Britten's 'War Requiem' - An Insight

Composed in 1961-62, the War Requiem is a culmination of Britten’s ‘middle-period’ style, and was a hard act to follow for the composer. It draws together a wide assortment of Britten’s techniques and fascinations, giving the piece what P. Evans describes as an “encyclopaedic quality”. These include such devices as stretched special separation of instruments, an influence of gamelan and Asian sounds, and a total belief in ‘drama’ pulling everything together.

In order to address the issue of text and music relationship, I’d like to refer to Nicholas Cook’s three models, namely conformance, contest, and complementation. There is much of the second model within the work; however the main contradictions do not in fact occur between music and language, but between music and music, and between words and words. That is to say, the juxtaposition of the Latin Mass setting is strongly discordant, both linguistically and musically with the excerpts of Wilfred Owen’s English poetry. It is the third of these models, complementation, which is therefore more relevant to the discussion. To try and put it concisely, this concerns music’s filling-in of any gaps left by words, assisting the text where it is not quite able to carry or convey an idea on its own. Perhaps the best example of this usage is demonstrated in the “Pleni sunt coeli...” passage of the Sanctus, wherein the use of all 12 notes of the scale and the expanding range of tones through increasingly higher octaves conveys more intensely the uncontainable nature of God’s glory in the totality of creation.

Nonetheless, all three models are called upon for their own advantages at different stages of the work, and through addressing examples of these occurrences, I intend to put forward an idea of what Britten might have had in mind when setting the texts.

Some of the clearest relationships to explore can be found within the Agnus Dei of the work. The movement is built within a framework, governed by two key cornerstones – the tritone relationship between C natural and F sharp that has first been encountered in the Requiem Aeternam is a very prominent overriding resonance. Comprising, and elaborating these two tones by a perfect 5^th in both directions is a constant semiquaver ostinato, which murmurs away throughout the movement, beginning primarily in the strings. These extensions by a 5^th either way establish a bitonality, outlining the keys of B minor and C major (described by Mervyn Cooke as the ‘neopolitan’) to, arguably, an equal value. 

Britten’s choice of time signature for this movement could not be more appropriately linked to the text in hand. The use of 5/16 evidently follows the syllabic stressing of the words, most notably in the “Agnus Dei...” lines. The two-bar ostinato central to the movement is inextricably related to the accentuations in the phrase; the way he has beamed the five semiquavers in groups of two, then three, (and vice versa for the second bar of the ostinato) indicates Britten’s strong intention to work closely on the lexical level of word-music relationship, in this instance operating within Cook’s first model of conformance.

Five beats within a bar was a favourite choice of time signature for Britten. Not unlike seven in a bar, it creates a very versatile rhythmic frame in which to set words. The apparent ‘loss’, or alternatively, ‘gaining’ of a beat allows for multiple divisions into two and three, making it ideal to cope with the often quite awkward and lumpy stress-related unpredictabilities of the English language. In the first phrase, for example – “One ever hangs where shelled roads part”, Britten, through having the 5/16 time signature, has been able to lengthen certain syllables, such as ‘e’- of “e – ver”, allowing each word the weight and emphasis it deserves within the musical line. The extra length given to “hangs” is suitable on a more semantic level. Working alongside the rather Wagnerian augmented IV-III suspension, essentially word-painting is in effect here.

This sense of flexibility is also encountered through the different tonal centres. Due to this, there is a sense of rhythmic and harmonic equality throughout the ostinato. Aided by a purposeful consistent pianissimo marking through the recurring rising and falling of the line, and a unison timbre, one gets an impression of timelessness. Without doubt, the ostinato is completely concurrent, if not coexisting with the religious text throughout, even when the words may not be present. The timelessness, in this regard, is therefore forcing the icon of the church into the background, representing it as an ever-present, ongoing tradition which seems submerged beneath the realities of war at the forefront.

“Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)

Based on a firm knowledge of Britten’s stance towards religion and war, it is fair to suggest the following: Britten is using Owen’s texts to highlight the hypocrisy of the Church and such priests who worship the idea of human sacrifice following that of Jesus Christ. Essentially, the extent to which the ostinato is in the background is so great, that it seems to be hinting at a complete obliviousness to the reality of the battlefield. Some recordings of the work accentuate this idea even more; I refer in particular to that of the London Philharmonic with Kurt Masur, in which the choir entries (especially that marked ppp at figure 97) are almost totally inaudible – the religious element is almost completely concealed.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had a theory that we should look at words however they are used in different languages and different contexts. He suggests it is not words themselves that contain meaning; instead people mean things through words. Significance is therefore dependent on the intentions and interests of people. I believe the War Requiem is very much a disciple to this notion. Both Britten and Owen were ambivalent towards Christianity, however both respected the religion for its moral grounding. Britten at one stage summarises, “Though I don’t believe in Christ, I believe in teaching”. However this piece is made interesting because of the fact that the focus is not the denoted meaning of the words themselves, but more precisely what Britten is communicating about himself through the texts. Even so, scholars are still debating what the piece means. What was the real reason behind Britten’s controversial juxtaposing of these two contesting texts? Britten himself was in fact a conscientious objector.  This, in fairness, makes him a hypocrite, along with the Church. Potentially the most fascinating moment in the whole piece is Britten’s substitution of “Dona eis pacem” with the Ordinary Mass version “Dona nobis pacem” at the end of the Agnus Dei. By saying ‘Grant us’ instead of ‘Grant them’, he is concluding the movement with the same hypocrisy he has been highlighting throughout, suggesting perhaps an honest admission of guilt. The call of “Agnus Dei” could in fact be the key to the entire Requiem – Britten’s cry for forgiveness.