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Simplicity in Early Britten
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
Extract
It may at first sight seem rather odd that Britten could feel justified in making this famous comment soon after composing the War Requiem (1961), which by dint of the interaction of three planes of experience alone might be construed as one of the most elaborate choral-orchestral compositions of the 20th century. Yet there is not really much of a contradiction here: the emotional highpoint of the work comes in a moment of great stillness in which an unaccompanied solo voice delivers a very simple line of text set to a very simple melodic contour and rhythm:
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References
Notes
1 Britten in Schafer, Murray, British Composers in Interview, Faber 1963, p. 118 Google Scholar.
2 Evans, Peter, The Music of Benjamin Britten, Dent 1979, p. 451 Google Scholar.
3 ‘Britten looking back’, The Sunday Telegraph, 17 November 1963.
4 Britten, , ‘Early influences: a tribute to Frank Bridge (1879–1941)“, Composer 19 (Spring 1966)Google Scholar.
5 Reproduced in Hoist, Imogen, Britten, Faber 1966, p. 15 Google Scholar.
6 Recently published (1983) by Faber Music.
7 Re-written for publication in Tit for Tat (Faber Music).
8 Both published by Faber Music.
9 See in particular Whittall's, Arnold discussion of this period in the first chapter of his book, The Music of Britten and Tippett, CUP 1982 Google Scholar.
10 It is interesting that perceptions of the nature of ‘Messalina’ differ quite widely. Peter Evans, on p. 71 of his book cited in note 2, says ‘Perhaps the lamentation is somewhat overdrawn, but it is not satirized, for it springs from the human capacity for love’, and Christopher Wintle, in his review of Evans' book in TEMPO 131 p. 30, speaks of Britten's ‘authentic voice of “compassion”’, while Colin Matthews, in the sleeve note for a recording of Our Hunting Fathers (EMI: ASD 4397), calls the lament ‘absurdly exaggerated’ and makes it known that ‘towards the end of his life Britten thought that here alone in the work he had perhaps gone a little too far’. Personally I believe that a stance which takes into account all these views—that there is a tension between genuine and mock compassion—reveals the piece's true emotional depth.
11 See, for example Evans's, Peter discussion of ‘A New Year Carol’ in op. cit. p. 257 Google Scholar.
12 Quoted in Mitchell, Donald, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, Faber 1981, p. 146 Google Scholar.
13 In fact, in both of the available recordings of the Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo by Pears and Britten (EMI: ALP3934 and Decca Eclipse: ELS629) the tenor G is carried over into 31 for a quaver so that it genuinely participates in the downbeat.
14 It may also be thought of as seeking to become a functional dominant. For the formal consequences of this, see below.
15 There is a sort of precedent for this: the E that inflects D in b. 10 produces a whole-tonal clasli—but it is not part of the conflicting triad. (Its rôle is possibly to prepare for the shift to the A triad, where E becomes the melodic pivot).
16 It will be noticed that after thereturn to G is reinforced by the functional V–I, the lowest register (down to G1) is abandoned, all the activity within it having been resolved.