Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, Op. 66 (composed 1961–62), is a large-scale choral-orchestral work written for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral and intended as a musical act of remembrance and reconciliation. Britten interweaves the traditional Latin Mass for the Dead with nine poems by Wilfred Owen, setting the liturgy and Owen’s trench-poetry in alternation so that the two texts comment on and undercut one another.

Scored for soprano, tenor and baritone soloists, mixed chorus, boys’ choir, organ, a full orchestra and a separate chamber orchestra, the work deliberately separates forces: the full orchestra with soprano and chorus handles the Latin liturgy, while a smaller chamber group accompanies the intimate Owen settings sung by tenor and baritone; the boys’ choir and organ provide distant, ritualistic sonorities. Britten’s interpolation of nine Owen poems is integral to the piece’s dramatic argument and pacing.

The premiere took place at the consecration festival for Coventry Cathedral on 30 May 1962. Britten originally intended the soloists to be Galina Vishnevskaya (soprano), Peter Pears (tenor) and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone) to symbolize international reconciliation; Vishnevskaya was prevented from travelling at the last minute and Heather Harper stepped in for the first performance. Meredith Davies conducted the full orchestra and chorus while Britten himself conducted the chamber ensemble.

Formally the War Requiem is presented in six large movements and lasts roughly 80–85 minutes; its design culminates in the final Libera me where, after long sections of separation, the soloists, choirs and both orchestras finally combine. Musically Britten uses recurring motifs (notably a recurring tritone) and a network of tonal and timbral contrasts to bind the disparate texts and forces into a single moral and musical argument about the human cost of war.