Bernard Chasan wrote:

>Geoffrey Gaskell wrote:
>
>>Personally I think that Britten's War Requiem has a taste similar to Sweet
>>& Sour Pork with noodles.  Other people might consider the flavour more
>>akin to Whitchety Grubs, but that would be their concern and taste buds,
>>not mine.
>
>For me, it tastes like  a pretentious but mediocre wine(whine?)

Oh please.  That's a cheap shot professor Chasan, and I am rather
surprised to read such a comment from you.  Pretentious? I don't think
so.  Considering what the work was written for, I can't see that an
outcry against war to be performed amongst the ruins of a great work of
achitecture could be pretentious.  In my rather extensive reading about
Britten, I have never been led to believe that he was anything other than
sincere.  Whine? That's an even lower jab than pretentious.  Yes, the piece
is large, but so is the Verdi Requiem and the Symphony of a Thousand.  How
about Berlioz' Requiem? Now that's pretentious!  To be pretentious is to
aggrandize one's self, and I can't find evidence that Britten ever did
that.  In fact he was rather painfully shy and modest at times, and shunned
public adulation even after he became very famous.  I think that he left
us a great monument to reflect upon, one who's message cannot be repeated
often enough.

Kevin