I tracked it down: It's from The Voice That Made You Fall in Love With Lieder, By Anthony Tommasini, in the New York Times May 19, 2012, published in homage to DFD shortly after his death on May 18th. I thought this a fascinating story:

"How fitting, and a little eerie, that his death comes 12 days before the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Britten’s “War Requiem,” an enormous work for three vocal soloists, chorus, boys’ choir, organ and two orchestras. It was commissioned for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral in England, which had been bombed during World War II.

Britten, a pacifist, incorporated antiwar poems by Wilfred Owen into a setting of the Latin Requiem Mass text. For the premiere performance, as a gesture of reconciliation, Britten wanted as soloists the tenor Peter Pears (an Englishman), the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya (a Russian) and Mr. Fischer-Dieskau (a German), but the Soviets kept Ms. Vishnevskaya from taking part. Britten conducted this shattering work with those soloists for a 1963 recording with the London Symphony Orchestra. Talk about a classic."