by Daniel Hathaway
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Do the arts have the wherewithal to take up great subjects like war? Four hundred years ago, Shakespeare sent his Prologue onstage at the top of his play Henry V to apologize in advance to the audience for its shortcomings:
Pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraisèd spirits that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object. Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
In 1961, British pacifist composer Benjamin Britten addressed that question by writing his “War Requiem” on commission for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which rose next to the ruins from an 11-hour long Luftwaffe bombing raid on the night of November 14, 1940.
This article was originally published on 
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