After 12 months of extraordinary activity, the Britten centenary comes to a fitting close on disc with these two major new releases. And how completely different they are. Recorded at a pair of concerts in Munich earlier this year, the War Requiem from Mariss Jansons and his Bavarian Radio SO inhabits a tense, oppressive world. The opening Kyrie immediately sets out with an urgent sense of seriousness, the chorus chanting the words with a rhythmic insistency that sounds more like Stravinsky (none of Noseda’s primeval murmurings here). Although some of the speeds later are on the slow side, Jansons’s concentration means that this performance constantly feels on edge, digging into rhythms with a martial rigidity, and focusing on the work’s darkest thoughts and – at its most extreme – its sense of outrage. The Latin sections of the Mass are well sung by the Bavarian chorus and the proto-Wagnerian soprano of Emily Magee, though the Offertorium is held in such a tight grip that it misses any of its usual sense of exuberance. In the Wilfred Owen settings, Mark Padmore always makes verbal poetry, despite some shortness of breath and a sometimes hard-pressed vibrato, and is as absorbing in the tenor solos as anybody. Christian Gerhaher, singing in excellent English, is simply outstanding – powerful, supremely expressive and unforgettable in the intensity that he creates in ‘Strange Meeting’.

Pappano’s performance opens very differently, the strings singing their initial phrases with an Italian lyrical warmth, the chorus intoning ‘Requiem aeternam’ softly in the distance. The optimum environment in which this recording was made can be felt both in the warmth of the overall sound and the successful layering of the work’s performing groups. The recording also helps sift the textures of the Santa Cecilia chorus, who achieve a high level of clarity in the more complex choral movements. After Jansons’s intense precision, Pappano is all open-hearted emotion. He achieves an Italianate sense of drama, not inappropriately reminiscent of his Verdi, in the Latin sections of the Mass, where Anna Netrebko’s proud soprano – with a slight Russian edge, like Vishnevskaya, but not too much – adds a patina of glamour. The young voices of Santa Cecilia’s Voci Bianche put in a deliciously playful appearance, radiating youthful innocence. In the Owen settings, Pappano encourages the intimacy of a Lieder recital. Ian Bostridge, in plangently lyrical voice, is deeply committed, as always, in the tenor solos, though his mannered singing remains an acquired taste, and Thomas Hampson finds a moving tenderness right from his opening solo, as one would expect of a fine song recitalist.

Where does this leave current recommendations? A choice between the two newcomers is difficult. The Pappano recording (on a single, 80-minute CD) makes the more central recommendation, thanks to its ability to touch the theatrical heart of the work and its emotional warmth. I am also drawn back, though, to Jansons’s uniquely concentrated recording and will always want that close to hand for the conductor’s grip on detail and the exceptional Gerhaher. Both rank above Noseda’s rather exaggerated account on LSO Live; but do not pass over Paul McCreesh’s devotional performance on Winged Lion/Signum, which aspires to a special aura of its own and comes in a commensurately deep, spacious recording. And then there is always Britten’s own recording, a historic document, never to be surpassed – enough said.