Britten War Requiem

Britten: War Requiem

»My subject is War, and the pity of War, The Poetry is in the pity… All a poet can do today is warn.«

Britten: War Requiem / Teodor Currentzis

Benjamin Britten was a passionate pacifist. With his »War Requiem« of 1961, he composed his most impressive and moving confessional work in 1961, which is considered one of the central works of the 20th century against war and in favour of peace. With this key work, Teodor Currentzis delivers the musical epilogue for the Hamburg International Music Festival and closes the programmatic arc of the motto »War and Peace«. The star conductor comes to Hamburg once again in his role as chief conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra and has engaged baritone Matthias Goerne, among others, for the hugely scored »War Requiem« alongside his orchestra and three formidable choirs. Britten wrote his »War Requiem« to commemorate the devastating air raid on Coventry in 1940 and for the consecration of the rebuilt cathedral in the city. The composer himself conducted the acclaimed 1962 premiere of this monumental composition for orchestra, choirs, three solo singers and organ. The soloists back then included Goerne’s teacher Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. However, Britten’s »War Requiem« is not simply a protest against all forms of inhumanity and the wars of the 20th century. His requiem mass, which ends with a prayer for eternal peace, has lost none of its power or relevance.

Kaiser Requiem

With ‘KaiserRequiem’, Omer Meir Wellber defies convention by interweaving Ullmann's chamber opera, rescued from the Nazi terror, with Mozart's timeless masterpiece, the Requiem, composed in a face-to-face encounter with death in 1791.

Kaiser Requiem

With ‘KaiserRequiem’, Omer Meir Wellber defies convention by interweaving Ullmann's chamber opera, rescued from the Nazi terror, with Mozart's timeless masterpiece, the Requiem, composed in a face-to-face encounter with death in 1791.

Verdi "Messa da Requiem"

Mozart Requiem – Schubert »Unvollendete«

Cappella Amsterdam: Mozart's Requiem

The Concertgebouw’s famous Main Hall is one of the best concert halls in the world, well-known for its exceptional acoustics and special atmosphere. In the Main Hall, you will feel history. Here, Gustav Mahler conducted his own compositions, as did Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky. Sergei Rachmaninoff played his own piano concertos in the Main Hall. This is also where musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, Vladimir Horowitz and Yehudi Menuhin gave legendary performances. Right up to now, the Main Hall offers a stage to the world’s best orchestras and musicians. Buy your tickets now and experience the magic of the Main Hall for yourself!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Requiem

The pairing of Mozart’s Requiem with his penultimate symphony, No. 40, by one of the foremost Baroque ensembles in the world, Bach Collegium Japan, with its principal conductor Masato Suzuki at the podium.

NOSPR / Alsop / Requiem as a tribute

“It is with greatest ease and willingness that I am working on this Concerto and, nota bene, I feel that this is going to be a first-class trick” – these words from a letter by Karol Szymanowski are proof of how important the Symphony No. 4 was for the composer. It was his unfulfilled dream of a “true” piano concerto. One of a pianistic tour de force, the first sketches of which he dropped to focus on the Stabat Mater he was working on back then. The moving „Peasant Requiem” (such was the title Szymanowski had originally intended for the work), born out of the pain he experienced after his niece’s death, it brings together religious ecstasy and a note of the Polish folklore to be heard in a recollection of the popular Bitter Lamentations resonating in the composer’s memory.How different was that world from the instrumental Chaconne by Krzysztof Penderecki! The latter is an expressive musical tribute to the memory of the late Polish Pope. It was this piece that provided a symbolic closure for the Polish Requiem, which Penderecki had been working on for a quarter of a century – a monumental chronicle of Poland’s modern history, the melancholic finale of which contains both a nostalgia for the baroque tradition and emotions of a surprisingly romantic nature.Róża ŚwiatczyńskaConcert duration (intermission included): approximately 90 minutes