Benjamin Britten's War Requiem of 1958 remains one of the composer's most popular works, and a host of new recordings and reissues surfaced in connection with the composer's centennial year of 2013. This one from conductor Antonio Pappano and musicians and singers from the venerable Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia has a satisfying way of seeming to reflect Britten's own aims for the work. There are smoother choristers in some of the purely English versions of the work. But internationalism was part of Britten's plan. ...
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Benjamin Britten's War Requiem of 1958 remains one of the composer's most popular works, and a host of new recordings and reissues surfaced in connection with the composer's centennial year of 2013. This one from conductor Antonio Pappano and musicians and singers from the venerable Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia has a satisfying way of seeming to reflect Britten's own aims for the work. There are smoother choristers in some of the purely English versions of the work. But internationalism was part of Britten's plan. He wrote the work for soloists from the countries of the wartime combatants: a Russian soprano (Galina Vishnevskaya), a British tenor (Peter Pears), and a German baritone (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau). Here the German baritone is replaced by American Thomas Hampson. But the fundamental contrasts Britten built into the work, among its three singers and among its various sections of text, are nicely realized. The highlight is Anna Netrebko in the Vishnevskaya soprano part. The soprano...
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