Bruce McKinney:

>Until you've SUNG this final passage, you have no idea of the special hell
>that Britten puts the chorus through.  The overtones that build up in those
>dissonant tri-tone chords can be almost physically affecting, and trying to
>keep the whole passage in tune can give you terrible head- and ear- aches.

The first time I did the War Requiem I was in the chorus, and the first
tutti rehearsal was responsible for giving me a special personal hell too.
But it wasn't the final passage - I don't recall that progression of chords
ever posing tremendous intonation problems, perhaps because the intervals
involved are small.  (There's nothing like Messiaen in the War Requiem!)
No, in my case it was something else entirely.  Something happened earlier
on in the piece which knocked me sideways, and the physical effect was so
powerful at the time that it has changed my entire conception of the work.

As you will know, the score includes an organ part, which is used mainly
to accompany the Boys' Choir in a very tinkly, churchy way.  In fact there
is a note in the score to say that the sound of the organ should be distant,
and a portable organ or harmonium could be used.  In the last movement, a
'grand organ' may optionally play with the orchestra.  For the rehearsal
in question (all previous chorus rehearsals had been with piano only) an
electronic organ was being used, with the console up near the front of the
orchestra and the large floor-standing speakers at the back.  The rehearsal
room was full to bursting with all the large forces needed for this work,
and as it happens I was wedged in against the wall, right next to these
loudspeakers, so I could hear the organ very clearly as it accompanied the
Boys' Choir.

The rehearsal was going pretty well and we came to the Libera Me.  This
starts very quietly with full orchestra and chorus and gradually becomes
more and more agitated and louder, with the Soprano soloist coming in with
"Tremens factus sum ego", and building up still further with "calamitatis
et miseriae" and so on.  Then there is an abrupt change of tempo, which is
at this point (Fig.  116) marked "Very broad, as at the start".

And at 116 not only the full orchestra but also the full 'grand organ' came
in with one of the most terrifying and stupefying sounds in the whole of
Christendom!  I got the full blast of this sudden mega-decibel organ sound
right in my ear, and was actually temporarily stunned.  It was like a scene
out of "Saving Private Ryan" (this was poetic justice indeed, being about
the World War and all that).  Now for this section the orchestra is playing
in 4/4 but the chorus is in 3/4, with four measures of 3/4 to every one of
the orchestra's 4/4 measures.  To make things more difficult, the chorus's
initial entries are often syncopated within this duality of rhythms, but
sometimes they are ON the beat.  It is virtually impossible to follow the
beats by ear, because there is so much going on and a lot of it is both
sostenuto and rubato.  But the conductor at this point is having to conduct
the orchestra rather than the chorus.  And of course the pitch is not very
easy to find.  So the whole thing is quite tricky even if it is not your
first rehearsal with the orchestra and even if you haven't just been
temporarily disabled and totally discombobulated.

But the point is, I actually experienced at that moment, in my person,
the physical correlative of the spiritual agony and turmoil being
portrayed with the desperate cry of 'Libera me'!  And ever since I had
that unfortunate experience (and I certainly wouldn't recommend it!), the
passage beginning at Fig.  116 (it precedes the Tenor solo "It seemed that
out of battle") has become for me the epicentre of the War Requiem, the
earth-quaking, mind-blowing spiritual and physical cataclysm which is the
climax and the very core of this consummate masterpiece.

But of course to really appreciate this you have to go to a live performance.

Alan Moss