In collaboration with the Providence Singers, the Boston Children’s Chorus, and the New England Philharmonic. Performed under the direction of Richard Pittman. With Sarah Pelletier, soprano; Frank Kelley, tenor; Sumner Thompson, baritone.

Britten’s War Requiem is one of the greatest compositions of the 20th century and one of the most profound statements of a pacifist point of view in all of classical music. Written for a commemoration of World War II—the reconsecration in 1962 of Coventry Cathedral—its roots lie deep in World War I, the horrible “war to end all wars.” The text intersperses the timeless words of the Latin Mass for the Dead with the poetry of Wilfred Owen, a World War I British soldier who was killed a week before the Armistice.

CpM’s performance in the US premiere of this work on July 27, 1963 with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood is on a commercially available DVD.