Listening to Britten – Peter Grimes, Op.33

Painting (c) Brian Hogwood

Peter Grimes – Opera in three acts and a prologue, Op.33 (January 1944 – 10 February 1945, Britten aged 30)

Dedication For the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, dedicated to the memory of Natalie Koussevitzky
Text Montagu Slater, after a poem by George Crabbe
Language English
Duration 145′

Audio and Video clips

The trailer for the 2013 production for the Aldeburgh Festival, Grimes on the Beach:

Selected clips from the opera’s first recording, conducted by Benjamin Britten with Peter Pears in the title role. With thanks to Decca.

Prologue
“Peter Grimes!”

Interlude I: On the Beach (orchestra)

Act 1
“Oh, hang at open doors” (chorus)

“What harbour shelters peace” (Grimes)

Interlude II: The Storm

“Now the Great Bear and Pleaides” (Grimes)

Act 2
Interlude III: Sunday morning by the beach (orchestra)

Fool to let it come to this!

Now is gossip put on trial

From the gutter (Ellen, Auntie and the nieces)

Interlude IV: Passacaglia

“Peter Grimes! Nobody here?”

Act 3

Interlude V: Evening

“Grimes! Grimes!”

“Peter, we’ve come to take you home”

“To those who pass the borough (chorus)

The Plot

Crabbe was a Suffolk poet, and Peter Grimes, whose tale is told in The Borough, is a Suffolk fisherman.

Grimes loses an apprentice to malnutrition, after a long period at sea in pursuit of a large catch. He is acquitted of any wrong doing, but much of the community in The Borough, where he lives, judge him to be guilty and turn against him. He then loses another apprentice to a combination of bad weather and overwork.

During the opera The Borough, who are self-appointed judge and jury, enhance his guilt, make him feel more of an outsider and, following the death of the second apprentice, effectively condemn him to sign his own death warrant.

The tale ends with Captain Balstrode convincing Grimes that the best thing for him is to sink his boat. Grimes takes his advice, sailing his own fishing boat out to sea and going down with it, the only true outcome for peace in the village. The sea, ‘with strong majestic sweep’, has the last word.

Background and Critical Reception

When they returned to England from America, Britten and Pears were outsiders. Having registered as conscientious objectors to the war on their arrival, it was also known – if not widely talked about – that they were now a couple. Thus their integration back into life in England did not always run smoothly.

It is, then, little surprise that Britten’s first fully fledged opera should explore the theme of the outsider with consistently searching intensity. No work of his had occupied him as much until now. From start to finish, Peter Grimes took just over a year and a month to complete – but it had been in Britten’s mind since America, when he and Pears discovered a copy of George Crabbe’s poem The Borough in a Los Angeles bookshop.

Accompanying this was an article about Crabbe that Britten found in The Listener. Written by E.M. Forster, it contains a pictorial description of Aldeburgh and its surrounding habitat. This almost singlehandedly forced Britten and Pears into returning, and the composer set to work almost in this very location, writing much of the opera from his new base, the Old Mill at Snape.

The tale has autobiographical strands that resonate strongly with Britten’s own life. There is the irresistible parallel of the Suffolk coast and the judgments of the community on an individual who is ‘different’ and maybe ‘lacking’ in the supposed qualities that other people possess. For Grimes, like Britten, is socially different – but not beyond understanding, as proved by his closest friend in the opera, Ellen Orford.

Ever since its premiere Peter Grimes has been viewed not just as a key work for Britten, and indeed Britain, but for twentieth century opera beyond. There is so much written material on it to do full justice here, but dipping in gives a few ideas.

David Matthews highlights one particular example. ‘If one had to single out an episode in Peter Grimes as an example of great operatic music, it would be the quartet for the women in Act II. This is the moment where Ellen, Auntie and the ‘nieces’ combine in expressing their pity for Peter’s fate and for the plight of all men in a lilting barcarolle. The three verses each climax – significantly on the word ‘sleep’ – in a torrent of high, sensuous sound that evokes unlikely comparisons with Der Rosenkavalier…before we are returned, with the Passacaglia, to the cruel world of reality. This duality is at the very heart of Britten’s artistic vision’.

A new book by Hans Keller, Britten: Essays, Letters and Opera Guides, devotes a chapter to the ‘notes for a recording’ he wrote on Peter Grimes in 1952. It is incredibly perceptive, declaring that ‘in each of us there is something of a Grimes, though most of us have outgrown or at least outwitted him sufficiently not to recognise him too consciously. But we do identify him, and ourselves with him, unconsciously, which is one reason for the universal appeal of this work’.

Thoughts

Peter Grimes is an all-consuming experience, a work of stunning musical power but also a bleak moral tale that raises just as many questions as it answers.

Britten gives Grimes a profile that balances perfectly our sympathies and revulsion. Is he good or bad? Understood or misunderstood? Often the answer lies in the middle, and we get to see his good – usually in the more tender scenes with Ellen Orford, who does understand him – but also his bad, when he insists on taking his apprentice out to sea in the teeth of a howling gale. Each listen to the opera found me alternately siding with him and condemning him, often against my better judgement.

Musically, Britten’s evocations of the characters and the sea are incredibly sharply focused. Very few composers have written such vivid seascapes as this, but Britten actually writes three distinct portraits, heard most pertinently in the orchestral interludes but spilling over to the vocal numbers, where they also represent the mood of the plot. The sea dominates the opera, taking its lead from his teacher Frank Bridge and his own portraits in the symphonic poem The Sea.

To me the otherworldly Dawn interlude, with its eerie calls on the wind, to me paints birds disturbed into sudden flight from the long reeds. It is at once evocative and a little ominous, establishing an immediate tension that does not let up until the final notes, some two-and-a-half hours later.

Britten’s next picture of the sea is in a storm, raging offshore with gale force winds. This transfers to the local pub The Boar, where the Borough townsfolk are busy passing judgement on Grimes not just in his absence but also when he arrives. They are the tabloid journalists and soap opera cast of their time, and are absolutely vital to the opera. Britten takes time to colour in their characters, often within a raucous crowd setting.

During the storm interlude the view suddenly pans out with an expansive string melody – also taken up by Grimes – where you can almost see the moonlight shimmering on the waves. One of Britten’s great arias, Now the Great Bear and the Pleiades, occurs at this point, an exquisite piece of work that operates, typically of the composer, on almost one note alone, held above a slowly shifting harmony.

The orchestral Passacaglia, heard towards the heart of Act 2, responds to the turning point of the opera. It confirms what we (and Ellen Orford) suspected, that Grimes has made a catastrophically bad decision to take his second apprentice out to sea in inclement weather. Interestingly the main theme is first heard on the viola, Britten’s own instrument, heightening the sense of connection between him and Grimes.

Britten’s third picture of the sea, the last of five interludes in total, is at night, where the moonlight is more peacefully drawn. Here though the music is weighed down with anguish and regret, the pulsing strings like dropping tears, for this is where the second apprentice has died, and Grimes knows he has done wrong, that his fate is sealed. There is however just a tinge of romance, as views of the sea in these conditions tend to have.

Britten puts his spatial awareness to keen dramatic use throughout the opera. The Sunday morning scene is a prime example. As Ellen Orford discovers a bruise on John, Peter’s second apprentice, the rector and congregation continue to exchange the formalities of Mattins offstage. The two are not independent of each other, though, for Peter’s words are mirrored by subtle pronouncements in the text of the Benedicitus.

As John Bridcut says, Peter Grimes, quite apart from laying claim to be the ‘greatest British opera ever written…is certainly one of the world’s enduring operatic landmarks of the twentieth century’. It is utterly dramatic from start to finish. That Britten managed this with pretty much his first attempt at opera is nothing short of staggering, completing a haunting tale whose message and music stays with the observer long after it has finished.

A couple of words of warning – hearing the words ‘Peter Grimes!’ sung at full power by an opera chorus over and over again, as occurs at the climax of Act 2, can be the last straw in an exhausting experience. Perhaps this is why I find listening to Grimes on headphones gives you a headache. That, if nothing else, shows just how intense a drama this really is!

Recordings used

DVD

Philip Langridge (Peter Grimes), Janice Cairns (Ellen Orford), Alan Opie (Balstrode), Ann Howard (Auntie), English National Opera Chorus and Orchestra / David Atherton (Arthaus)

A film of the 1994 ENO production which has a powerfully dark centre. The tension never lets up, the chorus right up in the face of Grimes and the viewer as they chip away at his sanity. This is a weather-beaten production, fully caught up in the plot and its setting, and Langridge is superb as Grimes.

CD

Peter Pears (Peter Grimes), Claire Watson (Ellen Orford), James Pease (Balstrode), Jean Watson (Auntie), Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Benjamin Britten (Decca)

Jon Vickers (Peter Grimes), Heather Harper (Ellen Orford), Jonathan Summers (Captain Balstrode), Elizabeth Bainbridge (Auntie), Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Sir Colin Davis (Philips)

Anthony Rolfe Johnson (Peter Grimes), Felicity Lott (Ellen Orford), Thomas Allen (Captain Balstrode), Patricia Payne (Auntie), Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Bernard Haitink (EMI)

Alan Oke (Peter Grimes), Giselle Allen (Ellen Orford), David Kempster (Captain Balstrode), Gaynor Keeble (Auntie), Chorus of Opera North with the Chorus of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Britten-Pears Orchestra / Steuart Bedford (Signum Classics)

Britten’s recording, made for Decca, is one of the twentieth century’s landmark recordings, and cemented an already productive relationship he had with the record company. Although it was made in 1958 mono sound it remains in extremely good condition, and the spatial effects that are key to this opera are all realistic. The singing is incredibly strong, the orchestral playing too, and Peter Pears as Grimes is at his most convincing when madness takes hold near the end.

Sir Colin Davis contributed two very fine accounts. For Philips he made only the opera’s second recording in 1978, with Jon Vickers and Heather Harper, while in 2004 he returned to the work with Glenn Winslade and Janice Watson for LSO Live. Britten was not so sure of his view of the opera, however, as Sir Colin revealed in a BBC documentary. “I don’t think Benjamin Britten liked it. He sent me a letter. Was he critical? Yes, he always was, but we had a feeling he hadn’t quite realised what he’d let loose. It’s a very violent piece, but it has some wonderful music. I think he thought I took much too much freedom with it”. Nonetheless, Sir Colin’s first recording is a mighty powerful one, and though there are differences of opinion in Vickers’ Grimes. Some think he is even closer to what Britten intended than Pears.

Other versions are hardly shrinking violets either. Haitink’s orchestra play tremendously, captured in technicolour by the EMI engineers. His Grimes is Philip Langridge, who reprises the role with Richard Hickox on Chandos. Most recently the cast of Grimes on the Beach are also very fine, with the incisive orchestra conducted by Steuart Bedford, whose chorus feels more balanced and, at the end of Act 3, is raw and powerful.

More recently Stuart Skelton, star of ENO’s production in 2009, has made the role his own, and a first recording with him in it would be eagerly awaited indeed. It would further strengthen an already formidable discography.

Spotify

Grimes is well represented on Spotify. Britten’s 1958 recording can be accessed here, while Sir Colin Davis can be found by clicking here for the Philips version, and here for LSO Live. Bernard Haitink’s version is here. Richard Hickox conducts a very strong version on Chandos, with Philip Langridge as the lead character, here

Also written in 1945: Richard Strauss – Metamorphosen

Next up: Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op.33a

Listening to Britten – Chorale after an old French carol

Culross Abbey window ((c) Ben Hogwood)

Chorale after an old French carol for chorus (SSAATTBB unaccompanied) (15 November 1944, Britten aged 30)

Dedication Not known
Text W.H. Auden
Language English
Duration 4’45”

Audio

A clip of the version recorded by Polyphony and Stephen Layton. With thanks to Hyperion.

Background and Critical Reception

The Chorale after an old French carol is, like A Shepherd’s Carol, part of For The Time Being, Auden’s large-scale Christmas oratorio project. Auden wanted the entire text set to music, but Britten only used two excerpts for the BBC’s Poet’s Christmas, produced by Edward Sackville-West. This program also featured music by Tippett.

The ‘old French carol’ is Picardy, also known as Romancero. Mervyn Cooke’s booklet notes for the Polyphony recording on Hyperion detail how the piece remained unperformed for many years, but was revived in 1961 by Imogen Holst.

John Bridcut enjoys the ‘sustained arc of choral virtuosity’. In the second verse he notes how ‘the parts move at different speeds, producing a kaleidoscope of glistening sound’. Paul Spicer is more cautious in his Britten Choral Guide, labelling it a ‘slightly curious hybrid of a piece…it is not surprising that Britten did not encourage publication in his lifetime’.

Thoughts

Auden’s text, weighty and serious, is set out in a similar form to The Lord’s Prayer. Britten treats it as such, setting the piece in a serious G minor and giving the choir a thicker texture without harming the clarity of the words.

In mood this is not too dissimilar to Christ, the fair glory from The Company of Heaven, and though the words are not religious Britten ensures the setting is. There is even – whisper it – a hint of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis in both key (also G minor / major) and mood. The writing for choir is expansive and assured, Auden’s text given real gravity, and in the central section of the piece the music soars upwards, the soprano line arched over the top.

Quite why Britten should suppress performance is not clear, for this is a deeply thoughtful piece of work. Maybe it was too poignant a reminder of his waning friendship with the poet?

Recordings used

Wilbye Consort / Peter Pears (Eloquence)
Holst Singers / Stephen Layton (Hyperion)
Elizabethan Singers / Louis Halsey (Eloquence)
Britten Singers / Richard Hickox (Chandos)

Some fine performances here, and difficult to choose from a list where all give strong emotional input. However the version I enjoyed most was from the Britten Singers, conducted by Richard Hickox, matching the stillness of the outer sections with the more animated centre, where the sopranos hit their top ‘B’ to perfection. The Elizabethan Singers are perhaps the most passionate of the other performances.

Spotify

This playlist offers the versions conducted by Richard Hickox and Louis Halsey. It also includes a third version from the American Boychoir.

Also written in 1944: Dohnányi: Symphony No.2 in E major, Op.40

Next up: Peter Grimes, Op.33

Listening to Britten – A Shepherd’s Carol

Culross Abbey window detail ((c) Ben Hogwood)

A Shepherd’s Carol for chorus (SATB unaccompanied) (8 – 11 November 1944, Britten aged 30)

Dedication Not known
Text W.H. Auden
Language English
Duration 4’00”

Background and Critical Reception

A Shepherd’s Carol is one of two remnants from a much bigger Christmas project Britten, and in particular Auden, had planned. Initially titled A Christmas Oratorio, it eventually adopted the title For The Time Being, but only this and the Chorale after an old French Carol were set to music by Britten.

Britten’s thriftiness as a composer is clear here, for he used the two settings as part of a radio feature programme, Poet’s Christmas, produced for the BBC by Edward Sackville-West. Auden suggested to Britten that the setting ‘should be either Jazz or Folk-song’.

Thoughts

Very much an American carol rather than an English one, with a sense of the blues from afar, A Shepherd’s Carol could be seen as a small piece that preserves the legacy and feeling of Paul Bunyan. It has a remoteness, though, that perhaps gives away the fact Britten was writing something along the lines of an American spiritual from his new base in Suffolk. There is not a sense of ‘belonging’ in the twang or lilt of the verses.

Further to that, Auden’s verse is distinctly melancholy. ‘O lift your little pinkie, and touch the winter sky, Love’s all over the mountains, where the beautiful go to die’ are the opening lines, and the carol stays rather sombre from then on. A different slant on Christmas, certainly, but one that looks at the ‘bleak midwinter’ rather than the ‘joyful and triumphant’!

Recordings used

Wilbye Consort / Peter Pears (Eloquence)
Holst Singers / Stephen Layton (Hyperion)
London Sinfonietta Chorus / Terry Edwards (EMI)
Elizabethan Singers / Louis Halsey (Eloquence)
The Sixteen / Harry Christophers (Coro)

A key element of this performance seems to be how much vibrato is applied to the performance. To my ears at least A Shepherd’s Carol works best when there is little vibrato in the choral refrains and more in the shepherds’ solos. For that reason the Holst Singers and Stephen Layton work very well, especially as the soloists are allowed a bit more rhythmic freedom.

Terry Edwards also goes for a more expansive approach, and his soloists are strong too, with much more vibrato from the choir. The Elizabethan Singers and Wilbye Consort are good too, their older recorded sound standing up well.

Spotify

This playlist contains three versions mentioned above, those conducted by Louis Halsey, Harry Christophers and Terry Edwards. A fourth version, with Simon Preston conducting the Westminster Abbey Choir as part of an anthology of carols for Deutsche Grammophon, is also included.

Also written in 1944: Shostakovich: String Quartet no.2 in A major, Op.68

Next up: Chorale after an old French Carol

Working at the Coal Face – Britten on Film and Radio

Night Mail (c) unknown

With The Rescue and Britain in Wartime, which received its world premiere on 3 October, Listening to Britten nears the end of his music for film and radio – and of all the different forms of music heard so far in the composer’s output, this has been the most surprising and revealing.

When beginning the listening exercise I was aware of the existence of Britten’s music for film, principally through the wonderful Night Mail, but was not really sure of anything else. Yet as I have worked my way through the short suites and scores bringing life to films like The King’s Stamp, Coal Face and The Way to the Sea, it has become clear that here are blueprints for the composer’s mature style.

Reading the thoughts of Britten scholars John Bridcut and Humphrey Carpenter, and in particular Philip Reed’s booklet notes for the Britten on Film CD release on NMC, it is clear this area of music did a lot for Britten. It got him through his one of last major compositional blocks, thanks to the pressure of composing music to fit descriptions for a tight deadline. It gave him a sense of application and attention to detail that never seems to have left him. It introduced him to W.H. Auden, his creative muse in the mid to late 1930s, and it gave him a platform to express his own beliefs, such as the pacifist vehicle Peace of Britain.

In Britten’s own words, “There are great possibilities in music for the films but it must be taken seriously by the director and the composer, and used as an integral part of the whole thing – not just as a sound effect, or to fill up the gaps during the talking”.

Excerpts from Night Mail (1936) GPO Film Unit, part of DVD on the GPO film unit released by Panamint.

Composing for film fired Britten’s musical imagination. When required to paint a sonic picture of a train in Coal Face, he responded with an extraordinary array of instrumental techniques and implements, one example being a cart pulled over an asbestos surface! When describing a ship a cup of water was at hand, while a wind machine and a factory siren were in use for other GPO scores. And yet this is Britten we are talking about, not Varèse!

Much of the film music, particularly of the 1930s, carries the stamp of Berlin in the same decade. Kurt Weill especially looms large, and so do Berg, Schoenberg and Stravinsky to a lesser extent, but at the same time these works could only be by Britten. The opening of Coal Face, with its gruff chords on the piano, finds a match later in his career at the start of the Cello Sonata. The ensembles used for The Way to the Sea and Peace of Britain are not far removed from the chamber orchestra set-up in the War Requiem. The saxophone also assumes importance in Britten’s music at this time. The bigger orchestral scores for radio, such as Johnson over Jordan and The World of the Spirit give it greater prominence, pointing the way towards Britten’s use of the instrument in the Sinfonia da Requiem

It also shapes the character of Penelope in The Rescue. One wonders if Britten had found a saxophonist equivalent to Mstislav Rostropovich, or Julian Bream, what he might have achieved with the instrument.

Perhaps most of all the film music finds Britten in full characterisation mode. The ‘lurcher-loving collier’ of Coal Face, the slaves of Negroes, their plight made clear with the use of the Nunc Dimittis chant, or the Night Mail, rushing along urgently to get to Glasgow by morning. All are assigned extremely descriptive music, unwittingly preparing their composer for such song settings such as Winter Words, the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings and Rejoice in the Lamb.

Hans Keller, in his new book Britten – Essays, Letters and Opera Guides, states that ‘if and when film music embarks on musical history, Night Mail will be found – despite or indeed partly because of its elementary simplicity – among those legitimate points of departure from which so many of its successors have illegitimately departed’ Even now, it holds its place as one of the finest British film scores, past or present – but there is much more music besides that Keller didn’t know about when he was writing that.

The film output of Britten, then, offers so much – as a single listen to NMC’s Britten on Film disc confirms. To call this the most important Britten disc of the21st century might seem to be stretching things a bit, but it tells us more about the composer and his development than many a book can. In doing so it ensures we won’t hear Britten’s music in quite the same way again.

Listening to Britten – Festival Te Deum, Op.32

Painting (c) Brian Hogwood

Festival Te Deum, Op.32 treble solo, chorus (SATB) and organ (8-9 November 1944, Britten aged 31)

Dedication Written for the Centenary Festival of St Mark’s Swindon
Text Book of Common Prayer: Morning Prayer
Language English
Duration 6′

Audio

A clip of the recording made by the Choir Of St. John’s College, Cambridge, with organist Brian Runnett, conducted by George Guest. With thanks to Decca.

Background and Critical Reception

Britten’s second setting of the Te Deum was composed for the centenary of the Anglo-Catholic St. Mark’s Church in Swindon.

In his Britten Choral Guide, Paul Spicer explains how this setting is very different to Britten’s earlier example in the form. He highlights the first section ‘which, while carefully notated in a variety of time signatures so that it feels as if it has the freedom of Gregorian chant, is accompanied by static organ chords in a regular 3/4 metre’.

The importance of the organ part is also stressed, for it often operates in rhythmic independence of the choir, though it is complementing their melodies at all times. This is perhaps an indication of Britten’s confidence in writing for the instrument, seen recently in Rejoice in the Lamb.

Thoughts

There is a beautiful inner serenity to the Festival Te Deum, and it runs throughout the work. The title implies that it might be brash and full of fanfares, but it is actually more a study in contemplation, save for a rousing moment of praise in the middle, where the text is ‘Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ’.

Britten’s choice of E major as home key gives the overall sound an open and airy feel, as does the beautiful treble solo that accompanies the return of the opening organ chords. The piece ends deep in thought, but is content with that.

It is as if while writing this all of Britten’s strife and sweat was being channelled into Peter Grimes – which itself uses a section of the mass at its heart – leaving the Festival Te Deum high and dry, achieving what comes all too rarely to Britten’s music – a pure and lasting peace.

Recordings used

Choir Of St. John’s College / George Guest, Brian Runnett (organ) (Decca)
Choir of New College Oxford / Edward Higginbottom, Steven Grahl (organ) (Novum)
Choir of King’s College Cambridge / Sir Philip Ledger, James Lancelot (organ) (EMI)
The Sixteen / Harry Christophers, Margaret Phillips (organ) (Coro)
Finzi Singers / Paul Spicer, Andrew Lumsden (organ) (Chandos)
orchestral version – The Choir of Clare College, The Dmitri Ensemble / Graham Ross (Harmonia Mundi)

The Choir of King’s College Cambridge capture the inner peace of this work, even more so than George Guest’s version with the Choir of St. John’s College on Decca. The more ‘churchy’ interpretations tend to be more successful – Edward Higginbottom’s is also very fine – because of the work’s setting and its intended dedicatees. The Sixteen and the Finzi Singers tend to use more vibrato, but also offer polished performances.

Spotify

The following playlist groups together the versions made by George Guest, Philip Ledger, Edward Higginbottom, Harry Christophers and Paul Spicer.

Also written in 1944: Kodály – Missa Brevis

Next up: A Shepherd’s Carol

Listening to Britten – Britain in Wartime

The Hallé Orchestra in Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

Britain in Wartime – Incidental music for narrator and orchestra, made into a concert suite by Colin Matthews (August 1942, Britten aged 28)

Text Norman Dorwin
Duration 23′

Background and Critical Reception

Recently restored by Colin Matthews, and ready for its world premiere on 3 October 2013, this is a suite from a series of six wartime dramas by Norman Corwin. The object was to provide an overview of conditions in Britain in the Second World War for listeners abroad, particularly America.

It wasn’t entirely clear in the BBC Radio 3 announcement whether the suite comprised numbers from each of the six dramas, or whether this was, as the Hallé Orchestra note for the world premiere concert says, the fourth suite – Women of Britain in its entirety. Either way, it ‘focussed on the role of British women and their part in the war effort’.

It was during the recordings for the dramas that Britten met the young horn player Dennis Brain, and wrote a more elaborate part specifically for him to play.

Thoughts

‘War is not all sound and fury, it’s a question eating carrots instead of chocolate…making inferior cigarettes…staying at home and working til you’re tired to death’.

A snapshot of the narration for this set of propaganda aids, aiming presumably to raise the spirits of radio listeners. And how curiously timed, just three weeks after the Marin Alsop becomes the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms, part of a fierce debate about sexism in classical music.

A military style march kicks off before the narration starts, then after the narrator has spoken of all the oil in the water, a strongly syncopated, swaying piece for orchestra proves more than a little disconcerting. Then there is a barely disguised reference to Rule, Britannia!, as Britten moves rather closer to the style of Elgar than one might expect.

Britten finds music of greater delicacy once women are mentioned, the score less obviously telegraphed. It is perhaps surprising he doesn’t use the alto saxophone here – maybe one wasn’t available – as this was an instrument he was particularly fond of at the time. What he does use is a cavernous glissando on the brass to depict a downward running escalator in a tube station in London, then a slightly sinister movement in the strings to paint an arriving train.

Overall this suite was a little disjointed, which is to be expected with the narration breaking up the musical numbers, but its aim and doughty mood came across clearly. Britten shows his flexibility in orchestral writing such as this, writing in a much more conventional form but keeping bits around the edges that remind us he was headed towards Peter Grimes, He is, whatever the language, able to connect with the man or woman on the street as he writes.

The last word should go to the dryly effective narration. ‘She walks in beauty like the night! Maybe she does, but the woman of Britain walks in war dress and does fire guard duty during the night!’

Recordings used

No recordings as yet – but this was the cast for the world premiere concert, given on BBC Radio 3, and will also be used on the forthcoming recording on NMC:

Samuel West (narrator), Hallé Orchestra / Sir Mark Elder

Samuel West read with great conviction and clarity, his affinity with Britten and his situation abundantly clear. Using an American accent in the way he did was a calculated risk, but it was one that seemed to work. The orchestra responded well to a score that looks to keep a purposeful and bright view of things, and they managed to convey the idea that this might be a slightly empty notion at heart, especially in the references to Rule, Britannia.

Spotify

Not available – but the score can be heard for the next week on the BBC iPlayer.

Also written in 1942: Poulenc – Chansons villageoises

Next up: Festival Te Deum, Op.32

Listening to Britten – Purcell / Weldon: Alleluia

Final Dance of Homage (Sixth Dance) – 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

Alleluia, ZS14 – Purcell realization for high voice and piano (pre 19 October 1944, Britten aged 30)

Dedication not known
Text Anon!
Language Hebrew
Duration 2′

Audio clip (with thanks to Hyperion)

The realization [Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor), Graham Johnson (piano)]

Background and Critical Reception

The music for this one-word exultation was originally attributed to Purcell but is in fact by John Weldon, as part of his anthem O Lord, rebuke me not. It was erroneously published under Purcell’s name in a nineteenth-century anthology – an error that presumably came to light after Britten had completed his realization.

Thoughts

This is a more ‘melismatic’ song, by which I mean there are many notes per word. Given the whole song, in all its two minutes, is only one word then it does lead to a good deal of repetition!

Perhaps because of this I didn’t really warm to the song, though Britten’s piano part is sensitive to the florid movements of the voice, and sets more of a pulse than anything else.

Recordings used

Anthony Rolfe Johnson (piano), Graham Johnson (piano) (Hyperion)
Derek Lee Ragin (countertenor), Julius Drake (piano) (Etcetera)

Derek Lee Ragin uses this as the first number in what is a live recital with Julius Drake. It is an exuberant and extravagant performance from the countertenor, rather more extravert than Anthony Rolfe Johnson, whose celebrations are a bit more reserved, along with Graham Johnson’s piano.

Spotify

Derek Lee Ragin and Julius Drake can be heard here.

Also written in 1944: Milhaud – Suite française

Next up: Festival Te Deum, Op.32

Listening to Britten – Purcell: The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation

Prelude and verdict ‘Never’ – 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

The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation, Z196 – Purcell realization for high voice and piano (pre 1 December 1944, Britten aged 31)

Dedication Margaret Ritchie
Text Nahum Tate
Language English
Duration 7’20”

Audio clips (with thanks to Hyperion)

The original [Lynne Dawson (soprano), The King’s Consort / Robert King]

The realization [Felicity Lott (soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)]

Background and Critical Reception

The website Vocabulary.com has a rather direct meaning for the word ‘expostulation’. ‘Expostulation is an expression of protest, not a rant exactly, but often lengthy’, it says.

Well Purcell’s devotional song The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation is certainly one of his more lengthy sacred works for single voice, describing the moment in the Bible where the twelve-year-old Jesus goes missing in the Temple, followed by his mother Mary’s anguished efforts to find him.

Britten dedicated this realization to Margaret Ritchie, a soprano who was to create two important operatic roles with him – Lucia in The Rape of Lucretia, and Miss Wordsworth in Albert Herring.

Thoughts

This is exactly the sort of theme that drew Britten in where word setting was concerned, the idea of a lost child – so it is perhaps not surprising that he chose this as a prime candidate for ‘realization’. It cannot be a coincidence that it keeps the same key and mood as the recently heard The Queen’s Epicedium – and is even roughly the same length.

The tale is shot through with worry from the very first note, but when Mary is calling for the archangel Gabriel the song reaches its dramatic apex, and the piano part becomes harsh and quite reckless. It is a fraught moment that casts a shadow for the rest of the song, despite a brief dalliance in C major where Britten’s accompaniment becomes rather more carefree, with some expansively spread chords.

Mostly, though, the piano part is darkly coloured and sits in deference to the worrisome vocal.

Recordings used

Felicity Lott (soprano), Graham Johnson (piano) (Hyperion)
Kiri Te Kanawa (soprano), Roger Vignoles (piano) (Decca)

Felicity Lott and Graham Johnson display a keen understanding of the text in the space they give it, and Johnson keeps a calm but authoritative air to his interventions on the piano. Kiri Te Kanawa isn’t the first person you would necessarily think of singing this repertoire – and her interpretation is certainly different, with a brighter tone and very much more vibrato than Felicity Lott. It feels as though Lott is further inside the music and character, revealing much more of Mary’s desperation as a result.

Spotify

Lott and Johnson are not on Spotify, but Te Kanawa and Vignoles are here. This can be compared with the original, sung by Carolyn Sampson, which is here

Also written in 1944: Shostakovich: Piano Trio no.2 in E minor Op.67

Next up: Alleluia

Listening to Britten – Purcell: Sound the trumpet

Second Lute Song (II) – 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

Sound the trumpet Z323/3, from Come, ye sons of Art, away – Purcell realization for high and low voices and piano (pre 1 December 1944, Britten aged 31)

Dedication not known
Text probably Nahum Tate
Language English
Duration 4′

Audio clips (with thanks to Hyperion)

The original [Michael Chance and James Bowman (countertenors), The Choir of New College Oxford, The King’s Consort / Robert King]

The realization [Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor), John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Graham Johnson (piano)]

Background and Critical Reception

Rather than use trumpets for this famous duet, Purcell opted instead to use two high voices – preferably countertenors – while giving the continuo section underneath a thorough workout as well.

The duet is the third number of the Welcome Ode Come, ye sons of Art, away, completed in 1694 as an offering to Queen Mary on her birthday. It has become one of Purcell’s best-loved pieces of music.

Again very little is written about Britten’s realization, although it was likely to have been completed with tenor rather than countertenor voices in mind.

Thoughts

Purcell’s skill is remarkable in this song. The way he makes the two voices replicate trumpets they are portraying is nothing short of inspired. Normally the idea of two countertenors in duet is not one I would immediately warm to, but because the setting is so well done it is a thrill to hear. Even when done with tenor or soprano / mezzo-soprano voices, that have more vibrato than your average trumpet, the duet works really well.

The Britten realization is more matter-of-fact in the way the piano trips along, with a steady left hand staccato on each beat of the bar and quite a jaunty response in the right hand to the singer’s athletic lines. Just occasionally Britten gives the piano a sudden flourish, as if to say ‘and then…’ before the vocal lines resume.

After the colour and flamboyance of Purcell’s original, this is rather more functional – where the accompaniment is concerned, at least – though the vocal wonders still shine through.

Recordings used

Anthony Rolfe Johnson, John Mark Ainsley (tenors), Graham Johnson (piano) (Hyperion)
Felicity Lott (soprano), Ann Murray (mezzo-soprano), Graham Johnson (piano) (EMI)

Two excellent accounts from singers who keep an immaculate harmony the whole way through.

Spotify

There are no versions of the realization on Spotify. However it is well worth hearing the original, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, here.

Also written in 1944: Copland – Appalachian Spring

Next up: The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation

Listening to Britten – Purcell: Evening Hymn

Now Until the Break of Day from A Midsummer Night’s Dream 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

Evening Hymn, Z193 – no.3 of the Three Divine Hymns – Purcell realization for high or medium voice and piano (pre 19 October 1944, Britten aged 30)

Dedication Imogen Holst
Text Bishop William Fuller
Language English
Duration 4′

Audio clips (with thanks to Hyperion)

The original [Eamonn O’Dwyer (treble), The King’s Consort / Robert King]

The realization [Felicity Lott (soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)]

Background and Critical Reception

‘The Evening Hymn is one of Purcell’s greatest devotional songs, published in 1688 in Harmonia Sacra: over the hypnotic anchor of one of Purcell’s most serene ground basses the singer weaves a magical melody, calmly resigned not only to end the day in peace, but also ready to accept the blessings of heaven’. So writes Robert King in his booklet note for Hyperion’s release of Volume 11 of Purcell’s Complete Anthems and Services.

Clearly this appealed to Britten, too – and he dedicated this particular volume to Imogen Holst, who would become his assistant from 1952 to 1964.

Thoughts

This is a lovely piece of music, one of the most restful I have yet heard from the Baroque period. Although I find I prefer the song in instrumental clothing, it is worth remembering that Britten’s self-appointed task was after all to ‘spread the word’ on Purcell, and performances for voice and piano made this very much easier.

The piano holds back here, very much in the background, so that the text can be fully heard. Only in the ‘Hallelujah’ section does it come more to the fore, offering counter melodies that go with Purcell’s ground bass, before retreating once again at the end. The vocal line at this point sounds like it will go on for ever (in a good way!), meandering almost out of earshot as darkness falls.

The sensitivity of Britten’s setting makes this an intensely moving experience.

Recordings used

Felicity Lott (soprano), Graham Johnson (piano) (Hyperion)
Derek Lee Ragin (countertenor), Julius Drake (piano) (Etcetera)

Felicity Lott has a wonderful purity of tone in her account with Graham Johnson, which is completely unhurried but still poignant and moving, especially as the ‘Hallelujah’ tails away. Derek Lee Ragin and Julius Drake transpose down to E flat major (the original is in G) but Drake’s remarkable, lute-like piano part is a perfect complement to Ragin’s very fine account.

Spotify

Derek Lee Ragin and Julius Drake can be heard here.

Also written in 1944: Finzi – Farewell to Arms

Next up: Sound the trumpet (from Come, ye sons of Art, away)