David Stewart wrote:

>Been listening to it.  Wondered if anyone could help me with an
>'interpretation' problem.  It is in the offertory where you get the 'quam
>olim Abraham promisisti et semimi ejus' juxtaposed with the rewritten old
>testament and the Hostias sung by the boys (which I have taken to be the
>symbol of innocence - of the soldiers perhaps? the cannon fodder?) and have
>found the experience bizarre.  It is made worse by the ALMOST whimsical
>lightness of the et semini ejus, the horrific? weight of the old testament
>and the purity of the Hostias.

I think Britten recognized the First World War as *the* obscene atrocity
of this century.  Unlike the Second World War, an outgrowth of the first,
in which there was a definable evil that had to be defeated, the First
World War was a pure exercise in national vanity, on the altar of which
scores of millions of people were doomed to die.  England and Germany
had no real claims against each other.  And aside from French revanchism,
there was no basis for hostility between Germany and France to warant the
snuffing out of so many young lives.  Nor did anybody have any bone of
contention with Russia.

The War Requiem, written for the consecration of a cathedral rebuilt after
it had been destroyed by air bombardment in the Second World War, actually
holds up the First World War as a rebuke to what liked to consider itself
civilized mankind.  It does so all the way through, perhaps as dramatically
as anywhere else, in the retelling of the tale of Abraham and Isaac.  Only,
when the tale was transferred from Biblical parable to real life, Abraham,
in the person of European leaders, could not be prevailed upon to stay
their hand from the slaughter of the young boy.  So the parable is revised
for modern consumption to have Abraham kill his son "and half the seed of
Europe, one by one" all against the background of the traditional Latin
text purporting to reassure us of Michael, the holy standard-bearer leading
the souls of the faithful into the holy light as God had promised Abraham
and his seed.

>1. Owen sees the world leaders at the time as Abraham and deliberately
>destroy one-by-one the seed of europe.  Britten simply for irony's sake
>sets it against Owens old testament and the boys who are to die make their
>presence felt which gives more weight to the 'crime' of the world leaders
>as they are responsible for their deaths.

That would be my take on this passage.

The *War Requiem* is one of my favorite choral works.  I also view it as a
rescission or revocation of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Walter Meyer