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When Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem was premiered at Coventry Cathedral in 1962 to mourn the destruction and human losses of the Second World War, the three soloists invited to take part were, symbolically, an English tenor, a German baritone and a Russian soprano (though the latter was prevented from participating by the Soviet authorities).
This BBC Proms performance, whether by accident or design, featured an English tenor (Allan Clayton), an American baritone (Will Liverman) and a Welsh–Ukrainian soprano (Natalya Romaniw). Perhaps no Russian soprano was available.
But perhaps also it was no coincidence that an advertisement booked for the programme by the Peace Pledge Union – of which Britten was a supporter throughout his life – was deemed “political” by BBC impartiality rules and rejected. That a pacifist message should be suppressed at a performance of the War Requiem is an uncomfortable irony symptomatic of the world we live in.
There was no doubt, however, of the sincerity of this performance, by LSO and other forces under Antonio Pappano. The way the artillery thunderclaps and bugle rallies, depicted by timpani and trumpets respectively, ricocheted round this reverberant space all added to the theatricality of the work, especially in the hands of such a master of dramatic tension as Pappano.
The monstrous cherrypicker-style camera that hovers over the orchestra in the Albert Hall at televised events could almost be a visualisation of the war poet Wilfred Owens’ memorable evocation of heavy artillery: “Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm”. And sure enough it swung into action at that point.
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But there was subtlety too in Pappano’s handling of the orchestra: the pungent, whistling sound emitted by the woodwind for the “green thick odour“ of Death, the angelic halo of string harmonics and harp created by the chamber orchestra, the almost unbearably poignant oboe, bassoon and horn solos to express the hopelessness and “pity of war” in the baritone’s final solo.
Clayton modulated skillfully from full-tone declamation down to a thread of sound for “Move him into the sun”. Occasionally he deployed a decentred tone recalling the visionary moments of his Peter Grimes. Liverman was able to convey the anger of “Be slowly lifted up” without any sacrifice in tonal quality. Romaniw, elevated prominently in front of the organ, delivered a grief-stricken “Lacrimosa dies illa”.
There were first-rate contributions too from the BBC and London Symphony Choruses and from the Tiffin Boys’ Choir, the latter’s seraphic treble voices floating down from the gallery.
You may catch more of the words in the radio and television broadcasts and the balance may be better, but there’s no substitute for being part of a preternaturally silent, rapt audience absorbing every nuance in an act of communal reflection. This was one of those occasions to treasure that the Proms has historically done so well.
