Voices of boys : the influence of Britten' s Missa brevis in D on his War requiem

Includes vita and abstract. --- Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Rochester, 2011.Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem of 1963 is a distinct monument in his career as a composer. Drawing largely on his own earlier music and works by other composers as sources for material, the piece has been described as “encyclopedic.” As such, it testifies to Britten’s matured skill and craft as a composer, much in the same way the B-Minor Mass relates to J. S. Bach. Many of the sources for the War Requiem are fairly obvious; for instance, Britten’s Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac is quoted directly in the Offertorium as “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young;” it also provides the material for the fugue on “Quam olim Abrahae promisisti” surrounding the “Parable.” Analysts have noted associations between the militaristic fanfares of the Dies irae of the War Requiem, Britten’s quintessential pacifist work, and those of earlier political pieces, including the Ballad of Heroes and Our Hunting Fathers, as well as the unavoidable connection to the Dies irae of his Sinfonia da Requiem. Critics have also been quick to point out similarities between the War Requiem and Verdi’s Requiem. Little attention, however, has been paid to the relationship between the War Requiem and Britten’s only other mass, the Missa Brevis in D, despite their having been written concurrently. A comparison of the two works illuminates striking similarities with respect to motifs, melodies, harmony, form, texture, style, and text setting. The paper unfolds in two sections. In the first part, a case will be made that the Missa Brevis may have been a model for sections of the War Requiem, particularly the four sections written for boys’ voices. This relationship will be demonstrated through analysis and examination of secondary sources. The second part of the paper concerns the hermeneutical significance of the Missa Brevis as a source through which passages in the War Requiem may be interpreted in a new light. Of particular interest is music borrowed from the Missa Brevis, incorporated into sections for boys’ voices in the War Requiem, and then further re-contextualized in English-language tropes of the War Requiem. By considering the new context of this borrowed material, the English texts take on new, often ironic, meaning