Britten War Requiem

Rossen Milanov, Conductor

Abigail Rethwisch, soprano
Jonathan Burton, tenor
Andrew Garland, baritone
Columbus Symphony Chorus
Stephen Caracciolo, chorus director
Columbus Children’s Chorus
Jeanne Wohlgamuth, director

Britten: War Requiem

Experience Benjamin Britten’s powerful War Requiem, a testament to Britten’s lifelong pacifism. This massive work is scored for full symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra, three soloists, choir, boys’ choir, and organ, with texts from the Latin Requiem Mass and anti-war poems by Wilfred Owen, an English soldier killed in battle during World War I. Written for the reconsecration of the Coventry Cathedral, a monument destroyed during World War II, the War Requiem was premiered in 1962.

“Performing the War Requiem invites us all into a liminal space where we can consider peace through reconciliation as an alternative to going to battle within ourselves and with those around us.  Every time I hear these words from Wilfred Owen juxtaposed against the Mass for the Dead they convict me; ‘I am the enemy you killed, my friend.’  What I hear is a call to action, a reminder from the past that the future doesn’t need to come to that.  It is not too late to choose a different path as a society, in our relationships, and with our own self-actualization.” -Ernest Hoffman, Columbus Symphony Chorus, Tenor II