MEDIA RELEASE
October 2013
Adelaide Festival Centre and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra present
Brittens War Requiem
As part of Benjamin Brittens centenary celebrations, Adelaide Festival Centre and the Adelaide Symphony
Orchestra, under Chief Conductor Arvo Volmer, will perform the composers hugely powerful War Requiem for
one night only on Saturday 2 November, 8pm in the Festival Theatre.
Composed for two orchestras, massed choirs and soloists, this grand scale performance will have 300 musicians on
stage, and features soprano Dina Kuznetsova, tenor Andrew Staples and bass Marcus Farnsworth, the Adelaide
Symphony Chorus and Young Adelaide Voices.
War Requiem it is Brittens deeply moving masterpiece condemning war, and the politics of hate. First performed in
May 1962, the work was commissioned to mark the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was
destroyed in the Second World War.
The work combines the traditional Latin Requiem mass text with anti-war poems by World War I poet, Wilfred Owen
to create a work of immense power and great beauty. On the title page of the score, the composer quotes Owen:
My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. All a poet can do today is warn
Volmer says, There are few pieces of music which have such a significant meaning or that carry such a weight of
humanity. This is definitely one of them, like Beethovens Ninth and Mahlers Eighth.
Peaceful existence, tolerance and empathy are eternal issues of mankind and are key to our survival. This work, with
its powerful themes remains as relevant today as ever.
Five-time Adelaide Festival Director, Anthony Steel, was in the audience in Coventry Cathedral for the World
Premiere in 1962 and described it as, One of the most intensely moving musical experiences of my life.
The war may have been over for 17 years, but to hear Wilfred Owens searing poetry set so magnificently, by
confirmed pacifist Britten, between the different parts of the Latin Mass for the Dead, and the symbolism of his
choice of a Russian, a German and an Englishman as soloists was quite overwhelming. Particularly in the setting of the
magnificent new church that Sir Basil Spence had designed to sit amongst the ruins of its destroyed 14th century
predecessor, said Steel.
We are lucky indeed to get this chance to hear one of the 20th centurys undisputed masterpieces.
WAR REQUIEM
WHEN Saturday 2 November, 8pm
WHERE Festival Theatre
BOOKINGS BASS www.bass.net.au or 131 246
MEDIA ENQUIRIES
CONTACT Kate Sewell, Publicist, ASO
08 8233 6205/0431 228 859/[email protected]
http://www.bass.net.au/events/aso-masters-7.aspxmailto:[email protected]
