Britten's War Requiem

Hard to imagine any concert, any anything, more powerful than this requiem with its interspersed poems of Wilfred Owen, as majestically presented by the London Symphony Orchestra, the American Boychoir, and the voices of Ian Bostridge and Simon Keenlyside. Avery Fisher Hall was filled to the brim and over, as were our expectations. After the quiet end, the audience sat motionless and soundless for a long while.
It reminded me of reading about Roger Fry speaking at the V and A in London, gesturing and holding forth on every image, until there was a Cezanne before which he fell silent: then the audience filed out.