It is difficult not to feel unease about the way Britten's pacifist War Requiem has been so seamlessly and insouciantly absorbed into Remembrance Day. Yet Britten, a practical composer, would surely have relished both the ambiguity of the occasion and the big audience.

The Albert Hall was in every sense a resonant venue, not least because it allowed the boys' choir to be positioned out of sight in the upper galleries, for a compellingly eerie effect. The Albert Hall organ, making its massive and chillingly appropriate appearance in the climax of the Libera Me, generated a sense of occasion, too. But the strength of Antonio Pappano's reading, conducting Royal Opera House orchestral and choral forces, lay in its pacing and dramatic structure rather than in surface things. From the grim opening sequences through to the unsettling radiance of the closing "Let us sleep now", Pappano shaped the Requiem in a far more engaged manner than he has recently displayed in the opera house itself.

He was helped by an exceptionally rewarding trio of vocal soloists. One wondered whether Ian Bostridge's light tenor would make sufficient impact with Wilfred Owen's words in the vast Albert Hall, but the clarity of his diction and otherworldliness of his sound were enough. Thomas Hampson sang with dignified beauty in the stoic role originally written for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, while Christine Brewer was radiant in every contribution she made. After nearly half a century, the War Requiem has become more of a moral and aesthetic reprimand than ever.