. The opera was first recorded in 1974 with the original cast (Peter Pears, John Shirley-Quirk, James Bowman with Steuart Bedford conducting) and for obvious reasons subsequent recordings feared comparison. Fortunately, now some thirty-two years later there is a splendid second recording, a recording so fine that for this Britten devotee is equal to the original - and in some ways better!

Philip Langridge inherits the near impossible role of Aschenbach, the aging, brilliant, detached 'Apollonian' who through a series of recitatives and encounters with a 'traveler' decides to go to Venice to revive his spirit. Included in this recording is the original first recitative of Aschenbach, a character-defining piece Britten out of uncertainty removed from the premiere (and the subsequent recording). It is now essential. Langridge has a fine tenor voice, perfect enunciation, and he creates an Aschenbach that conveys the tortured downfall of this famous character. He is amazing.

Britten and Piper created Aschenbach's nemeses (The Traveler, The Elderly Fop, The Old Gondolier, The Hotel Manager, The Hotel Barber, The Leader of the Players, and the Voice of Dionysus) to be sung by one baritone. And it is the choice of Alan Opie for this recording that adds great dimension to these changing roles. His is a voice rich and supple and completely able to portray different characters while simultaneously reminding us that they are interrelated and each part of Aschenbach's illusionary view of his world.

Add to this the superb countertenor voice of Michael Chance who intones Apollo in the major scene that contrasts the Apollonian vs Dionysian conflict that is central to Mann's story and the 'cast' of main characters is complete. The many small roles are all well sung. Richard Hickox conducts the City of London Sinfonia with insight into all of the complexities of the score and creates a lush and languid sound that is thoroughly appropriate for 'Serenissima' - Venice. The overall momentum of this opera is devastatingly beautiful, and for one who thought that the original Pears/Shirley-Quirk/Bedford recording could never be bettered, this recording is absolutely as fine and deserves to be proudly beside the other on the shelf. Highly Recommended on every level. Grady Harp, August 05

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CD1
1.  Peter Grimes! Peter Grimes! Peter Grimes!
2.  The truth  the pity and the truth…
3.  Interlude – Dawn
4.  Oh, hang at open door the net, the cork
5.  HI! Give us a hand!
6.  Let her among you without fault
7.  Look, the storm cone!
8.  Interlude - The Storm
9.  Past time to close!
10.  Loud man, I never did have time…
11.  Now the Great Bear and Pleiades
12.  Old Joe has gone fishing and young Joe has gone fishing
13.  Glitter of waves and glitter of sunlight
14.  Come boy! Peter, what for
15.  Fool! to let it come to this!

CD2
1.  We planned that their lives should have a new start
2.  From the gotter why should we trouble at their ribaldries
3.  Interlude – Passacaglia
4.  Go there!  Go there!  Go there!
5.  In dreams I've built myself some kindlier home
6.  There's an odd procession here
7.  Peter Grimes! Peter Grimes! Nobody here
8.  Interlude – Moonlight
9.  Assign your prettiness to me
10.  Mr. Keene!  Mr. Keene!  Can you spare a moment
11.  Is the boat in
12.  Embroidery in childhood
13.  Mr. Swallow!  Mr. Swallow! Mr. Swallow!
14.  Steady!  There you are!  Nearly home!
15.  Peter, we've come to take you home
16.  To those who pass, the Borough sounds betray

Peter Grimes - Jon Vickers
Ellen Orford - Heather Harper
Captain Balstrode - Geraint Evans
Auuntie - Elizabeth Bainbridge
Her nieces - Elizabeth Robson, Josephine Barstow
Bob Boles - John Dobson
Mr, Swallow - Forbes Robinson
Mrs. Sedley - Helen Watts
Rector Horace Adams - Kenneth Macdonald
Hobson - Noel Mangin
Ned Keene - Delme Bryn-Jones
John - Peter Weber

Chorus and Orchestra of The Royal Opera House Covent Garden
Colin Davis - conductor

Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London - (30/05/1969)

Jon Vickers may have been the person most responsible for the proliferation of Peter Grimes and helping it to become one of Britten's most popular operas. Although his interpretation departed from Britten's vision of the character, his brooding and burnished tenor was a natural fit. This performance, from 1969, is valuable because it displays him in the role before the natural wear and tear of the dramatic repertoire would make the lyrical sections of this role more labored. The Vickers' mannerisms are still present, but he also manages some sublimely beautiful and lyrical singing. He is joined by the great Heather Harper as Ellen Orford. Harper's voice had the perfect amount of lyricism and plushness for this role and she conveys the character's tragic stoicism quite poignantly. Geraint Evans is an excellent Balstrode. The cast is peppered with a panoply of great British singers including Elizabeth Bainbridge, Forbes Robinson, Delme Bryn-Jones, Helen Watts and even a young Josphine Barstow as one of the Nieces. The sound is very good. --- operadepot.com

Peter Grimes is a big opera with a very tight focus. There are huge choral scenes and a large cast of supporting players but the work holds fast to Grimes himself. Grimes is the ultimate outsider, one whom Britten associated with strongly. He’s far from a hero, not even close, but he’s no pantomime villain either. “Now the Great Bear”, his startling Act II aria, reveals the wounded man beneath the menacing facade. This ambiguity runs throughout the piece, Grimes’s nastiness set against the overwhelming mob-like behaviour of the townsfolk.

Another major element is that of nature, the sea ever present in the drama and no more so than in the incredible interludes (music that is frequently heard in concert halls as the “4 Sea Interludes”). The town is dependent on the sea, fishing is how they make their living, but it is a dangerous bargain: they live by the sea and frequently die by it too, as we see with Grimes’s successive apprentices.

Ellen Orford provides a counterpoint to the harshness of the environment and town, a schoolmistress spinster who cares for Grimes. He too wishes to marry her, if he can make money, but it is largely a social contract not a loving one (though as with everything in this opera, there is plenty of ambiguity).

Peter Grimes is a tragedy from start to finish but it's also a masterpiece of musical theatre. The sheer force of the music lifting the narrative to realms rarely reached in 20th Century opera. ---theopera101.com

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CD1
1. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 1: The Prologue 
2. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 1, Scene 1: Theme       play
3. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 1, Scene 2: Variation 1 
4. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 1, Scene 3: Variation 2 
5. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 1, Scene 4: Variation 3 
6. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 1, Scene 5: Variation 4 
7. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 1, Scene 6: Variation 5 
8. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 1, Scene 7: Variation 6 
9. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 1, Scene 8: Variation 7

CD2
1. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 2, Scene 1: Variation 8 
2. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 2, Scene 2: Variation 9 
3. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 2, Scene 3: Variation 10 
4. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 2, Scene 4: Variation 11 
5. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 2, Scene 5: Variation 12 play
6. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 2, Scene 6: Variation 13 
7. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 2, Scene 7: Variation 14 
8. Turn of the Screw, chamber opera, Op. 54: Act 2, Scene 8: Variation 15 

Philip Langridge (Prologue)
Helen Donath (Governess)
Heather Harper (Miss Jessel)
Robert Tear (Quint)
Ava June (Mrs Grose)
Michael Ginn (Miles)
Lillian Watson (Flora)

Members of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Colin Davis – conductor

Regarded by many as the finest of all his stage-works, The Turn of the Screw, Britten’s final chamber opera, was written in the incredibly short period of just four months in 1954. The work is based on the novel of the same name by Henry James which Britten had known for many years: a tale of good versus evil, natural versus the supernatural, possession and exorcism, set within the domestic proprieties of the Essex country house of Bly - ingredients which would have had an obvious appeal for the composer. Above all, Britten’s favourite theme of the corruption of innocence must have attracted him more than any other.

The story also lends itself to Britten’s gifts for apt and distinctive musical characterisation, the relatively ‘pure’ and uncomplicated music for the opera’s mortals contrasting strongly with the alluring, other-worldly music associated with the ghosts. The work is one of the most tautly constructed and tightly-knit of all Britten’s operas, the musical material almost wholly derived from the twelve-note ‘Screw’ theme heard near the work’s opening. However, this very concentration helps give this work its overwhelming feeling of intense claustrophobia and its astonishing dramatic power can have a shattering impact in the theatre.

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1. Intro			5:01
2. Act I			55:16
3. Intermezzo		24:31
4. Act II			54:11
5. Act III			35:59

Christine Brewer (Lady Billows)
Alek Shrader (Albert Herring)
Daniela Mack (Nancy)
Liam Bonner (Sid)
Ronnita Nicole Miller (Florence Pike)

Los Angeles Opera Orchestra & Choir
James Conlon – conductor

Los Angeles Opera’s production of Benjamin Britten’s “Albert Herring,” which opened at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Saturday night, is full of fun. The music making, highlighted by James Conlon’s vital conducting, is, for the most part, excellent. Will that make a comic opera that spoofs village life in Edwardian England any less a hard sell? Maybe.

The show, as it is, is worth seeing (unfortunately, a special on $25 seats that was a three-day deal last week has already come and gone). Still, Paul Curran’s farcical production, imported from Santa Fe Opera, is also a lost opportunity to explore a little more deeply a remarkable red “Herring.”

“‘Albert Herring’” is very funny, but it is not a farce,” Conlon notes in the L.A. Opera program book. The opera, which had its premiere in 1947, is the tale of a mama’s boy crowned May King when no girl in a small East Suffolk town (not unlike the one Britten himself grew up in) can be found who meets the puritanical standards of purity set by the impossibly autocratic Lady Billows.

That, along with the help of some spiked lemonade, is enough to send Albert on a bender, to the shock and horror of proper townsfolk. Was a coming-of-age opera written to feature Britten’s companion, tenor Peter Pears, also a subtext for a coming-out opera? Those who understand Britten’s operas best, particularly the critic Andrew Porter and the musicologist Philip Brett, have said it is. “Herring” has, in fact, long been recognized as a comic companion to “Peter Grimes” and “Billy Budd,” great Britten operas that underscore the tragic consequences that commonly face the outsider in conventional societies. Movingly, the consequences of Albert’s finding himself are left up in the air. A sequel could end rather badly.

If Curran underscores jokiness, he is given plenty of opportunity for that in Eric Crozier’s libretto -- “literary failings, though regrettable, can’t keep a good opera down,” Porter once wrote of “Herring." Curran underscores the obvious. Slapstick gestures explicate sexual innuendos. Albert is treated as a twit, Monty Python worthy. The upright citizens -- vicar, mayor, teacher, cop -– are cartoon characters. A nice touch, though, is turning Lady Billows’ pompous maid, Florence, into a bit of a rebel herself.

A director’s task here is not easy. “Herring” is a chamber opera, with an orchestra of 13. Kevin Knight’s cheerfully cheap-looking small set, with its miniature houses, takes up only part of the large Chandler stage. Subtlety is inevitably lost when an opera written for a 600-seat house is transferred to one five times that size.

Curran clearly needs at least some exaggeration to reach the audience beyond the first few rows, and he tells the story well. He does suggest that Albert’s breakout has elements of disturbing psychological breakdown, which might have been more touching were he not quite such a silly thing. But the underlying darkness in “Herring” is mostly rejected here for surface light.

The cast is winning, especially Alek Shrader’s brightly sung and enthusiastic Herring. Ronnita Nicole Miller’s droll Florence comes close to stealing the show. Another nice touch is that rather than exaggerating Lady Billows' grandiosity, Janis Kelly hints, Joan Crawford-like, at a slightly sinister side to her character (the Wagnerian soprano Christine Brewer, who was a hit in Santa Fe, will sing the role for the last two performances).

Jonathan Michie (Mr. Gedge, the vicar), Stacey Tappan (Miss Wordsworth, the teacher), Robert McPherson (Mr. Upfold, the mayor) and a hilariously booming Richard Bernstein (Police Superintendent Budd) lay it on thick but provide splendid ensemble singing. The young lovers, a sensual Daniela Mack (Nancy, the bakery girl) and a spry Liam Bonner (Sid, a butcher’s assistant), light up the stage as they lead Albert astray.

Jane Bunnell (Albert’s mother) is a battle-ax who sentimentally softens at the end. Erin Sanzero, Jamie-Rose Guarrine and Caleb Glickman (the village scamps) were boisterously annoying; they were supposed to be. I wonder, though, whether all the singers weren’t forced to push, since the sets lacked proper reflecting surfaces.

The virtuoso chamber ensemble, sunk in a pit, was at an equal acoustical disadvantage. The wittiest -– and most elevating -– aspects of “Herring” are found in the detailed instrumental writing, much of it solo. Conlon urged projection, and surprisingly little was lost. The exceptionally fine playing was reason alone to overlook Curran's shortcomings. ---Los Angeles Times

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1. Kyrie
2. Gloria
3. Sanctus
4. Agnus Dei

King's College, Cambridge Choir
Sir Phillip Wilcocks - conductor

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) is a twentieth-century British composer and pianist. Encouraged by his mother, he began playing and composing at an early age. He rose to great prominence as composer of operas and had the opportunity to collaborate with great names of the twentieth century, such as with EM Forester on Billy Budd.

The Missa Brevis in D, Op. 63 is a setting of the Mass composed by Benjamin Britten on Trinity Sunday, 1959. It was first performed at London's Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral on 22 July of the same year. The piece is set for three-part treble chorus and organ.

The printed dedication reads "For George Malcolm and the boys of Westminster Cathedral Choir". The Missa Brevis was composed for Malcolm's retirement as organist and choirmaster at Westminster. It was Britten's first published setting of the Mass. Malcolm's live recording of the piece, from a service at the cathedral, lasts ten minutes.

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Disc: 1 
1. Requiem aeternam
2. Requiem aeternam. What passing
3. Dies irae. Dies irae 
4. Dies irae. Bugles sang 
5. Dies irae. Liber scriptus
6. Dies irae. Out there, 
7. Dies irae. Recordate Jesu Pie 
8. Dies irae. Be slowly lifted up 
9. Dies irae. Dies irae 
10. Dies irae. Lacrimosa dies illa 
11. Dies irae. Move him into the sun
12. Offertorium. Domine Jesu 
13. Offertorium. So Abram rose

Disc: 2 
1. Sanctus. Sanctus, sanctus 
2. Sanctus. After the blast 
3. Agnus Dei. One ever hangs 
4. Libera me. Libera me
5. Libera me. It seemed that out of battle 
6. Libera me. Let us sleep now …in Paradisum

Soprano Vocals - Galina Vishnevskaya
Tenor Vocals - Peter Pears
Baritone Vocals - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Organ - Simon Preston  

Choir - Bach Choir, The , Highgate School Choir
Chorus - London Symphony Orchestra Chorus

Lyrics By [Poems] - Wilfred Owen  

London Symphony Orchestra, Melos Ensemble

Benjamin Britten – conductor

The War Requiem was written for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral (the old cathedral is pictured at left), and was first performed there 30 May 1962. Coventry Cathedral had been destroyed during the Battle of Britain in World War II. Britten was commissioned to write a piece for the ceremony marking the completion of a new cathedral, designed by Basil Spence, built along side the the ruins of the original millenium-old structure. Since the work was to be performed inside the new cathedral, it was a good acoustic challenge for Britten. The ceremony was comprised of several works, including Tippett's opera King Priam.

The War Requiem was not meant to be a pro-British piece or a glorification of British soldiers, but a public statement of Britten's anti-war convictions. It was a denunciation of the wickedness of war, not of other men. The fact that Britten wrote the piece for three specific soloists -- a German baritone (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau), a Russian soprano (Galina Vishnevskaya), and a British tenor (Peter Pears) -- demonstrated that he had more than the losses of his own country in mind, and symbolized the importance of reconciliation. (Unfortunately Vishnevskaya was not available for the first performance, and had to be replaced by Heather Harper). The piece was also meant to be a warning to future generations of the senselessness of taking up arms against fellow men.

For the text of the War Requiem, Britten interspersed the Latin Mass for the Dead with nine poems written by Wilfred Owen (pictured at left), a World War I footsoldier who was killed a week before the Armistice. In total contrast to The Spirit of England, written by Britten's compatriot Edward Elgar, the War Requiem was a decidedly antiwar piece. The Spirit of England was also an epic work in which poetry was set to music, but it brought forth quite a different message.

The Requiem is truly a large-scale work, calling for huge musical forces. It is scored for three soloists, a chamber orchestra, a full choir and main orchestra, and a boys choir and organ. The performers are divided into three distinct planes, often physically separated. Closest are the tenor and baritone soloists and the chamber orchestra. They portray the victims of war. The soloists sing the Owen poetry and communicate in the most personal manner of the three groups. One level removed is the orchestra and chorus, portraying the mass. The soprano soloist adds color to the voices in the chorus, but their Latin singing is less personal than that of the male soloists. Finally, the boys choir and organ present a sound that is almost inhuman. Britten recommended that a small organ be placed in the wings with the boys choir, to create a more distant sound.

For the first performance, and the recording that we have used, the main orchestra and choir was conducted by Meredith Davies, while the chamber orchestra was conducted by Britten. ---its.caltech.edu

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1. War Requiem, Op.66		1:35:20

Elina Prokina - soprano
Anthony Rolfe Johnson - tenor
Andreas Schmidt – baritone

Coventry Cathedral Boys' Choir
Boys Choir of St. Nikolai, Hamburg
Philharmonia Chorus
NDR Choir
BBC Singers

NDR Symphony Orchestra
NDR Radio Philharmonic Hannover

Mstislav Rostropovich – conductor

live broadcast
Turbinenhalle, Peenemünde, 28 September 2002

After more than a half-century, the "War Requiem" has lost none of its unique power to inspire performers and stir listeners. Britten composed his 1962 requiem mass for the newly built cathedral in Coventry, England, that arose alongside the ruins of the old church which had been destroyed by German air raids in 1940. A lifelong pacifist, Britten inserted settings of poems by Wilfred Owen (who died near the close of World War I) between sections of the Latin mass for the dead.

The juxtaposition of the ritual solemnity of the ancient liturgical text and the bitter irony of Owen's poetry, through Britten's masterful music, gives this passionate indictment of war its disturbing, timeless resonance. The music and the statements it makes are an act of anger and atonement for wars of every period, everywhere. Britten, who normally holds back emotion in his music, holds nothing back here, the result being 80 minutes of music that speak directly, powerfully, immediately.

Britten designed his "War Requiem" as an act of reconciliation, requesting that the solo vocal parts be sung by citizens of three combatant nations of World War II: Russia, England and Germany. --- John von Rhein , chicagotribune.com

Benjamin Britten was commissioned to compose a work for the inauguration in 1962 of Coventry’s new cathedral, adjoining the old cathedral that had been bombed and nearly completely destroyed by the German Luftwaffe at the beginning of World War II in November 1940. The commission gave Britten complete freedom to choose the type of music to compose. He conceived of setting the traditional Latin Mass for the Dead interwoven with nine poems by the English poet Wilfred Owen, who had been killed in World War I. It has become one of the defining masterpieces of the twentieth century: a devastating meditation on the pity of war that is every bit as relevant today. ---arkivmusic.com

The Peenemünde Concerts were initiated by the Usedom Music Festival, the North German Radio (NDR) and the Historical-Technical Museum Peenemünde. They fuel a special mission: where formerly rockets were designed and tested, now there is applause for music. During the “Third Reich”, the research station of the German Army and Air Force in Peenemünde was involved in developing “secret weapons” – including the so-called Aggregat 4 (also known as “V2”), the world’s first large-scale rocket.

The Peenemünde Concerts are unique on the German museum and festival landscape. They focus on humanity’s great themes – war and peace, freedom, love and life – themes the ambivalent location dictates. The internationally acclaimed concert series was launched on September 28, 2002: under the baton of Mstislav Rostropovich, more than 250 musicians performed Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem in the turbine hall of the former power station. --- efa-aef.eu

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Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Mass No.2 in F major

1.     Kyrie – 2;35
2.     Gloria – 4:14
3.     Credo – 6:28
4.     Sanctus – 2:28
5.     Benedictus – 1:35
6.     Agnus Dei – 1:45

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
Messe de Nostre Dame

7.     Kyrie – 4:10
8.     Gloria – 5:50
9.     Credo – 7:50
10.   Sanctus – 4:57
11.   Agnus Dei – 3:48
12.   Ite, Misse Est – 1:25

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
A ceremony of Carols, Op. 28

13.   Procession – 1:48
14.   Welcome Jole! – 1:15
15.   There is no rose – 2:07
16.   That young child – 1:30
17.   Balulalow – 1:14
18.   As dew in April – 1:05
19.   This little babe – 1:42
20.   Interlude – 3:03
21.   In freezing winter night – 2:47
22.   Spring carol – 1:08
23.   Deo Gratias – 1:02
24.   Recession – 2:10

In Latin (1,2) and English(3)

Chamber Choir (1,2)
Chamber Choir female group (3)
Valentin Nesterov – Conductor

Mass No.2 in F major by C. Monteverdi was published in Venice in 1641 in the collection of his sacred compositions.

G. de Machaut is an important French poet and composer of the 14th century, a representative of ars nova. He is the author of numerous one-voice and polyphonic songs with instrumental accompaniment in which traditions of trouveres are combined with new polyphonic art. Unfortunately, there is very little trustworthy information about the composer; the dates of his birth and death are approximate. There is a supposition that his Messe de Nostre Dame (the first known mass written by the composer) was dedicated to the coronation of the French king Charles V (Reims, 1364).

The name of B. Britten is known all over the world. In his vast and varied heritage, vocal genres, from operas to songs, occupy the chief place. His Ceremony of Carols is a circle of Christmas songs. Originally intended for a choir of children and harp, it is pierced with tenderness and purity. The texts are taken from medieval carols. Chamber Choir under V. Nesterov, a musician of great talent, appeared in 1967 at the Leningrad Choral Society and has been giving performances for more than 15 years, invariably winning the hearts of the listeners through excellent performing, variety and unique programs. --- cdkmusic.com

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