Moving and powerful
Britten's ‘War Requiem’ with five choirs to commemorate the end of the war 80 years ago
In cooperation with the city of Weimar, the University of Music FRANZ LISZT invites you to a special performance: the university orchestra and chamber orchestra, three soloists and five different choirs will commemorate the end of the Second World War 80 years ago with Benjamin Britten's ‘War Requiem’ on Thursday, 8 May at 7:30 p.m. in the Weimarhalle. ‘Grand and moving’ is how artistic director Prof. Ekhart Wycik describes this musical memorial to the double liberation from war and National Socialism.
Ekhart Wycik, along with Prof. Jürgen Puschbeck and Marian Grosew, will conduct the orchestra and choirs, which are spread across the Weimarhalle and include a total of around 150 choristers. In addition to the University Choir and Chamber Choir, the Philharmonic Choir Weimar, the Collegium Canticum Weimar and the Children's and Youth Choir of the Music High School Schloss Belvedere will also be singing.
The soloists of the choral-symphonic concert are the Weimar vocal students Uma Singh (soprano), Felix Stöppler (tenor) and Joel Andreasson (baritone) from the class of Prof. Michael Gehrke.
‘In the War Requiem, Benjamin Britten juxtaposes the Latin requiem passages with large choral masses, solo soprano and large orchestra, with the intimate, contemplative lines of Wilfred Owens‘ poetry, which are committed to an overarching humanism,’ explains Prof. Ekhart Wycik.
‘Britten has the English lines of poetry sung by a solo tenor and solo baritone. These two, accompanied by an intimate chamber orchestra, represent two enemy soldiers who, despite the senselessness of their deaths, are ultimately united in the afterlife, sleeping peacefully.’
Admission tickets cost €20, or €15 for concessions, and are available from the Weimar Tourist Information Office and at the box office. Click here for tickets...
Benjamin Britten's ‘War Requiem’ op. 66 was premiered as a commissioned work by the composer himself on 30 May 1962 at the opening of the new St. Michael's Cathedral in Coventry. The German armed forces had completely destroyed the city of Coventry and its cathedral during the Second World War in the Battle of Britain. The War Requiem immediately became the most important British anti-war work of the 20th century.
The choral symphony is not a Christian requiem in the strict sense of the word. By combining the Latin mass with secular English-language poems, the aim is to spread a message of peace beyond the confines of the church.
The pacifist Britten emphasises this with an expressionistic setting in which he uses many contemporary stylistic devices. ‘The message is what counts,’ said Benjamin Britten about his composition, creating a memorial to peace and reconciliation that has not lost any of its meaning.
[1 April 2025]