Customer Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic
Comment: This is a great performance of the Requiem, probably the finest piece of its kind written during the 20th Century. In that it's conducted by Britten with singers of his choice makes it the definitive performance of this work.
What's particularly wonderful are the rehearsal tapes, which take up much of the second disc. It's a rare privilege to hear the composer tell the performers exactly what he wants from the music. Britten clearly knew what he wanted and conveyed that to the performers with grace and humor.
Highly recommended!!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: i don/t have the cds yet, but...
Comment: they are on my list for my next order from amazon. i had this on vinyl back in those days, and *loved* it. it is a beautiful and moving work. the one star review (which occasioned me posting this) is plain *wrong*. if britten is his/her idea of noisy music, he/she is missing a lot of very good music out there. exhibiting a closed mind in public *should* be pretty embarrassing. unfortunately, it often isn/t.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Safe Bet
Comment: Britten's reading is raw, transparent, vicious, thunderous, and very original. Especially nice is to actually understand the words of the two male soloists without having to refer to the booklet. His soloists are strong and clear, his choruses are tip-top perfect, the LSO is divine. It's hard to say something bad about this performance, except perhaps that Vishnevskaya can be slightly grating in certain sections.
In a lot of ways I like Robert Shaw's more "glossed" "mainstream" performance, and that performance also has a lot of punch behind it, especially the purely orchestra/chorus sections. Britten's of course, is definitive. It certainly is the strongest case to convince you of the effectiveness of the integrated texts. In the Shaw version you can hardly make English text from latin text because of the thickness of voice of tenor and bass.
So get this and enjoy the music, as well as the very revealing and funny rehearsals tagged on at the end of disc 2. This is a safe five-star recommendation.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Can't help saying a few words about the 1-star review
Comment: Whoever "OperaOnlineUs" may be, she/he is a total idiot and completely have no taste of 20th Century music!---which by itself is not a terrible defect of a human being, but, why came here and wrote something to show your ignorance?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great music, great recording
Comment: The review from OperaOnline is piffle. Britten's War Requiem is a great and moving piece of music, a masterpiece, full of wonderful melody which lodges in the mind as much as anything by Puccini or Rachmaninov. As performed here by the composer and his original forces (more or less- Vishnevskaya was not allowed to travel to Britain for the premiere) it is a set for every true music lover to cherish.
As for that review, I don't care whether it's from Opera Online or not, it's pig-headedly wrong. Take no notice. It just demonstrates that online reviews are not to be trusted: any old curmudgeon with peculiar personal prejudices can go online and misinform at will. I write professionally for Fanfare Magazine and I reckon this set is a must. You probably have it already anyway, as it has been constantly available in one form or another for over 40 years, a fact that speaks volumes.
PS Since posting the above, I have checked out OperaOnline's other reviews, and the site where they initially appear. A lack of bylines suggests there are a number of people reviewing for the site, but I don't know how many. They/he/she seems to know their onions when it comes to the mainstream operatic repertoire- although one person's opinion is simply that, period. Nevertheless, someone from OperaOnline who posts their reviews here is allergic to 20th century music, a silly blanket condemnation of a body of music more diverse than that of any previous period in history. Not only to Britten: their peculiar antipathies go as far back as Janacek.
As G. Yang says, why go public to display yoiur ignorance? (Unless, of course, you choose to remain anonymous.)
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