Symphonic Concert

Charles Dutoit (photo: Kiyotane Hayashi). In 1962, for the consecration of the newly built Coventry Cathedral, erected after the wartime bombing of its predecessor, Benjamin Britten, the foremost English composer of the 20th century, wrote the monumental vocal-instrumental work that soon came to be regarded throughout the musical world as a memorial to the victims of war and a manifesto of pacifism.