Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem Choir reunited for local newspaper ad

A group of boys’ choir who sang Benjamin Britten’s world-famous War Requiem are reunited thanks to an advert in a local newspaper.

Made in 1963, the record sold 200,000 copies in just five months (almost unheard of for a classical work) and won Britten two Grammy Awards – but from London’s Haute Marine The choir members from Gert’s school never appear in the closing credits.

Last year, Decca Records Start searching for surviving members, A notice was published in the London newspaper “Ham & High”.

Fifteen of them reunited in Soho on Thursday to listen to a clean version of the Requiem and relive the “grueling” experience of recording Britten’s masterpiece.

“It was like living through a huge storm, a huge orchestral storm,” recalls Tim Healey, who was 13 at the time of the original recording.

“When it’s over, I’m glad it’s over – but you look back and think, ‘That was great’.”

Former choir member Nigel Law added: “I still remember the first day, it was a crushing defeat, thank you [Russian soprano] Galina Vishnevskaya is totally rocked.

“It was so disturbing to hear this woman scream.”

According to producer John Culshaw, Vishnevskaya was upset because she was placed on the balcony next to teenage choir boys.

She did not realize that the work was conceived on a different physical level, with the soprano and chorus standing above the other singers, representing heaven.

Instead, she considered her position “a form of discrimination” because the male soloists Peter Pears and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau were at the front, close to the conductor.

“I just knew she didn’t want to be with us boys,” Healy said.

“That’s all I take away from it.”

The War Requiem was commissioned in 1962 to mark the opening of the new Coventry Cathedral, after the original 14th-century building was destroyed by World War II bombing.

It interweaves a traditional Latin requiem mass with anti-war poetry by soldier Wilfred Owen, who was killed a week before the Armistice.

The piece is deeply moving, often heart-wrenching, and was immediately declared a masterpiece.

Reviewing the world premiere in 1962, the Times’ critic, William Mann, wrote that the Requiem was “so superbly proportioned and calculated, so humiliating and disturbing in effect, in fact so tremendous, that every performance it is given ought to be a momentous occasion.”

The 1963 recording was made at Kingsway Hall in Holborn, and the influence of Owen’s poetry was not lost on the young choir members.

“When the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out in early 1963, it had immediate and horrific repercussions,” Healey told the BBC.

“You know, we were on the brink of extinction as a whole, so those anti-war lyrics, especially that song ‘In vain,’ had a profound impact on me.

“You know, what’s the point of all this? What’s the point of trying to succeed in a singing competition or an English essay if it’s all over tomorrow?”

Decca Records recently reissued War Requiem, preserving the fragile 1963 master tapes through baking and digitization.

In the process of preparing the new mix, the label also discovered original rehearsal recordings of Britten conducting the choir himself.

“Kids, I know it’s first thing in the morning, but please don’t make it sound like this,” he can be heard telling the teens.

“Don’t make it sound good. It’s scary, it’s modern music.”

Hearing these comments “put me right back in the studio,” Law said, explaining that Britten’s use of tonal ambiguity “didn’t fit into the normal frame of reference for a school choir.”

“I think we should sound good,” Healy agreed. “I didn’t really realize he was looking for more earthiness and more bite.”

“It definitely gave me the courage to sing out loud,” added Hedley Rokos, who was 16 at the time of the recording.

“It must serve his purpose, otherwise he would ask us to rebalance.”

The 1963 recording is still considered one of the definitive versions of the War Requiem, alongside Richard Hickox’s famous 1991 recording and the 1969 recording by Carlo Maria Giulini (Carlo Maria Giulini) conducting a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall.

Britten was later awarded a life peerage, the first musician or composer to be elevated to the peerage. After his death in 1976, stories emerged about his obsession with teenage boys, which somewhat obscured his legacy – although biographers believe he never crossed the line into abusive behavior.

The accusations were not on the minds of choir members who reunited on Thursday and said they remembered the “emotion, excitement and fun” of recording with Britten.

Many boys went on to achieve successful careers in music, including the famous composer John Rutter and John Blakely, who was a professor at the Royal College of Music for more than 30 years.

Others attending Thursday’s event went in a different direction. Nigel Law became a software engineer, Roderick Langley Shelton became an architect and Michael Cook ran a charity for people working in the dairy industry .

Healy said it was “absolutely great” that the choir was back together after 60 years.

“There are people here whose names I’ve forgotten, whose place in my life I’ve forgotten, and it’s great to get to know them again.

“It’s absolutely overwhelming.”