Benjamin Britten - Cello Symphony; Sinfonia da Requiem (Mstislav Rostropovich; Benjamin Britten)

Information

Composer: Benjamin Britten

• Cello Symphony, Op. 68
• Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20
• Cantata misericordium, Op. 69

Mstislav Rostropovich, cello

Peter Pears, tenor / Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone

English Chamber Orchestra

New Philharmonia Orchestra

London Symphony Chorus & Orchestra

Benjamin Britten, conductor

Date: 1964; 1963

Label: Decca

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Review

It cannot be denied, good as the recent recordings of Britten's Cello Symphony have been (Yo-Yo Ma on CBS outstandingly good), interestingly varied though the interpretations of this elusive work are, the composer's own recording with Rostropovich, here transferred triumphantly to CD, surpasses them all. Under his direction, its tragic brooding, angry intensity and final, slightly unconvincing Jubilation coalesce into a compelling and sombre experience. He made the ECO play with an almost tangible tension.

Then, of course, there is Rostropovich himself. It is not merely his big tone, dictating terms and dominating climaxes, but that steely, precise pizzicato and the wonderful pianissimo playing. In the quiet sections he and Britten conspire together to create an extraordinary atmosphere of mystery and imminent tragedy. When the almost vulgar trumpet tune erupts in the finale, the release of tension is phenomenal. Perhaps, if one is to be hypercritical, the orchestral playing is occasionally ragged, but the whole point of this performance is that one senses that this is how the music sounded in its creator's mind and for that reason alone this recording is a pearl without price.

Britten's interpretation of his youthful Sinfonia da Requiem is also to be cherished. Simon Rattle's on EMI is more dramatic and better played, with a wider dynamic range and clearer detail, but the composer's performance has insights to which only he had the key and a clarification of the texture that shows how lovingly he regarded this memorial to his parents. The third work on this indispensable disc is the Cantata misericordium, a setting of the parable of the Good Samaritan, written to mark the centenary of the Red Cross. It is a spin-off from the War Requiem and I am not sure how durable occasional pieces like this will prove to be. But that was not Britten's concern when he composed it—''to be useful and to the living'' was his motto—and with the original soloists, Pears and Fischer-Dieskau, this performance presents the music in its best light.

— Gramophone

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Benjamin Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was a leading British composer, pianist and conductor. Trained at the Royal College of Music, he gained early acclaim with Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge and achieved international prominence with the opera Peter Grimes (1945). His major stage works include Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, and Death in Venice, alongside innovative church parables such as Curlew River. Co-founder of the Aldeburgh Festival, he also composed celebrated song cycles, choral works including the War Requiem, and notable orchestral and chamber music.

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Mstislav Rostropovich (27 March 1927 – 27 April 2007) was a Russian cellist and conductor, one of the best-known cellists of the 20th century. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, he was trained by his parents and at the Moscow Conservatory (1943–48), where he was a professor from 1956. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. Although sometimes criticized for occasional over-romanticism, Rostropovich was admired for his keen musicianship. He was also well known for both inspiring and commissioning new works (over 100 pieces), which enlarged the cello repertoire more than any cellist before or since.

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