INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW
Summer, 2006

Britten: War Requiem/London Philharmonic Orchestra LPO0010

Marc Rochester

The War Requiem has inspired some unusually fine recordings, and you would he hard pressed to find a seriously disappointing version at any price today. For his part Kurt Masur has recorded the work before (in 1997 with the New York Philharmonic on Teldec) and has spoken of his strong emotional affinity with its subject-matter: 'I know exactly what war means. At the end of World War Two I was a 17-year-old soldier: a prisoner of war. We had to give up our weapons; we had to come to terms with the fact that we had lost, and we learned just how much damage Hitler had done. When I first came to England, I visited Coventry and was deeply moved by what I saw. I grew up from then on with a very strong desire for peace.' That, alone, should guarantee a reading of exceptional impact.

But there is more to this live recording than that. The concert took place on the sixtieth anniversary of the ending of the war in Europe, and was held in London's Royal Festival Hall. So we have not only the unique significance of the event, but for those, like myself, who were musically brought up in the Royal Festival Hall, there is the added significance of hearing a sound we shall never hear again. On that level, Andrew Walton has done a magnificent job in re-creating the unique sound of the place without admitting too many of its manifest flaws.

Spiritual and emotional (not to say, nostalgic) resonances apart, this recording still stands proudly alongside anything in the current catalogues. Masur's focused, powerfully perceptive reading impresses with its overwhelming sense of structure and propose, drawing from the score every ounce of anger, bitterness, resignation, tragedy, pathos and ecstasy. It seems that, in these 85 minutes, every emotion known to mankind is brought vividly to the surface, something only Carlo Maria Giulini has come close to achieving in his 1969 legendary recording.

Clearly the LPO itself was as much inspired by the occasion as anyone; you hear it in the impeccable precision of the woodwind, the searing brass fanfares and the scintillating string tone, possibly more cohesive and intense than the LPO strings have sounded for a long time. It is also greatly inspired by Masur's blazing intensity and responds in a way orchestras can respond only when it is confronted with a conductor of exceptional authority.

Of the soloists, I doubt whether any soprano - with the possible exception of Heather Harper (on Chandos) - has come close to the astonishing power and authority Christine Brewer brings to this performance. Gerald Finley, too, is enormously impressive, even if Fischer-Dieskau (for Decca) has an authority which transcends artistic or vocal means. Only with Anthony Dean Griffey do I find myself a little uneasy. True, he brings a matchless sense of bitterness and irony to his opening verses from Wilfred Owen, but there is the inescapable legacy of Peter Pears to overcome (the tenor on both the Britten and Giulini sets), and while Philip Langridge has enough echoes of Pears to make his contribution for the Chandos set utterly assured, it will take many more hearings to be totally convinced by Griffey's very different approach. However, with such outstanding singing from the LPO Choir, trained, as ever, to the point of near-perfection by Neville Creed, and the always-impressive Tiffin Boys' Choir, this is a recording which deserves as many repeated hearings as it can get.