The failure of television companies to broadcast the premiere of Britten’s War Requiem is deeply regrettable. However confused and messy the performance might have been, and we have plenty of contemporary reports on that score, it was a musical occasion of rare significance. When the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus decided to return to Coventry Cathedral for an anniversary performance of the work 50 years to the day since its premiere, cameras were on hand to relay the event around the world. Whatever its shortcomings, this DVD seeks to recapture the potent sense of occasion that still echoes from 1962. It is an irony that the strengths of the performance are exactly those aspects thought to have been the most damagingly weak at the premiere. The orchestral sound is well judged, combining atmospheric resonance with the right amount of clarity for the Wilfred Owen settings, and balance and co-ordination between orchestra and choruses, even the girls’ choir (as it is here) behind the audience, are excellent. Keen-eyed viewers who compare this DVD with photos of the premiere will note that the layout has been reversed, with the performers now placed in front of the great West window. In 1962 they were at the centre of the cathedral facing the other way – with disastrous results. The CBSO forces, orchestra and chorus alike, make handsome amends for the shambles reported at the premiere.

There is no acoustical reason why Andris Nelsons should take the performance slowly but he does anyway, leaving the ‘Recordare’ to limp forwards and building the ‘Libera me’ from a virtually standing start. This is a dark and spacious War Requiem at the opposite pole to Britten’s own tense interpretation (5/63, 4/85). Erin Wall, the soprano soloist, seems to project more strongly from the centre of the choir than she did live. Mark Padmore is marvellously eloquent with Owen’s poetry, though there is a wiry vibrato when he is pushed, and the warm-toned baritone of Hanno Müller-Brachmann, a former student of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, is undercut by the constricted sound at the top of his voice.

By itself, this performance is not a first choice but the background visuals of the ruins of the old cathedral through the window and Graham Sutherland’s altar tapestry over Nelsons’s shoulder add an atmosphere which is obviously special. In the circumstances it is a shame there are no extras to set this anniversary performance in its historical context.