Maazel is coolly in command

It usually takes a general to end a war. Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” -- called by his fellow British composer Michael Tippett “the one musical masterpiece we possess with overt pacifist meanings” -- requires an extraordinary commander, as well as a lieutenant, to guide its large forces.

Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hal, the main job fell to Lorin Maazel, who first conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1939 (in short pants) at the Hollywood Bowl and hadn’t led the orchestra since 1973. Besides the Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Children’s Chorus were on hand, along with a trio of vocal soloists.

Maazel set up his musicians on three planes to accommodate Britten’s grand scheme. Orchestra, choruses and a soprano are assigned the traditional Latin liturgy. But the composer periodically interrupts the Mass with a song cycle to texts by the antiwar British poet Wilfred Owen, sung by a tenor and a baritone and accompanied by a chamber ensemble separate from the main ensemble.

The Philharmonic and choruses occupied the central plane. The tenor, Vale Rideout, and baritone, Ian Greenlaw, along with a handful of Philharmonic players, were placed at the rear of stage left and conducted by Philharmonic assistant conductor Lionel Bringuier, who was making his subscription series debut. Above them all, soprano Nancy Gustafson participated in the liturgy from the organ loft.

Britten was a peculiar pacifist. The composer was a controversial conscientious objector who refused to serve his country during the Second World War. Yet he could seem, in his scores, besotted with violence to a degree that, according to the Britten scholar Donald Mitchell, was without parallel in 20th century music.

In the “War Requiem” -- commissioned to celebrate the completion in 1962 of Basil Spence’s rebuilt Coventry Cathedral, the original church having been destroyed by Nazi bombs -- Britten offers no picture of battles experienced firsthand. He has little feeling for the exhilaration of heroism nor any sense of imminent death sharpening the mind and emotions, as much great war literature evinces. He has, instead, the poetry of Owen, who wrote on the battlefield about the futility of it all and was killed during World War I just days before the armistice. He has his epic dread. And he has his chilling thrill in the face of the unknown. Killing fields are, to Britten, so profoundly strange that they inspire a queasy sense of the foreign, of otherness.

A good performance of the “War Requiem” can easily give a listener the creeps. Sour sounds, melodies and harmonies disturb the equilibrium of the inner ear, provoking dizziness and nausea. And yet the music is addictive. Worms that devour corpses become earworms, those melodic figures, like jingles, that can take over your mind. During the Sanctus, hints of Indonesian gamelan are heard in the metallic and wooden percussion -- bones rattling in an inviting, exotic dance of death.

Tenor and bass represent British and German soldiers (the parts were written for Peter Pears, Britten’s companion, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau). They sing of the intimacy of death. Their music is not sad or bitter but resigned and troubled. Alive, they are already ghosts, but as ghosts they live (in the last, gripping poem, the soldiers meet in their tombs).

Orchestra and choruses are sometimes grand, more often solemn, with the children offering a bittersweet song of hope. Some effects are spectacular, but a performance can be ruined if they’re exploited.

Maazel is, on the podium, a cool customer. Thursday he kept his forces tightly disciplined. He has a reputation for micromanaging, which drives critics in New York, where he is music director of its philharmonic, to distraction.

But micromanaging is exactly what the “War Requiem” requires, and Maazel led a particularly effective performance, free of exploitation. It might have been too emotionally chilly for some, but with the careful attention to detail, he got to the heart of the matter.

The Philharmonic has been playing exceedingly well this year, and Maazel enforced pinpoint accuracy. The choruses -- grown-ups and kids -- were outstanding. I would have liked a bit more presence from the soloists (all felt far away); their diction was generally good but not great. In a perfect performance of the “War Requiem,” you feel each singer is addressing you personally. Still, all three soloists had, in their favor, beautiful voices and graceful, touching methods of delivery.

The performance ended in darkness. Losing the light was like losing the final distraction, giving death the last word. This was not an ending to bring tears to the eyes. It was, rather, a moment for deep meditation. Maazel’s approach to the “War Requiem” is less as music to feel than as music to carefully consider.

In the darkness, you were left alone with your thoughts -- to ponder the role each of us plays in war and peace. The audience withheld its applause for a long time before it approved with a somber standing ovation.

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mark.swed@latimes.com

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Los Angeles Philharmonic

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 8 tonight, 2 p.m. Sunday

Price: $40 to $142

Contact: (323) 850-2000 or www.laphil.com