"My subject is War, and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity… All a poet can do today is warn"

Those are the words of Wilfred Owen that Benjamin Britten quoted on the score of his War Requiem: one of the great pieces of sacred music and one of the great warnings.

The British tenor Toby Spence is lending his voice to the requiem when he performs with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and in the Drawing Room he discusses the work, his battle back to the stage, and the importance of sound imagination.