Twin Cities orchestras host rare performance of "War Requiem"

by Tom Crann, Minnesota Public Radio

The Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra will join forces for a performance of a monumental, and rarely heard work. This weekend Osmo Vanska will conduct the orchestras, and choral forces including the Minnesota Chorale, for a performance of Englishman Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem." The work, written in 1961, mixes the traditional Latin Mass for the dead with anti-war poetry by Wilfred Owen. Mary King Osterfield, 93, is a violist and teacher who lives in Moorhead. She played in the premiere of the piece in 1962. Osterfield spoke to MPR's Tom Crann.