Sinfonia da Requiem ~ Britten

Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20, for orchestra is a symphony written by Benjamin Britten in 1940 at the age of 26. It was one of several works commissioned from different composers by the Japanese Government to mark the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire (taken to be 11 February 660 BCE). Britten's use of titles that refer to the Christian liturgy was, however, taken as an insult, so the piece was rejected. The premiere took place in Carnegie Hall, New York on 29 March 1941 with the New York Philharmonic under John Barbirolli. The first British performance took place the next year, and its belated Japanese premiere was on 18 February 1956, with the composer conducting the NHK Symphony Orchestra. Complete notes from Wikipedia

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Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh, OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. Showing prodigious talent from an early age – he composed his Quatre Chansons françaises for soprano and orchestra at the age of fourteen – he first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945 he leapt to international fame, and for the next fifteen years he devoted much of his compositional attention to writing operas, several of which now appear regularly on international stages. Britten's interests as a composer were wide-ranging; he produced important music in such varied genres as orchestral, choral, solo vocal (much of it written for the tenor Peter Pears), chamber and instrumental, as well as film music. He also took a great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, and was considered a fine pianist and conductor.

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