or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
31 used & new from £9.68
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Britten: War Requiem
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images

Britten: War Requiem [Box set] [Original recording remastered]

~ Lord Benjamin Britten
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
Price: £12.58 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Usually dispatched within 5 to 9 days.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

26 new from £9.68 3 used from £16.12 2 collectible from £19.99

Special Offers and Product Promotions

Frequently Bought Together

Britten: War Requiem + Britten: Peter Grimes + Works of Igor Stravinsky [Box Set]
Price For All Three: £46.03

Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Britten: Peter Grimes

Britten: Peter Grimes

~ Peter Pears
5.0 out of 5 stars (3)  £9.88
Britten: Peter Grimes

Britten: Peter Grimes

~ Benjamin Britten
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £15.98
Works of Igor Stravinsky [Box Set]

Works of Igor Stravinsky [Box Set]

~ Donald Gramm
4.9 out of 5 stars (26)  £23.57
Vaughan Williams: Choral Works

Vaughan Williams: Choral Works

~ Ralph Vaughan Williams
5.0 out of 5 stars (6)  £4.37
Britten: Serenade/Les Illuminations

Britten: Serenade/Les Illuminations

~ Benjamin Britten
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £7.98
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Audio CD (15 May 2006)
  • SPARS Code: ADD
  • Number of Discs: 2
  • Format: Box set, Original recording remastered
  • Label: Universal Classics
  • ASIN: B000E6EGXM
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 600 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

    Popular in these categories:

    #1 in  Music > Opera & Vocal > Choral > Religious > Requiem
    #5 in  Music > Opera & Vocal > Opera
    #21 in  Music > Classical Instrumental

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

  (What is this?)
   Galina Vishnevskaya opens new browser window
www.russiatoday.com  -  Galina Vishnevskaya in the News Read Interviews, Watch TV Feeds. 
  
 
Disc: 1
1. Requiem aeternam - London Symphony Chorus, The Bach Choir, Highgate School Choir, Melos Ensemble, Simon Preston, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
2. What passing bells for these who die as cattle? - Peter Pears, Melos Ensemble, The Bach Choir, London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
3. Dies irae - London Symphony Chorus, The Bach Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
4. Bugles sang, saddening the evening air - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Melos Ensemble, Benjamin Britten
5. Liber scriptus proferetur - Galina Vishnevskaya, London Symphony Chorus, The Bach Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
6. Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death - Peter Pears, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Melos Ensemble, Benjamin Britten
7. Recordare Jesu pie - London Symphony Chorus, The Bach Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
8. Be slowly lifted up - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Melos Ensemble, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
9. Dies irae - London Symphony Chorus, The Bach Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
10. Lacrimosa dies illa - Galina Vishnevskaya, London Symphony Chorus, The Bach Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
See all 15 tracks on this disc
Disc: 2
1. One ever hangs where shelled roads part - Peter Pears, London Symphony Chorus, The Bach Choir, Melos Ensemble, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
2. Libera me, Domine - Galina Vishnevskaya, London Symphony Chorus, The Bach Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
3. It seemed that out of battle I escaped - Peter Pears, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Melos Ensemble, Benjamin Britten
4. Let us sleep now...In paradisum - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Peter Pears, Galina Vishnevskaya, Highgate School Boys' Choir, London Symphony Chorus, The Bach Choir, Melos Ensemble, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
5. Requiem Aeternam (Rehearsal) - The Bach Choir, London Symphony Chorus, Highgate School Choir, Simon Preston, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
6. Dies Irae (Rehearsal) - Galina Vishnevskaya, The Bach Choir, London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
7. Dies Irae (Rehearsal) - Galina Vishnevskaya, John Culshaw, The Bach Choir, London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
8. Dies Irae (Rehearsal) - Galina Vishnevskaya, The Bach Choir, Highgate School Choir, London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
9. Offertorium (Rehearsal) - Peter Pears, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, The Bach Choir, London Symphony Chorus, Highgate School Choir, Melos Ensemble, Simon Preston, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
10. Sanctus (Rehearsal) - Galina Vishnevskaya, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, The Bach Choir, Highgate School Choir, London Symphony Chorus, The Melos Ensemble Of London, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
See all 15 tracks on this disc

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
classical music
classical
music
britten
benjamin britten

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
63 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars STILL REMAINS THE BEST, 22 Aug 2006
By Klingsor Tristan (Suffolk) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
This was the piece of music that first really turned me on to classical music, listening to the very first performance from Coventry Cathedral on a small tranny radio. What I failed to realise then was that this massive impact was achieved by brilliant structural simplicity.

The whole work is effectively a study on the tritone, the 'diabolus in musica', that most disturbing and unstable of intervals. From the bells at the start to the harmonically ambiguous endings of the first and second movements and of the entire work; from the alternating tonics of the boys' Te Decet Hymnus to the alternating tintinnabulations of the soprano's Sanctus; from the fanfares of the Dies Irae to the two halves of the tenor's ineffable Dona Nobis Pacem at the end of the Agnus Dei. All these and countless other examples revolve around or grow out of the tritone. And what better musical image for war could there be than those two most irreconcilable notes in the scale?

Then, of course, there is the inspired concept of juxtaposing the hieratic incantations of the Latin Mass for the Dead with the burning anger of Wilfred Owen's First World War poems. There are, in fact, three tiers of performers in the War Requiem - the boys' choir and chamber organ, objective and dissociated in the distance; the soprano, chorus and orchestra singing the Latin Mass at, as it were, the centre of things; and the tenor and baritone with the chamber orchestra delivering Owen's bitter poems in the intimate and confidential foreground. The different perspectives of these three groups are a vital aspect of any performance and are ideally realised by producer, John Culshaw (of Golden Ring fame) and his team on this premiere recording.

After that first performance and subsequent ones in London, this recording was awaited with great anticipation. But even the most optimistic marketing man at Decca wasn't prepared for the overnight success of the enterprise. Classical music albums - especially of new music - weren't supposed to sell like that. From the iconic (and, at the time, unique) simplicity of the cover to the superlative standard of the recorded sound, never mind the quality of the performance itself, it outstripped the highest expectations.

And what of this performance? These were the performers for whom the piece was written - from the three soloists (specifically, a Russian, an Englishman and a German) to the inimitable Jimmy Blades in the chamber orchestra's percussion department. Famously, the Soviet Minster of Culture prevented Vishnevskaya from performing at the premiere and Heather Harper had to stand in and learn her part in just 10 days. By the time she recorded the part, her voice was not what it was in 1962. The purity of tone and the anguished commitment of her singing at moments like the Lacrymosa that one remembers from those first performances are very different from the more distanced interpretation with a touch of Slavic wobble that we get from Vishnevskaya. Different, but not necessarily better or worse. Pears and Fischer-Dieskau are, dare I say, peerless. Glorious singing from both: human, bitter, angry, touching, heartbreaking (Move Him into the Sun), heart-restoring as they duet the two dead enemies of Strange Meeting to sleep. The touch of a German accent in Fischer-Dieskau's otherwise immaculate English puts a new perspective on many of the poems that fall to his part (not just Strange Meeting) - but, after all, the Germans must have shared all the same feelings that Owen expressed so poignantly in his poetry.

As for Britten's control over all these forces (the first time, I think, that he hadn't shared the conducting, usually with Meredith Davies), it is as masterly as you would expect from the creator of it all - and one who was an illuminating conductor, too, both in his own and in others' music.

There have been many other recordings since this one. Some may have matched it in some departments some of the time. None can touch it for its inspired expression of a masterpiece, fresh from the making.
Comment Comments (3) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the great classic recordings of the 20th Century, 4 Jan 2009
By Colin Fortune (Birmingham, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
The review by Klingsor Tristan is spot on and he is right to be so enthusiastic. The work itself has a claim to be one of the greatest works composed in the 20th Century and the searing commitment of all the performers in this first recording is almost palpable. The latest remastering eliminates almost all hiss and exposes clearly some of the remarkable quiet scoring of the work as well as delivering speaker-shaking cataclysmic Decca sound in sections like the "Dies Irae." The murmuring choral crescendo in the "Sanctus" is the best achieved on disc. Quite wonderful.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Britten: War Requiem
92% buy the item featured on this page:
Britten: War Requiem 5.0 out of 5 stars (2)
£12.58
Britten: War Requiem
2% buy
Britten: War Requiem 4.8 out of 5 stars (5)
£8.79
War Requiem/Morning Heroes (Rattle, Groves)
2% buy
War Requiem/Morning Heroes (Rattle, Groves)
£6.98
Britten: Peter Grimes
2% buy
Britten: Peter Grimes 5.0 out of 5 stars (3)
£9.88
Explore similar items

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject





i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.