4th Bachchor Concert
Benjamin Britten: »War Requiem« op. 66
Heiliggeistkirche
Benjamin Britten’s »War Requiem« premiered in honour of the inauguration of Coventry Cathedral in 1962. The new building was erected next to the ruin of the old place of worship destroyed during the war. Britten uses this commission to create a milestone in the music of the after-war period. In commemoration of the fallen soldiers, he combines Latin mass texts with poems of the English poet Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) who died during the last days of World War I, aged 25. Britten sets his deeply rooted pacifist and humanitarian convictions to music. In the context of an intensifying East-West Conflict, he composes an opus that calls for worldwide peace, tolerance and understanding.