BRITTEN: WAR REQUIEM - BOSTRIDGE, KEENLYSIDE, NOSEDRA, LONDON SYMPHONY (2 CDS)

Britten: War Requiem

Gianadrea Noseda
London Symphony
Orchestra & Chorus
Ian Bostridge;
Simon Keenlyside;
Sabina Cvilak

“Noseda seeks to take the audience from the edge of consciousness to the blazing fires of the battlefield…Bostridge spins a beautiful line … Keenlyside is excellent throughout…Decisive and confident, Sabina Cvilak has the Slavic edge that has seemed hard-wired into the part since the incomparable Vishnevskaya” (Gramophone)

“a scintillating achievement…Sabina Cvilak’s soprano has the focus … Bostridge brings piercing sincerity … Keenlyside – sonorous, commanding … an important issue: Noseda’s judgement of pace is unerring, and the orchestra and chorus simply superb. (BBC Music 4*)

“LSO and Chorus are on cracking form, the soloists are as good as you will get…No one should be without (Britten’s) but 50 years later, Noseda’s dramatic, pulsating account represents another landmark.” (Financial Times)

Disc 1
1. i. Requiem Aeternam – Requiem aeternam 3:36
2. ii. Requiem Aeternam – Te decet hymnus 3:00
3. iii. Requiem Aeternam ‘What passing-bells for these
who die as cattle?’ 2:36
4. iv. Requiem Aeternam – Kyrie eleison 1:32
5. v. Dies Irae – Dies irae 3:31
6. vi. Dies Irae – “Bugles sang, saddening the evening air” 2:31
7. vii. Dies Irae – Liber scriptus 2:59
8. viii. Dies Irae – “Out there, we’ve walked
quite friendly up to Death” 1:41
9. ix. Dies Irae – Recordare Iesu pie 3:50
10. x. Dies Irae – Confutatis maledictis 1:04
11. xi. Dies Irae – “Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm” 2:09
12. xii. Dies Irae – Dies irae 3:00
13. xiii. Dies Irae – “Move him into the sun” 4:10
14. xiv. Dies Irae – Pie Iesu Domine 1:34
15. xv. Offertorium – Domine Jesu Christe 1:18
16. xvi. Offertorium – Sed signifer Sanctus 1:51
17. xvii. Offertorium – “So Abram rose, and clave the wood” 3:22
18. xvii. Offertorium – Hostias et preces tibi 2:39

Disc 2

1. xix. Sanctus – Sanctus 7:04
2. xx. Sanctus – “After the blast of lightning from the East” 3:33
3. xxi. Agnus Dei – “One ever hangs where shelled roads part” 3:09
4. xxii. Libera Me – Libera me 8:02
5. xxiii. Libera Me – “It seemed that out of battle I escaped” 2:50
6. xxiv. Libera Me – “ ‘None’, said the other” 6:49
7. xxv. Libera Me – “Let us sleep now…” In paradisum 4:26
8. xxvi. Libera Me – Requiescant in pace 1:15