For his debut at the helm of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda returns to one of his favorite works, and one for which he has met with international acclaim: Benjamin Britten's monumental War Requiem. This 1962 masterwork was written for the consecration of the new cathedral in Coventry, England, built to replace the original 14th-century edifice that had been destroyed by German bombers in World War II.
Accompanied by an organ, a traditional choir and children's choir, and two orchestras, the three solo parts are taken up ably by Russian soprano Elena Stikhina, English tenor Mark Padmore, and German baritone Michael Volle, a symbol of postwar reconciliation. A soul-stirring and sometimes very painful meditation on the horror and loss of war, the War Requiem intersperses the traditional Latin text with poems by Wilfred Owen, himself a victim of the First World War.
