The Providence Singers: Britten War Requiem

“This is a crack ensemble, the like of which may not exist in our own city”

Boston Musical
Intelligencer
15 November 2009

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Essay: Ian Bostridge
Mervyn Cooke at Yale

Benjamin Britten

The Providence Singers
Chorus Pro Musica
Boston Children’s Chorus

New England Philharmonic

War Requiem

Betsy Burleigh  Artistic Director
Betsy Burleigh  Music Director
Anthony Trecek-King  Artistic Director
Michele Adams  Conducting
Richard Pittman  Music Director, Conducting

Sarah Pelletier Soprano | Frank Kelley Tenor | Sumner Thompson Baritone

3:30 p.m. Sunday, March 4, 2012
Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul Providence, Rhode Island

Also performed 8 p.m. Saturday, March 3, 2012
Cathedral of the Holy Cross Boston, Massachusetts

“My subject is War and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. ... All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.”

— Wilfred Owen

Benjamin Britten
(1913–1976)

War Requiem  (1962)
Commissioned for the Festival to Celebrate the Consecration of St. Michael’s Cathedral, Coventry

Incorporating the Latin Missa pro Defunctis and nine poems by Wilfred Owen

Full text (English and Latin)
Notes and questions  by Thomas Brooks
Of war and music  An essay by David Parker