War Requiem

A known pacifist, English composer Benjamin Britten was commissioned to create a work celebrating the opening of the new Coventry Cathedral in 1962, built in place of the one that had been destroyed by German bombs in World War II. Britten then composed a masterpiece entitled War Requiem, combining aspects of Catholic liturgical celebration with nine poems written by Wilfred Owen in 1917 and 1918, in the trenches and in a hospital, during World War I. War Requiem remains to this day as one of the most beautiful pieces inspired by peace.