Listening to Britten – The Turn of the Screw, Op.54

Middle Mill, Pembrokeshire (1982) by John Piper © The Piper Estate

The Turn of the Screw, Op.54 – Opera in a prologue and two acts, Op.54 (30 March – September 1954, Britten aged 40)

Dedication the members of the English Opera Group who took part in the first performance
Text Myfanwy Piper, after the story by Henry James
Language English
Duration 101′

Audio and Video clips

Introducing The Turn of the Screw for the 2011 production at Glyndebourne.

Below are selected clips from the first recording of the opera, with Jennifer Vyvyan (Governess), Joan Cross (Mrs Grose), Peter Pears (Prologue and Quint), Olive Dyer (Flora), David Hemmings (Miles) and Arda Mandikian (Miss Jessel), with the English Opera Group Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Britten. With thanks to Decca.

Prologue

Act 1
Theme – Scene 1: The Journey (Governess)

Interlude: Variation I – Scene 2: The Welcome (Miles, Flora, Mrs Grose, Governess)

Interlude: Variation II – Scene 3: The Letter (Miles, Flora, Mrs Grose, Governess)

Interlude: Variation III – Scene 4: The Tower (Governess)

Interlude: Variation IV – Scene 5: The Window (Miles, Flora, Mrs Grose, Governess)

Interlude: Variation V – Scene 6: The Lesson (Miles, Flora, Governess)

Interlude: Variation VI – Scene 7: The Lake (Miles, Flora, Governess)

Interlude: Variation VII – Scene 8: At Night (Quint, Miles, Miss Jessel, Flora, Governess)

Act 2
Interlude: Variation VIII – Scene 1: Colloquy and So- lioquy (Quint, Miss Jessel, Governess)

Interlude: Variation IX – Scene 2: The Bells (Miles, Flora, Mrs Grose, Governess)

Interlude: Variation X – Scene 3: Miss Jessel (Governess, Miss Jessel)

Interlude: Variation XI – Scene 4: The Bedroom (Miles, Quint, Governess)

Interlude: Variation XII – Scene 5: Quint (Quint)

Interlude: Variation XIII – Scene 6: The Piano (Governess, Mrs Grose, Flora)

Interlude: Variation XIV – Scene 7: Flora (Governess, Mrs Grose, Flora)

Interlude: Variation XV – Scene 8: Miles (Miles, Quint, Governess, Mrs Grose)

Background and Critical Reception

Britten’s return to chamber-sized opera was a scary proposition – not just for the composer but for his audience too. The source material for his sixth opera came to Britten in 1932, a diary entry recording that he had heard ‘a wonderful, impressive but terribly eerie and scary play, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James’. He immediately read the novella, noting a few days later that it was ‘an incredible masterpiece’.

In the early 1950s Britten was mulling over the possibility of a film with the English Opera Group, and one of their members, Myfanwy Piper (wife of the artist John Piper) suggested through Peter Pears that he consider The Turn of the Screw. Humphrey Carpenter tells the story of the opera’s genesis, which was far from routine!

When asking Myfanwy why she thought it might be right for Britten, Carpenter got the following response: ‘I just thought it was. I knew he was interested in the effect of adult, or bad, ideas on the innocence of children. I also thought it was densely musical prose, which would suit his work.’

Little did Myfanwy know she was about to take a key role alongside Britten. Her biographer, Frances Spalding, writes, ‘As none of his previous operas had been sourced by prose as complex or dense as this, Britten asked Myfanwy for suggestions as to how James’s text should be treated. At this stage the idea was that someone else, perhaps William Plomer, would help write the libretto. But when ideas began to flow, they decided to proceed without the help of anyone else. In this way, Myfanwy became a librettist.’

Once again, Britten was looking at an untried collaboration, though this time with a good friend and established member of the English Opera Group. As Patricia Howard warned, ‘To transfer to the operatic stage a story so meticulously constructed to manipulate the responses of a reader poses enormous problems.’ Yet, as Spalding added, ‘through the writing of this and two other libretti, Myfanwy made a central contribution to the achievement of this great musical dramatist.’

The central theme, for James, as for Britten and Myfanwy, is the violation of innocence – and although Britten initially thought The Tower and the Lake would be an appropriate title for the opera, describing where the two ghosts are first seen, he eventually reneged. ‘I must confess I have a sneaking, horrid feeling that the original H.J. title describes the musical plan of the work exactly!’

The plot is indeed a chilling one. A young governess is summoned to a country house in Bly to care for two children, recruited by their uncle and guardian. She is asked never to contact him about their well being. Initially wary, she arrives at Bly and meets the housekeeper, Mrs Grose, who allays her fears. She meets the two children, Miles and Flora, and forms an immediate connection.

Then the troubles begin. The governess hears footsteps in the night and sees the image of a man on the tower of the house. After talking with Mrs Grose this appears to be the spectre of Peter Quint, a former manservant at the house, who has in some way corrupted Miles and the previous governess, Miss Jessel, with whom he had a sexual relationship. Her ghost appears to the governess across a lake shortly after.

Miles and Flora appear not to see the ghosts, but are aware of their presence and influence, and begin to play up. At the start of Act 2 the family attends church, and as the children sing songs the governess feels easier, but then alarms Mrs Grose with her tales of the ghosts. She is advised to write to the Uncle in London, but before the letter is posted the ghost of Quint appears again, instructing Miles to steal the letter. Flora then escapes to the lake, and on following her the governess sees the image of Miss Jessel again – after which Flora speaks of unmentionable things, and Mrs Grose removes her from the house. The governess confronts Miles about the missing letter, and he reveals the influence of Quint – before collapsing dead on the floor. The story ends with the governess in anguish at the outcome, the observer left with a number of questions on who saw the ghosts. Were they a product of the governess’s imagination?

At first The Turn of the Screw could not begin because of Britten’s involvement with Gloriana, which not only consumed his creativity but led to ructions within the English Opera Group. Composition was delayed by a year, with further wrangling among the members over Britten’s involvement with royalty. Even after that, further progress was thwarted by a bout of bursitis in Britten’s right shoulder, which stopped him writing. An operation was required, and he did not compose a note until late March 1954, by which time the preview was just five months away.

Further to this, even, was a crackdown by the police on homosexuality in the UK. Britten himself was questioned informally about his relationship with Pears, and it seems this may have caused him to delay work on the opera further, due to its allusions on the conduct of Quint towards Miles. Eventually, however, the work was finished, and premiered in Venice on 14 September 1954. Just a few weeks later Sir Charles Mackerras conducted the same cast, under the watchful eye of Britten, in its London premiere at Sadler’s Wells.

Claire Seymour, in her book The Operas of Benjamin Britten: Expression and Evasion, concludes that ‘The four main issues of contention are the ‘reality’ of the ghosts, the reliability of the Governess, the integrity of the children’s innocence and the exact nature of their contamination by the ghosts, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel’. She says ‘the pair of ‘innocent’ and uninitiated children’ are ‘of the apprentice-Lucretia-Albert-Budd type, who are threatened and apparently destroyed by corruptive forces represented by two ghosts, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, of the Grimes-Tarquinius-Claggart model. Refereeing this battle between good and evil is the Governess who, like Vere and Gloriana, occupies a morally ambiguous middle ground between the forces of purity and depravity. She is tormented by self-doubt, suspicious of her own motives and fearful of her own culpability in the ensuing tragedy. It was surely this absence of moral absolutes which most strongly appealed to Britten.’

Britten decided the ghosts should take an active part in the opera, and they have singing parts, often carefully manipulated by the staging. Quint’s nocturnal appeal to Miles, meanwhile, was inspired by Peter Pears’s performance of an unaccompanied twelfth-century motet by Perotin, Beata Viscera, in a Suffolk church.

Musically, Britten turned the screw in a very calculated sense, for the opera begins with a six bar theme that undergoes a transformation through fifteen variations, rising in key (Act 1) and then falling the same way (Act 2).
Though the theme uses all twelve pitches Britten sticks resolutely to a tonal approach, though the bounds of this are stretched as the story becomes more fraught. With just six singers and thirteen instrumentalists, this is opera on a small performing scale, but if anything that brought an ever more musical and imaginative response from its composer. Britten was operating in an enclosed world and writing for friends and colleagues, just the way he liked it.

For many critics this and Billy Budd, two very different sound worlds, are Britten’s very finest stage works, proving his dramatic acumen within a huge range of musical parameters.

Thoughts

The Turn of the Screw is perhaps the creepiest opera experience you will ever have. Not only does James’s story update faithfully and vividly for the stage, but Britten cloaks it in music that only heightens the tension, creating a keen sense of claustrophobia in a big house in a way that would be witnessed in such popular big screen moments as The Woman in Black and The Shining. Quite how much these would owe to James is a moot point, but all three share the ability to keep their viewers – and listeners – utterly transfixed as the noose gradually tightens around them.

The pacing in this opera is absolutely and exquisitely precise. Even the opening recitative introduces a note of fear, the overactive Purcellian piano all the more disconcerting when it fades away, replaced by the instruments coming out of the mist. The governess has a bumpy ride in her coach to the house – which Britten memorably evokes – before the excited welcome, the children’s voices tripping over themselves. A frisson remains, however, with something otherworldly about the whirring of the harp behind them, giving the big house an enchanted air. The lovely solo ‘how beautiful it is’ from the Governess, briefly and blissfully unaware, offers fragrant contentment, but the spell has been cast.

Towards the end of the tower scene we hear the panic in her voice, and the instruments retreat warily. This is music of palpable fear, and it gets worse as the kids sing ‘Tom, Tom the piper’s son’ to the accompaniment of drum and pizzicato violin. This trick, beloved of the horror genre of late, gives the observer a false comfort – and sure enough, Quint’s image appears. Then, towards the end of ‘The Lake’ more terror sets in. ‘They are lost, lost!’ cries the governess, and then, with a swirl of the celesta, night closes in.

As Quint sings to Miles, the hold he has over the boy becomes clear, and then the feverish intensity as he hisses ‘what has she written?’ before commanding the boy to move the letter is evil personified, with paranoid pizzicato from the strings.

By now Britten has had considerable experience arranging for medium sized chamber ensembles, and the range of colours he elicits from his forces here is dizzying. Scarcely have such instrumental combinations sounded as ghostly and otherworldly as they do here, with percussion, harp and celesta used to fray the edges of the overall sound. The luminescence of female voices over the top only heightens the sense of enchantment, and when a male voice – Quint’s – is heard there is always a barrier between it and us.

Britten takes his word painting over and above the level of Winter Words, in the journey of the coach, the children at play, with every bound and somersault, and the brief innocence of the church scene – but just below the surface the tensions remain. As the second act progresses and the presence of the ghosts is ever more close at hand the tension reaches new heights through sudden jarring interjections from the ensemble, and unreasonably high notes for the ghost of Miss Jessel.

The climax is a kind of terrifying relief, the ending one of Britten’s most ambiguous. Miles may have died, but for what reason? Who is really responsible? It is fascinating conundrum that holds opera directors and audiences alike to this day, all taken in by Britten’s hypnotic and often terrifying music.

Recordings used

DVD

A live recording from the Schwetzingen SWR Festival, 1990

Richard Greager (Quint/Prologue), Helen Field (Governess), Menai Davies (Mrs Grose), Machiko Obata (Flora), Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) / Steuart Bedford (Arthaus)

CD

Peter Pears (Prologue/Quint), Jennifer Vyvyan (Governess), Joan Cross (Mrs Grose), Olive Dyer (Flora), David Hemmings (Miles), Arda Mandikian (Miss Jessel), English Opera Group Orchestra / Benjamin Britten (Decca)

Ian Bostridge (Prologue/Peter Quint), Joan Rodgers (Governess), Jane Henschel (Mrs Grose), Caroline Wise (Flora), Julian Leang (Miles), Vivian Tierney (Miss Jessel), Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Daniel Harding (Virgin Classics)

William Burden (Prologue/Peter Quint), Camilla Tilling (Governess), Anne-Marie Owens (Mrs Grose), Joanna Songi (Flora), Christopher Sladdin (Miles), Emma Bell (Miss Jessel), London Philharmonic Orchestra / Edward Gardner (Glyndebourne)

Britten’s recording once again belies its age, with some incredibly spooky effects around Pears’s voice in particular. David Hemmings inhabits the part of Miles, and once heard his piercing voice is never forgotten.

Daniel Harding’s live recording benefits from extraneous stage noise, so you can actually hear the children playing while they sing. It gives an idea of the dimensions of the room they are in too, which is helpful – and the ghosts, headed by Ian Bostridge, are brilliantly played.

The Glyndebourne recording is superb and beautifully packaged to boot. Camilla Tilling is a brilliant young governess out of her comfort zone, while Edward Gardner secures excellent ensemble from the London Philharmonic soloists.

Finally Stuart Bedford oversees a very convincing Stuttgart production on DVD, which brings to life the apparitions and strange goings-on in the house with a sense of immediate foreboding.

Spotify

There are a number of high quality versions available on the streaming service. Britten’s version for Decca can be found here, while Daniel Harding’s version on Virgin Classics can be found here,

Meanwhile Sir Colin Davis conducts a very well respected version here, with Helen Donath as the Governess, Robert Tear as Quint and Michael Ginn as Miles, Sir Colin conducting members of the Royal Opera House Orchestra. Steaurt Bedford, meanwhile, conducts another version here, with Felicity Lott as the Governess and Philip Langridge as Quint.

Also written in 1954: Walton – Troilus and Cressida

Next up: Canticle III: Still Falls The Rain – The Raids, 1940, Night and Dawn, Op.55

Listening to Britten – The brisk young widow

Portrait of a Young Lady by Michael William Sharp. Photo (c) Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service (Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery)

The brisk young widow (Folksong Arrangements, Volume 5 no.1 – folksong arrangement for high voice and piano (pre 24 January 1954, Britten aged 40)

Dedication not known
Text Traditional
Language English
Duration 2′

Audio clips (with thanks to Decca and Hyperion)
The brisk young widow (Peter Pears (tenor), Benjamin Britten (piano))

The brisk young widow (Jamie MacDougall (tenor), Malcolm Martineau (piano))

Background and Critical Reception

Although the Britten Thematic Catalogue does not list The brisk young widow as such, it does appear to be the first of Britten’s fifth volume of folksong settings. The last one we heard was Ca’ the yowes, from three years previously – during which time Britten had completed two operas.

The song uses a tune collected by Cecil Sharp (from George Radford in Somerset, 1905). Lewis Foreman, writing about the folksongs in Hyperion’s complete set, quotes the composer Hugh Wood, who said about this set that ‘a cold wind is blowing over the garden’.

Thoughts

Despite Hugh Wood’s comments, this would seem to be one of the more jovial songs in the fifth volume of folksongs. It has a sprightly piano part that introduces the five verses, each of them brisk themselves, and vibrant too.

There is an almost imperceptible wink to the audience throughout this entertaining song as the piano part trips along, and the more the singer rolls his ‘r’s the more English it seems to become!

Recordings used

Peter Pears (tenor), Benjamin Britten (piano) (Decca)
Philip Langridge (tenor), Graham Johnson (piano) (Naxos)
Jamie MacDougall (tenor), Malcolm Martineau (piano) (Hyperion)

Langridge and Johnson continue to be a delight in the folksongs, and give this particular song a bracing charm. Yet once again for a definitive account Pears and Britten cannot be beaten, taking the song at a faster pace and clearly revelling in the words. The younger singer Jamie MacDougall could almost be the ‘brisk young farmer’ the song mentions!

Spotify

Pears and Britten are here, while Langridge and Johnson can be found here. Christopher Maltman, a fine English baritone, is found in partnership with Julius Drake here.

Also written in 1954: Finzi – Cello Concerto in A minor, Op.40

Next up: The Turn of the Screw, Op.54

Listening to Britten – Symphonic Suite, ‘Gloriana’, Op.53a

Good Frances, do not weep – Gloriana (detail) by Jane Mackay, her personal response to the music. Used with many thanks to the artist, whose work can be viewed on her own website Sounding Art

Symphonic Suite, Gloriana for orchestra and tenor solo (ad lib), Op.53a (5 September – 14 December 1953, Britten aged 40)

1 The tournament
2 The lute song
3 The courtly dances: March; Coranto; Pavane; Morris Dance; Galliard; Lavolta; [March]
4 Gloriana moritura

Dedication unknown
Duration 27′

Background and Critical Reception

As with Peter Grimes, Britten fashioned some excerpts from Gloriana to make this symphonic suite, and later pulled together a set of Choral Dances for chorus and harp. The nature of his neo-Tudor writing, the music divided into shorter sections, made this a relatively easy task, although the final suite is at 27 minutes a good deal longer than the music extracted from Peter Grimes.

Perhaps because of this the suite is seldom played or recorded. For John Bridcut, ‘the suite collapses in the third movement, itself a suite of five dances. Both shape and pace are lost as it meanders on for about ten minutes. It might have been more effective to rework the duet for soprano and tuba from the third scene of Act 2’.

However, he notes how ‘the slow movement of the suite features one of the opera’s greatest moments, the dreamy lute song ‘Happy were he’, where the tenor voice of the Earl of Essex can be replaced by an oboe’.

Interestingly, Sir Paul McCartney chose the Courtly Dances as one of his Desert Island Discs in 1982, the only classical choice he made on the programme.

Thoughts

If further proof were needed that Gloriana has some rather wonderful music, then this orchestral suite provides it handsomely, with an abundance of tunes to be whistled while walking down the street, and some music of real weight and substance when Britten is not setting Elizabethan dances. There is plenty of humour too, with some of the dances having a straight faced wit or the more obvious ones, such as the Coranto, making glaring puns as the brass stomp all over the polite introduction.

The only problem with the suite is, as Bridcut says, a rather lopsided structure. The Courtly Dances are sufficiently versatile to charm even the most hardened listener, but are possibly better served on their own, as the patience does become stretched without the opera’s running dramatic narrative.

It is however a good chance to hear Britten’s integration of styles old and new, a kind of update on what Stravinsky was able to do with Tchaikovsky’s themes in The Fairy’s Kiss. Without any voices it is difficult to follow exactly where the drama is, but perhaps that is the point, to listen to this suite afresh and see how skilfully Britten was still writing for orchestra.

Recordings used

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Takuo Yuasa (EMI)
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Edward Gardner (Chandos)

There are only two versions of this suite in the catalogue. Edward Gardner takes the option to use a tenor soloist in the Lute Song, which helps the suite in terms of giving it some essential variety. His is quite a brisk performance, which suits the ceremonial pomp of the brass fanfares.

Takuo Yuasa gets off to a fast start, and is rather too driven for such ceremonial music, but there are still plenty of good things in the slower music from his interpretation, including a lovely oboe solo in the Lute Song and a gracefully turned Morris Dance.

Spotify

Tbc

Also written in 1953: Ligeti – Sonata for solo cello

Next up: The brisk young widow

Listening to Britten – Winter Words, Op.52

Painting (c) Brian Hogwood

Winter Words, Op.52 – Lyrics and ballads of Thomas Hardy, for high voice and piano (March – September 1953, Britten aged 39)

1 At day-close in November
2 Midnight on the Great Western
3 Wagtail and baby
4 The little old table
5 The choirmaster’s burial
6 Proud songsters
7 At the railway station, Upway
8 Before life and after

Dedication John and Myfanwy Piper
Text Thomas Hardy
Language English
Duration 20′

Audio

Clips from the composer’s recording with Peter Pears can be heard below. With thanks to Decca.

1. At day-close in November

2. Midnight on the Great Western

3. Wagtail and baby

4. The little old table

5. The choirmaster’s burial

6. Proud Songsters

7. At the railway station, Upway

Background and Critical Reception

Winter Words, despite having an opus number of 52, was written after Gloriana, whose opus number of 53 Britten felt too good to be true with the Coronation in mind. Yet because of the negative reaction from the establishment to the opera, Britten found himself in a fragile state of body and mind whilst putting together his Thomas Hardy cycle.

There were tensions within the English Opera Group, too, their next production (The Turn of the Screw) delayed because of their composer’s work for the Queen. Perhaps because of these elements, and the nature of The Turn of the Screw‘s subject material, Britten’s writing methods became more economical, with Winter Words an early example of a compressed and relatively austere style.

Graham Johnson, writing about the work in The Britten Companion, finds much that is worthy of praise. ‘The songs have about them a sanity and stability which is one of the hallmarks of English song, a certain equanimity which is lacking in the ardent wooings of Michelangelo and the fevered visions of Donne.’

He also highlights the links Winter Words enjoys with Schubert’s great song cycle Winterreise, in particular The little old table, described as ‘an English equivalent to Der Lindenbaum‘. For Johnson, ‘the sound of something familiar transports poet and composer into the past’. Additionally, in Proud Songsters ‘we see how Britten, like Schubert, has realised the value of placing a fast song between blocks of slow ones’.

And yet, he continues, ‘the songs which have something of a Winterreise flavour are not the major part of Winter Words‘, which is fundamentally ‘not tragic’, with ‘stories full of bitter-sweet humour and wry social comment’.

Winter Words is dedicated to John and Myfanwy Piper, with whom Britten was working on The Turn of the Screw at the time; John designing the set and Myfanwy elevated from a consultant on text to writing the libretto herself. That John should choose Wagtail and baby for Desert Island Discs in 1983 says everything about the regard in which he held Britten’s latest – and arguably best – song cycle.

Thoughts

Winter Words is one of Britten’s most treasured collection of songs, and it is easy to see why. There are many different emotions to be felt in the course of the eight songs, and never a dull moment, yet perhaps the crowning element of Britten’s work is the incredibly sharp descriptive powers the composer brings to each miniature story. This is the song cycle where the piano really comes in to its own as an instrument to paint a picture, doing so for trains, birds, violins, vicars and constables among many other things!

Wagtail and baby is perhaps the most exquisite example, the bird bravely darting among the feet of a bull, a stallion or a mongrel with barely a blink of an eye, before scuttling away as a gentleman appears. Britten’s description of its uncertain and flighty motion is brilliantly conveyed. In The Choirmaster’s Burial, the wonderfully pompous vicar gets as his epitaph a favourite hymn tune, Mount Ephraim, in the piano left hand. Then, in At The Railway Station, Upway, Britten imitates the little boy with the violin in a number of guises, painting the picture of Hardy’s words with such detail that the listener feels they are there.

The cycle begins with the bluster of At day-close in November, which transports us immediately to the winter season, the cold wind blowing around the fringes of our coats, but in a complete contrast the second song Midnight on the Great Western finds an almost total stillness to begin with, the dead of night evoked in a manner that recalls Mahler’s own setting of Um Mitternacht, from the Rückert-Lieder. Indeed the songs of Schubert and Mahler are loosely influential for Winter Words, as Graham Johnson discusses above, but as he also points out this is a quintessentially English song cycle.

As if that wasn’t enough, the final song, Before Life and After, is the most directly emotional, tugging on the heartstrings as it pleads passionately for deliverance, with real anguish in its final question of ‘how long’? It ends the cycle on a troubled note, but elsewhere there is much to warm the cockles of the heart in the cold season.

Recordings used

Peter Pears (tenor), Benjamin Britten (piano) (Decca)
Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor), Graham Johnson (piano) (Hyperion)
Philip Langridge (tenor), Steuart Bedford (piano) (Naxos)
Robert Tear (tenor), Sir Philip Ledger (piano) (EMI)
Mark Padmore (tenor), Roger Vignoles (piano) (Harmonia Mundi)
Ian Bostridge (tenor), Antonio Pappano (piano) (EMI)
Robin Tritschler (tenor), Malcolm Martineau (piano) (Onyx)

Even for Britten’s rich discography, Winter Words has such an illustrious recorded legacy that most of the versions could make the Penguin Guide of recommendations without a second thought.

It says much that even someone as accomplished as Ian Bostridge would not be on my own personal shortlist. His is the newest recording, and contains many good things, but there is a slight tendency for his voice to dry out in the upper registers, which it does in the final song.

Robert Tear and Sir Philip Ledger, often overlooked as Britten interpreters, deliver a very strong performance, as does one of the new guard, Robin Tritschler, with typically descriptive accompaniment from Malcolm Martineau. In a cycle where the pianist is every bit as important as the singer the best modern versions for me are Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Graham Johnson, part of their indispensable disc of Britten for Hyperion, Philip Langridge and Steuart Bedford, who are especially good in Wagtail and baby and At the Railway Station, Upway, and Mark Padmore and Roger Vignoles, who characterise each song as if it were a cycle in itself. Vignoles shapes his piano part beautifully.

All those versions listed above are excellent – but then of course we have Peter Pears and Britten himself, who bring to this cycle still further insights and even greater emotion.

Spotify

This playlist offers several versions of Britten’s perennial – from Pears and Britten themselves, then Philip Langridge and Steuart Bedford, Mark Padmore and Roger Vignoles, Ian Bostridge and Antonio Pappano and finally Robin Tritschler and Malcolm Martineau.

Also written in 1953: Honegger – A Christmas Cantata

Next up: Symphonic Suite, ‘Gloriana’, Op.53a

In Remembrance – Britten’s War Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall

Poppies in the Sunset on Lake Geneva Photo (c) Eric Hill, taken from Wikipedia.

In Britten’s centenary year it was inevitable the War Requiem would feature heavily. This can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on your viewpoint. The former is certainly true for the sheer weight and quality of the music, and the powerful message Wilfred Owen’s war poetry delivers in tandem with the Requiem Mass. The latter applies because of the sheer number of performances of this amazing work, for it is true that too many concert experiences of the work can dilute the relevance of what Britten and Owen have to say.

This, though, was the ideal combination, a performance of the War Requiem on Remembrance Sunday, and the perfect opportunity to experience the work more as Britten would have liked; with the potential for reparation and reappraisal not just of his music but of his pacifist beliefs too. It is sad to say, but the War Requiem is destined never to be irrelevant in our world.

The lights in the Royal Albert Hall were respectfully dimmed throughout this performance, which began on a very sombre note with no need for further introduction. Indeed, the conductor Semyon Bychkov was careful not to invest even the fortissimo singing from the choir with too much volume initially, limiting the real explosions of noise to the massive perorations of the Dies irae, the Sanctus and the terrifying Libera me.

This approach magnified the emotional qualities of the quieter singing, and the acappella passages with which the Kyrie, Dies irae and Libera me end were especially poignant. You could hear a pin drop during each. Meanwhile the boys of the Westminster Abbey Choir, conducted by James O’Donnell, were positioned up in the gallery, at 3 o’clock to the stage – the ideal place from which the clarity of their contributions to the mass could be fully appreciated, an eerie counterpoint from on high.

The three vocal soloists gave excellent contributions. Soprano Sabina Cvilak disappeared into the sound of the choir at times, though this could well have been on account of where we were sat, relative to her position in front of the Royal Albert Hall organ. She dealt especially well with the lilting lines of the Lacrimosa.

The tenor Allan Clayton, a stand-in for Andrew Kennedy, clearly knows this music well. He achieved a beautifully pointed innocence in the yearning of Owen’s At a Calvary near the Ancre which dovetails with the Agnus Dei, its five to a bar never sounding more natural than it did here – especially when following on directly from the Sanctus. His ascent at the end, to the words ‘dona nobis pacem’, was serene.

The duets with Roderick Williams were extremely well handled by both singers. Time stood still during The Parable of the Old Man and the Young, Britten’s second setting of this Biblical test of Abraham and Isaac. It also came to a halt during the remarkable Strange Meeting, where the music was quietest of all, Clayton and Williams stripped to their emotional bare bones against a fragmented string quartet accompaniment. An equal sense of mental anguish could be found in The next war, and its opening words, ‘Out there we’ve walked quite friendly up to death’, with ghoulish accompaniment.

Williams’ baritone had a lovely, rounded sound, and while the two did not perhaps bring as much outright anger as some have to the Owen settings, the nightmarish horror of the poetry was always evident, thanks also to some superb playing from the chamber orchestra accompanying them.

The BBC Symphony Chorus and Crouch End Festival Chorus were superb, exceptionally well drilled and responding to Bychkov’s very subtle but well defined conducting, their ensemble bringing out the words with great clarity. There was fire and brimstone in the Dies irae, but the disorientating Libera me was the most powerful utterance, full of worrisome phrases as the music swirled in the face of the gathering storm. The BBC Symphony Orchestra were wonderfully responsive to all of this, heroes all.

At no point was this a spot lit performance, and great credit should go to Bychkov for attending to the text with great reverence, conducting with humility. Sometimes just a scoop of the hands was all that was needed. In this way attention was always focused on the text, and the assembled audience were left with much to ponder; surely the function of the War Requiem and Remembrance Sunday itself. To that end an immaculately observed, extended period of silence, the choir’s ‘Amen’ dying away to inaudibility, was the ideal way to respond.

This performance of Britten’s War Requiem can be heard on the BBC Radio 3 website until the evening of Sunday, 17 November.

Listening to Britten – Gloriana, Op.53

Final March (Act I, Scene 1) – Gloriana (detail) by Jane Mackay, her personal response to the music. Used with many thanks to the artist, whose work can be viewed on her own website Sounding Art

Gloriana – Opera in three acts, Op.53 (September 1952 – 13 March 1953, Britten aged 39)

Dedication Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, in honour of whose Coronation it was composed
Text William Plomer, after ‘Elizabeth and Essex’ by Lytton Strachey
Language English
Duration 145′

Audio and Video clips

The brief trailer for the 2013 production from the Royal Opera House.

Below are selected clips from the recording made by Sir Charles Mackerras for Decca. Josephine Barstow plays Queen Elizabeth I, Philip Langridge the Earl of Essex, Della Jones is Lady Essex and Alan Opie plays Cecil, with the Chorus and Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera. With thanks to Decca.

Act 1
Prelude (orchestra)

The Tornament (ensemble)

Entrance of the Queen (Elizabeth)

Raleigh’s Song

The Queen’s Song (Elizabeth)

First Lute Song (Elizabeth and Essex)

Second Lute Song (Elizabeth and Essex)

The First Duet for the Queen & Essex (Elizabeth and Essex)

Act 2
Prelude & Welcome (ensemble)

The Masque (ensemble)

Scene 1, Finale (ensemble)

Prelude & Song (Lady Rich and Charles Blount)

Pavane (orchestra)

Lavolta (orchestra)

The Queen’s Burlesque (Elizabeth and Lady Essex)

Quartet (ensemble)

Coranto (orchestra)

Act 3
The Second Duet of the Queen & Essex (Elizabeth and Essex)

The Queen’s Decision (Elizabeth)

Ballad – Rondo (ensemble)

Prelude & Verdict (ensemble)

Cecil’s Warning (Elizabeth and Cecil)

Lady Essex’s Pleading (ensemble)

Penelope Rich’s Pleading (Lady Rich and Elizabeth)

Epilogue (ensemble)

Background, Plot and Critical Reception

In the last fifteen years or so the life of Queen Elizabeth I has held a keen fascination for TV and film directors, with the monarch played by Dame Helen Mirren and Cate Blanchett, not to mention Glenda Jackson’s unforgettable portrayal in 1971. Would the reputation of Britten’s opera Gloriana have been better had it been revealed in the context of these big screen blockbusters?

It could hardly be worse than when it was unveiled in 1953. The initial signs were promising. On a skiing holiday in 1952, Britten and friends pondered a gap in the history of English culture, namely the lack of an opera capturing the national spirit in the way Smetana’s The Bartered Bride did for Czechoslovakia, or Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov did for Russia. He was challenged there and then to consider writing one, and after some thought approached the soon to be Queen Elizabeth I by way of her nephew, Earl Harewood. The idea met with her approval, and so in this roundabout way Britten became a royal composer ahead of more obvious (some would say deserving!) candidates such as Sir William Walton. What a transformation for someone who had to register as a conscientious objector just eleven years previously.

Rather than write an outright work of celebration, however, Britten decided to focus on the incoming Queen’s namesake and predecessor Elizabeth I, whose popular name in the sixteenth century was Gloriana. For this he collaborated with William Plomer, the two choosing Elizabeth and Essex by Lytton Strachey as the inspiration for their story and text. Once again Britten was not afraid of choosing a librettist who had no previous operatic experience, but his resulting collaboration with Plomer was a convivial and largely rewarding one. In Gloriana they were working with Britten’s biggest operatic role for a female, bigger even than Lucretia, though lacking that level of tragedy.

The plot moves between the public and private faces of the Queen, focusing more specifically on Elizabeth’s wrangling with her feelings for the Earl of Essex, who forces her hand with catastrophic results when he rushes back from an armed mission in Ireland, disturbing the Queen in her bedroom. For this treasonous act he is sentenced to execution. A good starting point for the background to the opera is this Essentials package for the Royal Opera House production in June 2013.

Michael Oliver details how the publication of Benjamin Britten: a commentary on his works from a group of specialists, released just as Britten began composition of Gloriana in 1952, had already caused inappropriate murmurings. This was a book essentially produced by colleagues of the composer to recognise his by now considerable stature, but was interpreted by those at a distance to be a form of promotion. Further to that, the premiere audience was, Oliver says, ‘hardly an ideal premiere for an opera which concerned itself less with the glories of the Elizabethan age than with the conflicts and sorrows that were their background. The opera was described as an insult to the Queen and a slight on the reputation of her predecessor’.

‘It is hard to avoid’, he says, ‘the impression that the viciousness of the attacks was prompted by resentment at Britten’s apparently favoured status. The words of Essex and Mountjoy, rivals in the opera for Elizabeth’s favour, perhaps tempted providence:

I curse him for his impudence

And some day I will hurl him down.

Oliver notes how Britten takes ‘a literal quotation of a phrase from a madrigal by Elizabeth’s contemporary John Wilbye back in time to an austerely harmonized chant-like theme (the Queen’s prayer) and forward to Purcell. Yet all are stylizations rather than pastiches, sometimes so far from their originals (the mere hints of a madrigalian manner in the choral dances of the Act 2 masque) as to constitute an almost entirely imaginary ‘non-Elizabethan’ music, at others purposefully distorting the originals (the sequence of courtly dances) to dramatic effect’.

Oliver’s insight extends to the closing pages of Gloriana. ‘That the opera ends not with a great aria or ensemble but with speech has also been the subject of dissatisfaction, and the fact that Britten revised this final scene more than once suggests that he had his own doubts about it. Or, perhaps, was determined to perfect its balance between speech, orchestral gesture, the three phrases (only) in which Elizabeth rises from speech to song, and the concluding off-stage choral reprise of ‘Green leaves are we’. The soprano who has just sung Britten’s most demanding female role must now demonstrate herself to be a powerful speaking actress as well, but when finely cast and staged this nightmarish resume of Elizabeth’s life after the fall of Essex and her approach to death can be intensely moving.

Despite the failure of its premiere, Gloriana enjoyed a much healthier public reception. John Bridcut notes that ‘cooler assessment today reveals a work well tailored to the occasion (as always with Britten), containing as it does moments of genuine splendour and national rejoicing. But it also explores the conflict between a Queen’s, public duty and private emotions, and in this was remarkably modern – which is presumably what made the begloved and bemedalled audience on the first night so uncomfortable (if they were still awake).

Claire Seymour, writing in her new book The Operas of Benjamin Britten: Expression and Evasion, looks at the effect writing Gloriana had on its composer. ‘The unease and imbalance which distinguish Gloriana, together with the opera’s controversial performance history, confirm the complexity of the challenge Britten had set himself, i.e. to reconcile his public responsibilities and ambitions with his need for private fulfilment. In this way, it might be suggested that Britten’s experience of composing this Coronation opera was a partial re-enactment of the tragic experience of Gloriana herself.’

Thoughts

It is surely true that the greatest composers write what they feel in spite of rather than because of their audience. Britten could have come up with what the premiere audience wanted, a patriotic work gazing on the Queen’s wonder, but what he and Plomer actually completed was something rather more questionable and far more controversial in their eyes – but a work that was ultimately more substantial than a mere tribute piece.

For Gloriana retains many aspects of a ‘typical’ Britten opera, as we have come to know them. There is much more to it than meets the eye or ear, with the splendour and pageantry often used to mask intense personal feelings underneath the surface. The Queen is rather tragically restricted in what she is allowed to show; Essex is equally tragic in his thirst for power that ultimately proves his undoing.

Whereas some might find Britten’s incorporation of Elizabethan music to be twee and loaded with pastiche, I actually found its musical language unique and strangely refreshing. That may be more so coming after the unremitting but remarkable weight of Billy Budd, but I found the invention to be fresh. The idea of a national opera is certainly enhanced by the elements of Dowland and Purcell that remain in Britten’s musical language, and the ceremonial music, when the full orchestra are used, echoes that found in Jupiter from Holst’s The Planets, and even occasionally draws up alongside Elgar.

The lute songs are perhaps the height of Britten’s ‘neo-Elizabethan’ writing. They offer a very unusual sound world for 1950s opera, and it is certain these played a big part in the coolness of the reception afforded to Gloriana. It is also likely the audience were put off by the extended melisma in some of Britten’s writing, and in a lengthy section like the Masque that would almost certainly have affected the perception of the opera by people coming at it ‘from cold’, as many of the audience were.

And then there is the libretto, difficult to muster in today’s language. On watching a staging it is difficult to completely remove thoughts of Blackadder at times, but the musical substance helps overcome a good number of those obstacles, with Britten’s harlequin writing bringing a good deal of the original Tudor language forward but never really giving it full ownership of the opera, for at dramatic high points his own style always forces itself to the front.

Despite the subject matter there is almost always a sense of ceremony throughout, from the very first brass fanfares, which become more flowery as the queen herself arrives. Britten uses the orchestra in a very different way to Billy Budd, with a much brighter tone to a lot of his writing, though the brass are once again the most important factor. Indeed, after a while the richness of colour can be too much, like eating a few too many chocolates. And yet on occasion it is also possible to hear the Britten of the late 1930s. The wide open scoring of the initial fanfare indicates the influence of Copland remains, while the percussion can on occasion point towards Bernstein.

There is room for humour, too. The orchestral Lavolta is a riot, with the initially polite Tudor music overcome by brazen glissandi from the brass. Meanwhile in Raleigh’s Song the line “‘buzz’ quoth the blue fly, ‘hum’ quoth the bee” meeting with a brilliant representation of the insects from the brass in Raleigh’s Song. There are subtleties, also, such as the spidery fugue on the strings that is the prelude for Act 1 Scene 2.

At dramatic high points Britten’s skill with both the orchestra and his incorporation of other styles comes through.
His choral writing is extremely strong at The Ensemble of Reconciliation, while the Prelude to Act 2 glints with a steely magnificence. The Coranto contains a remarkable transition, its Tudor beginnings swallowed up, a kind of Jonah against the whale that is the orchestra.

Yet perhaps no dramatic moment is keener than The Second Duet of the Queen & Essex, just after his intrusion into her bedroom. His declaration that she is ‘the hero of my life’ is an incredibly powerful moment. Elizabeth has to order the execution of Essex, which at first feels very different to the death of Billy Budd – but is it really that different? Both executors (Captain Vere and Elizabeth) are doing something against their will, experiencing an almost violent conflict of emotions while they do so.

Gloriana seems destined to remain a conundrum among Britten’s stage works. But it contains music far finer than its reputation suggests, and manages somehow to mark a Coronation whilst still expressing its composer’s poignant emotions. It is reported that Queen Elizabeth II enjoyed the work, when given a private performance prior to the premiere. In 2012 the royal barge was also named Gloriana for the Diamond Jubilee Thames Pageant. Coincidence, I wonder?

Recordings used

DVD

Susan Bullock (Queen Elizabeth I), Toby Spence (Earl of Essex), Patricia Bardon (Countess of Essex), Mark Stone (Lord Mountjoy), Kate Royal (Lady Rich), Jeremy Carpenter (Sir Robert Cecil), Clive Bayley (Sir Walter Raleigh) & Brindley Sherratt (Ballad Singer), Royal Opera House Chorus and Orchestra / Paul Daniel

A film recorded live at the Royal Opera House in June 2013.

Sarah Walker (Queen Elizabeth I), Anthony Rolfe Johnson (Essex), Jean Rigby (Lady Essex), Richard Van Allan (Raleigh), Elizabeth Vaughn (Lady Penelope Rich), Alan Opie (Cecil), Neil Howlett (Mountjoy), Malcolm Donnelly (Henry Cuffe), Lynda Russell (Lady in Waiting), Norman Bailey (Ballad Singer), Chorus and Orchestra of the English National Opera / Mark Elder (Arthaus)

A film of the 1984 ENO production, live from the Coliseum.

CD

Josephine Barstow (Queen Elizabeth I), Philip Langridge (Essex), Della Jones (Lady Essex), Jonathan Summers (Charles Blount), Alan Opie (Cecil), Yvonne Kenny (Lady Rich), Bryn Terfel (Henry Cuffe), Richard van Allan (Walter Raleigh), Chorus and Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera / Sir Charles Mackerras (Decca)

Gloriana has suffered as much in the recording studio as it has in the opera house. Britten himself did not record the opera, for after its opening run it was not heard again for a decade. Thus he recorded only the Orchestral Suite and the Courtly Dances. Decca themselves did not commission a recording of the opera until Sir Charles Mackerras stepped up in 1992.

Given that Mackerras was ‘cast out’ of the Britten circle it must have been a peculiar honour for him, but it is a very colourful recording, the brightness of the ensemble judged to perfection and the details of Britten’s Tudor appropriations fully exposed. He is helped by the impressive Josephine Varstow, a fulsome but approachable queen, and a very strong ensemble of male soloists headed by Philip Langridge as Essex.

In the Royal Opera House version Susan Bullock is very sharp of tone as the monarch, perhaps reflecting her more recent portrayals on the screen. She has a wide vibrato that can at times be grating, but it could be argued that this is a very accurate representation of Elizabeth herself. By contrast Josephine Barstow is brighter. Toby Spence is superb as Essex.

Spotify

Mackerras’s recording remains the only available version of Gloriana, and can be heard by clicking here. The Symphonic Suite and Courtly Dances are the common excerpts taken from the opera, and they will have a separate entry and playlist, as Britten published these as Op.53a.

In addition a roll of photos from the original production of Gloriana can be viewed on the Royal Opera House website.

Also written in 1951: Vaughan Williams – Symphony no.7 (Sinfonia antartica)

Next up: Winter Words, Op.52

Listening to Britten – Variation on an Elizabethan Theme

The Royal Cypher of Queen Elizabeth II

Variation on an Elizabethan Theme for string orchestra (January 1953, Britten aged 29) – part of Variations on an Elizabethan Theme, a multi-composer work:

Theme – Byrd, arr. Imogen Holst
Variation 1: Allegro non troppo (Oldham)
Variation 2: A lament: Andante espressivo (Tippett) (which later became the second movement of his Divertimento for chamber orchestra (Sellinger’s round))
Variation 3: Andante (Lennox Berkeley)
Variation 4: Quick and gay (Britten)
Variation 5: Nocturne: Adagio (Humphrey Searle)
Variation 6: Finale: Presto giocoso (William Walton)

Dedication for the Coronation Choral Concert at the 1953 Aldeburgh Festival
Duration 2′ (total work 15′)

Background and Critical Reception

Britten and five other leading British composers decided to collaborate in a work to honour the Queen’s Coronation at the 1953 Aldeburgh Festival.

As their theme they chose Sellinger’s Round, which, according to the Britten Thematic Catalogue entry for the work, had wide popularity from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. It is attributed in this entry to William Byrd.

Each composer then contributed a variation, but at the first two performances the identity of the composers and their variations were not revealed, and the audience were asked to enter a competition to guess.

In his variation Britten included a motif from his much more substantial tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, the opera Gloriana, on which he was working at the time.

In the 2013 BBC Proms the work was revived by the Britten Sinfonia in a Proms Saturday Matinee concert, and for the occasion two further variations were commissioned from John Casken and Tansy Davies. They were inserted between those by Searle and Walton.

Thoughts

When heard in full, the Elizabethan Variations offer a great game if you are listening for the first time, and it isn’t always that easy to guess the composer!

Britten and his immediate friends, Imogen Holst, Lennox Berkeley and Sir Michael Tippett, are present, as are those a little further removed – Sir William Walton, Humphrey Searle and Arthur Oldham. The two recent additions from Casken and Davies were appraised on this blog at the BBC Proms.

Britten’s variation, the fourth, might be marked ‘Quick and Gay’, but it is quite foreboding and has considerable weight to it, especially when heard on the composer’s own recording – that is until the final moments, when a solo violin emerges from the texture and adds some playfulness. Jac van Steen treats it a little lighter on the more recent digital version.

Sellinger’s Round, with its insistent triple time theme, is heard initially in its arrangement by Imogen Holst. Arthur Oldham then uses quite full bodied orchestra, which turns in on itself for Tippett’s contribution, which has a violin solo in trills that offers hints of Corelli but moves with a harmonic strangeness. The intensely lyrical violin contrasted with a worrisome background is a shiver on the wind.

After a gentle dance from Lennox Berkeley comes Britten, then a very moody and atmospheric variation from Humphrey Searle, which gets closer to his serial aesthetic without forsaking a sense of melody.

William Walton gets the prime time slot, if you like, writing a deft fugue that calls for bows to bounce on the violins, before working through to a rousing conclusion in C major, brilliantly realised for the strings.

Recordings used

Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra / Benjamin Britten (Hänssler)
BBC Symphony Orchestra / Jac van Steen

Britten’s own recording can come across as a little severe, but the 1956 broadcast is very nicely restored by Hänssler, and is offered with broadcast versions of Sinfonia da Requiem and the Gloriana Suite, with the same orchestra.

Jac van Steen’s version with the BBC Symphony Orchestra is much fuller, benefitting from digital sound and a really nice heft to the string sound where appropriate. It is part of a disc with several multi-composer variation works, if that makes sense!

Spotify

This playlist offers both recordings referred to above, conducted by Britten and van Steen respectively.

Also written in 1953: Shostakovich – Symphony no.10 in E minor, Op.93

Next up: Gloriana, Op.53

Listening to Britten – Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, Op.51

Honey Church, Devon by John Piper (1985). (c) The Piper Estate

Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, Op.51 – for alto and tenor voices and piano (January 1952, Britten aged 38)

Dedication Kathleen Ferrier and Peter Pears
Text Chester Miracle Play: Histories of Lot and Abraham
Language English
Duration 17′

Audio clip using the recording made by Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor), Michael Chance (countertenor) and Graham Johnson (piano). With thanks to Hyperion.

Background and Critical Reception

Britten’s first three canticles follow closely in the wake of major operas (Albert Herring, Billy Budd and The Turn of The Screw respectively), so it is perhaps not surprising that he brings a very strong dramatic input to each.

The second canticle, twice as long as My Beloved is Mine, is the first of two settings he made on the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. In it, the father Abraham’s faith is tested, as God instructs him to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice. Given that Abraham waited many years for a son, this is the hardest thing he could possible do.

Yet neither of Britten’s settings uses the Biblical text. The second, in the War Requiem, is rewritten by Wilfred Owen. In it, the father kills his son, a shocking moment that leads to the slaying of ‘half the seed of Europe, one by one’. The outcome of this second canticle, using a text from the Chester plays, is the same as it is in the Bible, where an angel of God intervenes just as Abraham’s knife is raised to do the deed.

Britten wrote this canticle for performance by Peter Pears (Abraham) and Kathleen Ferrier (Isaac), to be performed in concerts where the trio were raising money for the English Opera Group. Today however it is more common to hear the parts sung by a tenor and countertenor, or even a tenor and boy alto. Britten and Pears used these means in recording, with John Hahessy taking up the part of Isaac.

The unison passage with which the work begins represents the voice of God, and to achieve a unique timbre Britten specifies this should be sung by the two singers in homophony, facing away from each other. In this way he brought his acumen of stage management to his ‘chamber’ vocal works, achieving what Michael Short terms to be ‘a miniature opera’.

There are some critics who really struggle with this work within Britten’s output, and in a review of the canticles for the Arts Desk earlier this year David Nice described it as ‘another of Britten’s queasy innocence-and-experience works stemming from his extraordinary revelation to trusted sources that he was raped by a schoolmaster, possibly even abused by his father’.

I am not so sure. To me it seems a faithful setting of a disturbing Old Testament story, one that resonated sharply with Britten on account of his sympathy for children.

Thoughts

The combination of the two voices at the start of this canticle, held over a luminous piano accompaniment of almost pure stillness, is one of the most magical moments in all of Britten’s vocal writing, especially if experienced in performance. There is a static reverence that is rarely found in any music up to this point, let alone Britten’s, as the voice of God is heard – but afterwards it is possible to hear the influence of this writing in the devotional music of John Tavener and Arvo Pärt.

After the first statement the walking bass in the piano part brings to mind Bach’s Sleepers Awake chorale, its constant prodding becoming much more animated as the demands for Isaac as a sacrifice are made and become clear. Britten portrays Abraham’s anguish in an increasingly distressed vocal line, and the piano also becomes extremely agitated.

Britten draws from his Purcell realizations throughout, either in the melisma of the quicker, urgent passages, or in the stillness of the opening, which surely takes Saul and the Witch at Endor as its blueprint. Here, however, the stillness is pure rather than menacing.

The use of a countertenor often divides audiences, and here the high pitched entreaties of Isaac will be no different. But nobody, surely, could fail to be moved by the outer sections of a work that asks many questions, as well as providing some strikingly beautiful answers.

Recordings used

Peter Pears (tenor), Kathleen Ferrier (contralto), Benjamin Britten (piano) (Decca)
Peter Pears (tenor), John Hahessy (treble), Benjamin Britten (piano) (Decca)
Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor), Michael Chance (countertenor), Graham Johnson (piano) (Hyperion)
Philip Langridge (tenor), Jean Rigby (contralto), Steuart Bedford (piano) (Naxos)
Ian Bostridge (tenor), David Daniels (countertenor), Julius Drake (piano) (Virgin Classics)
Mark Padmore (tenor), Iestyn Davies (countertenor), Julius Drake (piano) (Wigmore Hall Live)

Personal preference on the singing line-up of Abraham and Isaac will determine the chosen version. If the original is to be preferred, then there really is no better than the three that first performed this work, Pears, Ferrier and Britten. Ferrier’s voice in the lower range is uncommonly full-bodied.

If the preference is for a boy alto in the part of Isaac, then Britten and Pears again – this time with John Hahessy – are the ones to hear, and it is certainly a very realistic discourse between the father and son characters.

There are many fine versions with tenor and countertenor. Bostridge and Daniels work incredibly well together, the countertenor capturing the relative immaturity of Isaac, while Bostridge has some appropriate, fatherly tones. Julius Drake’s commentary on the piano is full of musical insight.

Similarly on Hyperion, Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Michael Chance create a magical atmosphere with Roger Vignoles – and on the recent issue of canticles from Wigmore Hall Live, Mark Padmore and Iestyn Davies can hardly be separated in their unison passages – even the vibrato is the same.

However my personal choice was for a tenor and contralto – Philip Langridge and Jean Rigby, with pianist Steuart Bedford. This was recorded in All Hallows, Gospel Oak, and for some reason the church acoustic is wholly appropriate. It made all the difference to how I listened to the piece, which is after all a clear harbinger of Britten’s equally dramatic church parables of the 1960s.

Spotify

The attached playlist includes a number of versions, with another version from Pears and Britten, this time with the contralto Norma Procter. This is joined by the versions headed by Bostridge, recording that appears not to be the Decca one and is of uncertain origin. It joins those by Bostridge, Langridge and Mark Padmore.

Also written in 1952: Cage – 4’33”

Next up: Variation on an Elizabethan Theme

Listening to Britten – Billy Budd, Op.50

Sea breakers by Jane Mackay. Used with many thanks to the artist, whose work can be viewed on her own website Sounding Art

Billy Budd – Opera in four acts, Op.50 (January 1950 – 2 November 1951, Britten aged 37 – then revised to two acts in September 1960)

Dedication To George and Marion (the 7th Earl of Harewood and his wife, for whom Britten wrote A Wedding Anthem
Text E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier, adapted from the novella by Herman Melville
Language English
Duration 155′

Audio and Video clips

You can watch an entire broadcast of Billy Budd here, as recorded in 1966 for the BBC. The principal characters are those as recorded by Britten himself for Decca in 1960, with Peter Glossop as Billy Budd, Peter Pears as Captain Vere and Michael Langdon as John Claggart. The supporting cast includes John Shirley-Quirk, Bryan Drake, David Kelly and Kenneth MacDonald, with the Ambrosian Opera Chorus and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Mackerras.

Selected clips from the opera’s first recording, conducted by Benjamin Britten with Glossop, Pears and Langdon in the roles described above. With thanks to Decca.

Act 1
I am an old man who has experienced much (Captain Vere)

Pull, my bantams! (ensemble)

Your name? Billy Budd, sir (John Claggart and Billy Budd)

Billy Budd, king of the birds! (ensemble)

Starry Vere we call him (ensemble)

Gentlemen, the King! (Captain Vere and ensemble)

Blow, blow, blow (Ned Keene)

We’re off to Samoa by way of Genoa (ensemble)

Over the water…Handsomely done (John Claggart)

Come here. Remember your promise (John Claggart, Novice)

Act 2
With great regret I must disturb your honour (John Claggart, Captain Vere)

Deck ahoy! Enemy sail on starboard bow (ensemble)

There you are again, Master-at-arms (John Claggart, Captain Vere)

Claggart, John Claggart, beware! (Captain Vere)

Master-at-arms and foretopman (Billy Budd, Captain Vere, John Claggart)

God o’ mercy! Here, help me! (Captain Vere)

William Budd, you are accused by Captain Vere (ensemble)

Poor fellow, who could save him? (ensemble)

I accept their verdict (Captain Vere)

Here! Baby! Dansker, old friend (Billy Budd and Dansker)

And farewell to ye (Billy Budd)

According to the articles of War (ensemble)

We committed his body to the deep (Captain Vere)

Background, Plot and Critical Reception

After the relatively small scale of the chamber operas The Rape of Lucretia , Albert Herring and The Beggar’s Opera, all written for the English Opera Group, Britten returned to the big stage of the Royal Opera House with Billy Budd.

Commissioned for the Festival of Britain, the opera brought him into direct contact with E.M. Forster, whose article on George Crabbe’s poem The Borough had so affected Britten during his American stay, planting the seeds for Peter Grimes. As Philip Brett writes in The Britten Companion, ‘it seems to have been an almost predictable match between a literary minded composer and a musical novelist who shared country, class, and to a large extent, beliefs’.

Almost simultaneously the two arrived at Harold Melville’s novella Billy Budd as their starting point for an opera, Forster effectively persuaded out of a self-imposed retirement, as he had tired of writing about ‘the love of men for women and vice versa’. Eric Crozier was also drafted in, this being Forster’s experience of writing a libretto, and they both produced a text written entirely in prose, a first for opera. In his notes for Glyndebourne’s recording of the opera Philip Reed sets a vivid scene of the two working on the libretto at Crag House in Aldeburgh, while Britten composed the Spring Symphony in his study in the same house. When that was finished Britten joined the collaboration full-time, and spent most of 1950 working on the music, using an all-male cast for the first time.

The trio largely followed Melville’s story, with a few necessary amendments for the operatic stage. The plot centres on Billy Budd, a shipmate who joins the crew of the Indomitable, a ship at sea in 1797, during the Napoleon era. It is under the stewardship of the well-loved Captain Vere, referred to affectionately by his downtrodden men as ‘starry Vere’. Budd, an athletic man, has a stammer and temper that can surface at points of high tension. He quickly becomes a favourite of officers and crew, who refer to him as ‘beauty’, and morale on the ‘Indomitable’ is boosted. However Claggart, the Master at Arms, senses a threat to authority, not to mention his own increasing attraction to the sailor. As the two elements combine, he resolves to provoke Billy and ultimately destroy him. Enlisting a novice to sway him with thoughts of mutiny and promotion, he plants gold on the sailor, enough to take him to Captain Vere with accusations of misbehaviour and treason.

At this point the French are sighted, the action switches to possible armed conflict (with a chorus of ‘This is our moment!’), and a shot is fired. As the furore dies down, the attention returns to Budd. On meeting the Captain he swears total allegiance to Vere, but when Claggart arrives the accusations are revealed. Billy’s stammer returns and he strikes out, catching the Master at Arms in the forehead and killing him outright. Billy is led immediately to trial but, when given the opportunity to save him, Captain Vere stands silent, and a verdict of death by hanging is pronounced. Billy is hanged from the yardarm the next morning.

This action is framed by a Prologue and Epilogue, in which the old captain recounts the story and believes himself exonerated by Billy’s final words, ‘Starry Vere’.

Britten initially placed the drama in four acts, which Philip Brett describes as a symphonic framework, but he then revised the opera to two longer acts in 1960, removing a choral scene where the men glorify ‘Starry Vere’. He recorded this edition for Decca immediately after. The premiere of the original version, however, took place at the Royal Opera House on 1 December, 1951. After it Britten wrote to his two collaborators, declaring they had ‘written incomparably the finest libretto ever’.

Britten scholars are united in their praise of the opera, but there are wildly differing views on the morality played out within. For Arnold Whittall ‘the dramatic issues are explicit and all-pervading, but the music does not merely match them: it takes possession of them’. He gives as his main example the tension between the notes of B and B flat throughout the opera, eventually resolved ‘in favour of B flat, the implicit triumph of good over evil’.

For David Matthews, Billy Budd is ‘Britten’s grandest opera, and in some respects his greatest’. He picks out the chorus at the centre of Act One, where the ship’s crew are singing sea shanties. ‘A tremendous, overwhelming feeling of nostalgia is embodied in the words ‘say farewell’, repeated over and over again in rich cannon. But unlike Delius’s lingering farewells, it is not filled with regret. It is a farewell to youth, life, love; but all in a spirit of acceptance, and an almost religious feeling for the sea as the great mother. Britten rarely revealed himself with so little inhibition and so much emotion; he was never to do so quite so powerfully again.’

Captain Vere’s character is perhaps the most controversial. For Whittall, ‘The conflict within Billy, the conflict between him and Claggart, the conflict between the English and the French; only the devious Captain Vere avoids such conflicts or, it is possible to feel, uses Billy to fight his battle for him.’

‘It would be consistent with what is known of Britten’s beliefs’, he goes on, ‘and with the atmosphere of many of his other works, for the Vere of the opera to be seen as fundamentally corrupt, and for that interpretation to be expressed more directly than in Melville. Yet it is war itself which the opera implicitly condemns, rather than the tools of war, however gladly Vere and his subordinates clutch at the comforting certainties of its simple morality.’

Michael Oliver admires Britten’s craft, revealing that Billy Budd is ‘orchestrally resourceful. It has to be: low voices are less able to penetrate orchestral textures than high ones, and the particular colour of the opera is partly due to Britten’s many skilful solutions to this problem’.

His ultimate conclusion, as with many Britten scholars, is that Budd is a ‘powerfully exciting work’.

Thoughts

Of all Britten’s works for stage, it is surely Billy Budd that provokes the most outright tragedy and sorrow. For the subject of this vast and all-encompassing opera is one of Britten’s most likeable heroes, but has a fatal natural flaw that ultimately does for him, provoked by the ghastly Master at Arms, John Claggart.

The scene between Captain Vere, Claggart and Budd in Act 2 is one of the opera’s dramatic high points, and the moment when Billy snaps and punches Claggart is shocking and briefly thrilling. Yet although there is the brief elation at the realisation the Master at Arms is removed from the scene, it is swiftly replaced by horror at Billy’s plight, a terrible feeling that deepens when it transpires Captain Vere is not going to exercise his authority so that Budd’s execution might be avoided. The mood at this point is desolation, and the men become rebellious but are forced below decks. On looking back Captain Vere might feel vindicated, but the tragedy far outlasts his epilogue.

Some of Britten’s very finest music lies within this opera. The choruses are thrilling, the first, the recurring theme of ‘O heave, o heave away’, an atmospheric evocation of the world close to the waves as the oarsmen struggle manfully against the current, depicted in a thick fog of strings and timpani. Then, after the flogging of a Novice in Act 1, saxophone and chorus unite in a mournful duet, ‘lost forever on the endless sea’. Later in the same act, when the men of the ship are singing sea shanties below decks, Britten gathers his forces until the music has an awesome power, with the full throated men’s chorus singing ‘Blow her away!’ (to which Matthews refers above). Vocal and orchestral forces unite in the fullest flow, sounding for all the world like a homage to the climactic point of his teacher Frank Bridge’s orchestral suite The Sea, one of Britten’s early discoveries. It is as if a massive wave is breaking over the bow of the ‘Indomitable’, and the music is utterly overwhelming.

Billy Budd is a timeless tale, its miscarriages of justice easy to project on to cases of domestic violence and the like today. Its climax, however, is deliberately ambiguous. The conversation between the Captain and Billy, where Vere reveals the decision of the court, is not heard by anybody, so Britten has to provide a musical representation. He does so in a series of thirty-four chords from different sections of the orchestra, each a word or phrase in itself, leaving an intensity of feeling that is almost unbearable in the context of the verdict. We move from disbelief and fury to bleak resignation, and a peace of sorts. Meanwhile the chords – or an appropriation of them – also accompany the close of Billy’s final aria.

As for Claggart, his is a blackness not yet heard, even in Grimes. Britten gets a unique flatness to his voice that is utterly evil, removing all redeeming features from his character. Even the musical accompaniment is conniving, the trombones that slide to his aid creepy in the extreme – in a similar key and profile as those in the storm of Peter Grimes, but at a much slower tempo. With the night closing in, as Claggart sings the aria ‘Oh beauty, oh handsomeness, goodness!’ (which ultimately ends in his plotting of Budd’s destruction), the dark and evil thoughts brooding in his mind are clearly played out through the bass strings, just before we hear him sing. Meanwhile plaintive woodwind surround the Novice as he takes in the enormity of his mission to help Claggart destroy Billy Budd. Even visions of Claggart are terrifying, and Vere’s description, ‘He has a hundred eyes!’, is a horrible moment – thankfully dampened by the beginning of the sea shanties below decks, which is a wonderfully realised sound effect.

Billy’s writing is also very strong, in particular Britten’s treatment of the stammer. The affliction introduces even more tension when Budd is trying to get his words out, and the orchestra suffers with him. Even the seamen sympathise with his plight, for at the moment of execution they register their discontent through a stammering fugue that is highly disconcerting. Yet when Budd is in full voice, as he tends to be more often, he lifts above the orchestra in an energetic swell.

The plot is curiously static; and quite slow moving, but that only adds to the tension on board ship. At the start of Act 2 there is gathering excitement of the possibility of a confrontation with the French, but as that fizzles out, the claustrophobia of Billy;s predicament returns.

Billy Budd is regarded as one of the finest operatic achievements of the 20th century, and many regard it as the equal of Peter Grimes, perhaps even its superior. As a drama, and a tragedy, it can scarcely be surpassed, and is unquestionably one of Britten’s greatest works.

Again, as with many Britten operas, a warning should be issued that this is very tiring music of unremitting emotional intensity, which can often result in a headache – the two acts are each more than an hour of continuously powerful music, with little to no light relief. It is yet more proof of Britten, Forster and Crozier’s mastery of dramatic setting.

Recordings used

DVD

Thomas Allen (Billy), Philip Langridge (Captain Vere), Richard van Allan (John Claggart), John Connell (Dansker), English National Opera Chorus and Orchestra, David Atherton (Arthaus)

A film of the 1988 ENO production.

CD

Peter Glossop (Billy Budd), Peter Pears (Captain Vere), Michael Langdon (Claggart), Ambrosian Opera Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra / Benjamin Britten (Decca)

Simon Keenlyside (Billy), Philip Langridge (Captain Vere), John Tomlinson (Claggart), Tiffin Boys’ Choir, London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra / Richard Hickox (Chandos)

Nathan Gunn (Billy), Ian Bostridge (Captain Vere), Gidon Saks (Claggart), London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus / Daniel Harding (Virgin Classics)

Jacques Imbrailo (Billy Budd), John Mark Ainsley (Captain Vere), Phillip Ens (Claggart), Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, London Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Mark Elder (Glyndebourne)

Original version in four acts

Thomas Hampson (Billy Budd), Anthony Rolfe Johnson (Captain Vere), Eric Halfvarson (Claggart), Manchester Boys Choir, Hallé Chorus and Orchestra / Kent Nagano

Billy Budd has an extremely fine discography, particularly when including Kent Nagano’s world premiere recording of the four-act original. However it is to Britten’s recording that one must turn first of all, and it is an account of searing intensity.

Daniel Harding also conducts an exceptional version, with Ian Bostridge as Vere. The only quibble I would venture to offer here is that when he sings ‘I am an old man’ in the Prologue he still sounds relatively young.

Richard Hickox boasts a starry cast of singers, with the mature Philip Langridge a very convincing older Vere, Simon Keenlyside a bounding main part and the figure of Claggart horrifically realised by Sir John Tomlinson. The London Symphony Orchestra, who appear on three of the main Budd recordings, play like a dream.

The Glyndebourne production, handsomely packaged, is a tour de force. Particularly impressive is Christopher Maltman as Captain Vere, with a consistent clarity of tone, but also Jacques Imbrailo as the young sailor Budd, an ideal mix of youthful charm and rugged aggressiveness.

Spotify

There are plenty of choices for Billy Budd listeners on Spotify. Britten’s 1960 recording for Decca is available here. Meanwhile there appears to be a version of the world premiere available here, with Theodor Uppman in the title role and Peter Pears playing Captain Vere.

The Richard Hickox version on Chandos can be accessed here, while Daniel Harding’s recording for Virgin Classics is here. Kent Nagano can be heard conducting the original four-act version here.

Finally Harold Melville’s story, read by the actor Christopher Timothy, can be heard by clicking here.

Also written in 1951: Vaughan Williams – The Pilgrim’s Progress

Next up: Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, Op.51

Listening to Britten – Purcell: I take no pleasure in the sun’s bright beams

Ensemble: ‘Overcome Tyrone!’ – Gloriana by Jane Mackay – her visual response to Britten’s music, used with many thanks to the artist. Jane Mackay’s Sounding Art website can be found here

I take no pleasure in the sun’s bright beams, Z388 – Purcell realization for high voice and piano (pre 13 June, 1951, Britten aged 37)

Dedication not known
Text Anon
Language English
Duration 2′

Audio clips with thanks to Hyperion
Original, with Susan Gritton (soprano) and The King’s Consort / Robert King

Realization, with Ian Bostridge (tenor) and Graham Johnson (piano)

Background and Critical Reception

Robert King writes that this anonymous text appears in a manuscript of poems and verses collected in the late seventeenth century at Winchester College, under the heading Some of my dear Mother Chamberlaine’s Verses.

He observes of how Purcell’s setting ‘eloquently captures that air of melancholy, colouring the ‘dark and silent shady grove’ and the ‘Death’s embraces’ at the lower end of the voice’.

Again it seems the exact date of Britten’s realization is not known, but can be approximately judged by when it was first performed.

Thoughts

Britten adds a softly oscillating right hand figure to this realization, which means the music never settles and is largely restless throughout.

With the vocal writing lower down in the tenor range the two lines are quite close together, and only really resolve towards the end, in a mood of reflection that has yet to find peace.

Recordings used

Ian Bostridge (tenor), Graham Johnson (piano) (Hyperion)

After quite a careful start, this version settles but remains necessarily sombre. Bostridge sings with great control.

Spotify

There is no recording of Britten’s realization on Spotify – however the original song, sung by Vegard Lund, can be heard here.

Also written in 1951: Stravinsky – The Rake’s Progress

Next up: Billy Budd, Op.50