Coventry commissions a second post-War requiem
NewsCoventry Cathedral has commissioned a 60th anniersary work from Nitin Sawhney in commemoration of Britten’s War Requiem.
The new work, titled Ghosts in the Ruins, will be premiered on January 27. The composer says: ‘It seemed the best way to approach this was to work with voices within the new cathedral building as well as the ruins of the original cathedral bombed in WWII.’
The Dean of Coventry Cathedral said: ‘As we begin our Diamond Jubilee year, we are delighted to be working with Nitin, who has a deep appreciation of the significance of Britten’s legacy and will help lift it into the next generation.’
BBC report here.
Can’t wait:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiy_A24hx0s
Seems to me like all those ‘remakes’ of classic films, virtually none of which is equal to, let alone better than, the original. Whatever next – will the Royal Opera House commission a new ‘Meistersinger’ or ‘Boris Godunov’? I am not much of a Britten fan, maybe my own failing, but the War Requiem packs a punch and I pity any hapless composer who risks creating what may turn out to be a risible also-ran nonentity when the inevitable comparisons are made.
Good point. Sawhney’s music sounds like Philip Glass, Nino Rota and Astor Piazzolla met up for a few beers, then, sufficiently inebriated, penned something. Add on some New Age ambient doodling and you have it.
I fear there will not be much point in comparing Sawheny to Britten, as the former is primarily a composer of film and TV music, and, as an admittedly gifted guitarist and pianist, much more the instrumentalist than a trained composer per se.
Pity that Coventry did not alight on the idea of Master of the Queen’s Music Judith Weir. Much the better candidate.
It seems that they entirely ignored the existence of serious composers altogether. They went for pop, probably to attract the attention of ‘younger people’ to something that happened in a world war (which? where? when?). Very sad.
Having sung it to an unbelievably tearful audience in the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, H G, I fully concur with your sentiments.
Confectionary kitsch.
…and I note that the first performance will be on Mozart’s birthday! He (almost) did a good line in Requiems!
Perhaps we ought to be grateful that no-one composed follow-ups to Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis/Mozart’s Requiem and Verdi’s Requiem. The only one worthy of note was Rossini’s Petite Messe Solonnelle and that was composed as a satire.
Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle is not a satire, but as much an entirely serious work (insofar as late Rossini in general is serious) as Verdi’s Requiem, which was composed after the Rossini and in fact had its origins in a collaborative requiem composed on the occasion of Rossini’s death.
A moot point. The Petite Messe Solennelle (1863), with its self-deprecating and ironic title, was described by Rossini as the “last mortal sin of my old age” and forms part of the “péchés de vieillesse”, a cycle of some 150 chamber works performed at Saturday soirées in his villa in Passy.
The ‘envoi’ reads: “Dear God, there you have it, finished, this poor little mass. Is it really sacred music or is it damned music that I have created? I was born for opera buffa, as you well know! Little technique, a little heart, that is all. So may you be blessed and grant me Paradise.”
Let’s hope it gets as many performances of War Requiem. Heather Harper showed me her list of over 200 performances, tge last in Nurenberg on her 65th birthday, and without all the other sopranos who sung it nicely too! Wish the new Requiem much success.