Britten: War Requiem, Op. 66 - Libera me - Галина Вишневская, Peter Pears, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna

In die illa tremenda:

Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra:

Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem

Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo

Dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna

Quando coeli movendi sunt i terra

Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis

Et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde

Libera me, Domine

It seems that out of battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through granites which titanic wars had groined

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes

Lifting distressful hands as if to bless

And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan

«Strange friend,» I said, «here is no cause to mourn.»

«None», said the other, «save the undone years

The hopelessness.

Whatever hope is yours

Was my life also;

I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world

For by my glee might many men have laughed

And of my weeping something had been left

Which must die now.

I mean the truth untold

The pity of war, the pity war distilled

Now men will go content with what we spoiled

Or, discontent, boil boldly, and be spilled

They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress

Miss we the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells

Even from wells we sunk too deep for war

Even from the sweetest wells that ever were

I am the enemy you killed, my friend

I knew you in this dark;

for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed

I parried;

but my hands were loath and cold

Let us sleep now»

{BOYS AND CHORUS AND SOPRANO]

In paridisum deducant te Angeli;

In tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres

Et perducant te in civitatem sanctam

Jerusalem.

Chorus Angelorum te suscipiat

Et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam

Habeas requiem

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:

Et lux perpetua luceat eis

In paridisum deducant te Angeli;

In tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres

Et perducant te in civitatem sanctam

Jerusalem.

Chorus Angelorum te suscipiat

Et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam

Habeas requiem

{TENOR AND BARITONE]

Let us sleep now

Requiescat in pace.

Amen