Talk:War Requiem

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article falls within the scope of the WikiProject contemporary music, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of contemporary music subjects. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
War Requiem is within the scope of WikiProject Classical music, which aims to improve, expand, cleanup, and maintain all articles related to classical music, that aren't covered by other classical music related projects. Please read the guidelines for writing and maintaining articles. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
This article is supported by the Compositions task force.


This article is within the scope of WikiProject Albums, an attempt at building a useful resource on recordings from a variety of genres. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

The article has not been rated for quality and/or importance yet. Please rate the article and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

I challenge the link from "diabolus in musica" to the "diabolical nature of war". It is expressed in weasel words, and I doubt that Britten would choose such a fundamental part of the requiem on such a flimsy basis. --Hugh7 09:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. It's widely accepted to represent (by the harmonic distance between the notes of a tritone) the non-physical 'distance' between warring opponents - the distance that Britten seeks to reconcile. I'll modify this in the next few days in the absence of any further comment. --Chrisjohnson 12:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: the two previous comments, I've now done changed this section. Chrisjohnson 13:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


I've reverted a sentence of mine ("The interval is used both in contexts which emphasise the harmonic distance between C and F♯ and those which resolve them harmonically, mirroring the theme of conflict and reconciliation present throughout the work.") modified by MarkBuckles to its original form, which I feel is more accurate. I've left his 'Citation Needed' tag in, but the sentence is backed up by examples (of 'contexts which emphasise the harmonic distance between C and F♯ and those which resolve them harmonically') which occur later in the paragraph. Should the citation be moved to the end of the paragraph, since none of the material is directly quoted? (My sources are Mervyn Cooke's book on War Requiem, and the score - I'll fill in the details later when I have these to hand) Chrisjohnson 12:26, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

All the #s are showing up as ?s for me, would it be better to write 'sharp' instead of putting the symbol for it? KLF Fitton 15:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Original Research? Missing Citations?

I am concerned that much of this article appears to be original research: musical analysis performed by Wikipedia editors. If that is not the case, then it fails to cite its sources. --Dfeuer 23:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-liturgical?

"War Requiem, Opus 66 is a non-liturgical requiem..." seems to convey the wrong impression, even if it is technically correct. The Brahms and Delius are non-liturgical. War Requiem is liturgical-plus, so to speak. Is there a better way of putting it? David Brooks 00:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm no musicologist. What is the distinction between a liturgical and non-liturgical requiem? Is the liturgical used when a mass is actually being celebrated?Dynzmoar 13:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

essentially yes, or perhaps more accurately a "liturgical" setting could be used in an actual requiem service. Hence the Brahms and Delies Requiems mentioned above do not use much (if any) of the traditional liturgy, although their composers chose to title them as such and the idea was to produce a work with a similar intent. The War Requiem does contain much of the text traditionally set for liturgical purposes, but since it also contains the interpolated war poetry (which could not be omitted) it also could not be used in a liturgical context. See the article requiem for more info. David Underdown 12:00, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I was there. Yes I am serious.

By the way, this is very good work - thanks to everybody who has contributed to this article. Yup. I was eleven years old from a choir near Stuttgart, South Germany and I had the divine privilege to be a PART of this choir! A Südwestfunk production from November 30, 1985. Must've been one of the greatest moments in my life. This was SO difficult to sing, but it was so incredibly magnificent. Pity there is no Nobel Prize for contemporary symphonic music. -andy 80.129.117.44 14:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Perhaps I'm not reading this correctly....

The article states in the discussion regarding the technicalities of the music that a section "...include(s) the tritone as part of a dominant 7th chord." I may be reading it incorrectly, but the dom 7th chord wouldn't include a tone that's a tritone from the tonic -- it would be a perfect 4th. The major 7th would include the tritone. I don't know if the chord in the music is a dom 7th or maj 7th, so I don't know if it's an incorrect chord name or if the tritone doesn't really show up... or if something else is happening entirely. Can anyone attend to this? —  MusicMaker5376 22:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] other Latin

It is mentioned that the tenor soloist transitions to the Latin Requiem text once. This is almost true, except that the text "Dona nobis pacem" is actually the only section of this piece where the composer himself departs from the tradional Requiem. 198.62.73.67 (talk) 13:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)