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Benjamin Britten at Crag House c.1949: the seeming inevitability of his response to words is one of his hallmarks

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C&O - March April - FEATURES - Reed Britten - Tweeked.indd 22 20/02/2013 18:10:43 britten’s choral music Sacred and profane Whether writing a cappella church music or a major symphonic choral work, responded to texts with depth of insight. In the composer’s centenary year, Philip Reed argues that there is much still to discover in his choral canon

he seeming inevitability of nal setting for eight-part chorus in a faux Britten’s response to words is one medieval style. It was first performed in Tof the hallmarks of his output. 1931 by the Lowestoft Choral Society Indeed, so idiomatic are his settings that (in which the composer’s mother sang), it remains difficult, when reading a text he along with his unaccompanied carol, The has set, for one’s mind’s ear not to conjure Sycamore Tree, a setting of a text related to up Britten’s music. This remains as true of the more familiar carol I saw three ships, his wide-ranging choral music as it does of which Britten did not publish (in a revised his numerous song-cycles and . But version) until 1967. whereas in his operas and orchestral song- Christmastide remained a favourite cycles Britten was something of a pioneer, season for Britten, one to which he repeat- establishing a national tradition for edly responded in his compositions. A where none existed, in his choral music Ceremony of Carols (1942) for boys’ voices he was working within an already well- and harp, and independent carol settings established tradition, which lay at the heart such as A Wealden Trio: The Song of the of British musical life. Women (1930, revised 1967) and The Choral music – unaccompanied, for the Oxen, a setting of Thomas Hardy’s poem, church, and with orchestra – spans Britten’s composed in 1967 at the request of Pears’s entire published output and occupies an sister for the East Coker Women’s Institute, important position in his music-making. explore the dramatic possibilities of their To provide a truly comprehensive survey respective texts. Two major choral works would require more space than presently from the 1930s encapsulate Britten’s love available, so I propose here to focus on of Christmas: (1933); and R oland H aupt. image courtesy of www.britten100.org the less familiar. Major choral pieces such its forerunner, Christ’s Nativity (1931), as , , originally entitled Thy King’s Birthday, and are well which, with the exception of two of its known and demand no special advocacy. movements, was not heard during the As it happens, one of Britten’s earliest a composer’s lifetime. cappella works is also one of his most cele- A Boy Was Born is a half-hour sequence brated: the beautiful A Hymn to the Virgin, of virtuosic variations on a theme – an composed in 1930 when he was still a example of Britten’s employing an instru- schoolboy. The anonymous text from 1300 mental genre within a choral work to combines English and Latin in an antipho- impressive cumulative effect. It remains

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one of the composer’s most taxing yet not only published but also orchestrated rewarding unaccompanied choral pieces; by the composer for harp (or ) and indeed, when he revised it in the mid- strings, presumably in an attempt to free 1950s, he added an ad lib. part for organ it from a life entirely confi ned to the clois- to support the singers. At the time of its ters. Britten’s other ‘offi cial’ church music premiere, it was Britten’s most ambitious Britten wrote a wedding anthem comprises a little-known Festival Te Deum for the Harewoods, seen here with work to date and its fi rst performance – a from 1944 for the centenary of St Mark’s, the composer and on Thorpeness Meare in June 1949

1934 BBC broadcast under Swindon, composed in a break from writing OF THE BRITTEN-PEARS FOUNDATION PH/5/58 COURTESY FORD JENKINS A.I.B.P., – brought him a great deal of attention. , and settings of the Jubilate The boy trebles who took part in the Deo in C and Venite exultemus Domino, remains a sketch of a few bars of yet another premiere of Boy came from St Mark’s, from 1961. The latter were composed at the Te Deum from the same period. North Audley Street, , and they were request of the Duke of Edinburgh for St Among those who approached Britten rewarded for their labours later that year George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, though in the 1960s to write a congregational mass with Britten’s initial foray into settings of at the time only the Jubilate was performed. setting was the Dean of Chichester, Revd the Anglican . He wrote the fi rst of Prince Philip attempted to persuade Walter Hussey, who, when incumbent at his two settings of the Te Deum, in C major, Britten to make complete settings of the St Matthew’s, Northampton, had commis- for Maurice Vinden and his choir, and at the canticles for morning and evening prayer, sioned from the composer in 1943 Rejoice same period completed a in E but Britten’s response, despite the royal in the Lamb, one of the most engaging fl at. While Britten suppressed the latter – it ‘commission’, was at best half-hearted and and delightful of Britten’s choral works. was posthumously revived in 1984 – the the request remained unfulfi lled. The Venite This setting of part of Christopher Smart’s straightforward setting of Te Deum was was only published posthumously and there Jubilate Agno inspired Britten to create a miniature Purcellian . Originally with organ accompaniment, the composer invited to make an orches- tration of it in 1952. The title of the early Hymn to the Virgin was emulated in several later choral pieces. First, in the celebrated fi ve-part (1942), a setting of a text by Auden; it includes a memorable passage evoking lost innocence in A major with a sharpened fourth degree, the key that Britten habitu- ally used for this image. Second is the Hymn to St Peter (1955), based on the plainsong ‘Tu es Petrus’ which is only revealed, in characteristic Britten fashion, at the work’s conclusion. Finally, and perhaps least known of all, is A Hymn of St – Regis regum rectissi mi, for four-part chorus and organ, composed in 1962 at the request of the artist Derek Hill, to mark the 1,400th anniversary of Columba’s voyage from Ireland to Iona. It was fi rst heard on the hillside at Churchill, Co. Donegal, where Columba was said to have preached. A BBC recording was relayed over loudspeakers, but was virtually inaudible because of the strength of the wind blowing over the hill! Other short church pieces include the exuberant Wedding Anthem (Amo Ergo Sum), composed for the marriage of the Earl of Harewood to Marion Stein in 1949 at St Mark’s, North Audley Street; the Composition draft MS of A Hymn to the Virgin written in July 1930, George Herbert setting (1956), when Britten was still a schoolboy © COPYRIGHT 1935 BY BOOSEY & CO. LTD. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF BOOSEY & HAWKES MUSIC PUBLISHERS LTD AND COURTESY OF THE BRITTEN-PEARS FOUNDATION (WWW.BRITTENPEARS.ORG) OF THE BRITTEN-PEARS FOUNDATION AND COURTESY MUSIC PUBLISHERS LTD REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF BOOSEY & HAWKES © COPYRIGHT 1935 BY BOOSEY & CO. LTD. written for the centenary of St Michael’s

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College, Tenbury Wells, whose words capabilities of larger choral societies. Camus, culminating in an admittedly effec- ‘Praised be the God of Love / Here below / (1959) was written for tive setting of a passage from Virgil’s fourth And here above’ suggested to Britten three the 500th anniversary of Basle University. Eclogue set in Latin. contrasting types of music; and, despite its Scored for four soloists and orchestra, Also virtually unknown are two post- prep school origins, a setting of Psalm 150 this exuberant piece employs a variety humously published, pre-war pieces for for two-part children’s voices and instru- of ‘academic’ musical devices – canon, speaker(s), soloists, chorus and orchestra, ments of 1962. fugue, serial theme – in setting what at fi rst e Company of Heaven and e World of Probably the most celebrated of all seems an unprepossessing text: namely, the Spirit. Both were conceived originally Britten’s church music is the the university’s charter rendered in Latin. as BBC radio broadcasts, the former for in D, composed for George Malcolm and But that shouldn’t put anyone off, for this the feast of St Michael and All Angels, the boys of Choir 21-minute piece is rich musically and chal- the latter for Whitsun. e Company of in 1959. This eleven-minute setting can be lenging enough to keep the singers’ interest. Heaven is the better-made piece of moder- sung liturgically (as it was originally) or in Post-War Requiem Britten wrote Cantata ate diffi culty, requiring only two soloists concert, where it can make a neat adjunct to Misericordium for the centenary of the and employing some familiar hymn tunes A Ceremony of Carols. Generally recognised Red Cross in 1963. A Latin retelling of the in typical Brittenesque arrangements. It is as a minor masterpiece, much of the work parable of the Good Samaritan by Patrick well worth investigating. is based on the opening phrase of the plain- Wilkinson, for and soloists, Straddling the sacred and the secular is chant intonation heard at the outset of the chorus, string orchestra, harp, piano and the 1975 Sacred and Profane, eight unac- Gloria. The Mass’s expressive vocal writing , this work remains one of Britten’s companied settings of medieval lyrics whose (in two or three parts) looks forward to absolute gems, which no choral society close writing and technical diffi culties rather War Requiem, composed two years later. should overlook. The lyricism of the closing suggest they are intended for professional Conceived for the robust, Continental-style ‘Dormi nunc’ recalls the fi nal pages of the chamber forces or a vocal quintet. Britten’s voice production advocated by Malcolm, it ‘Let us sleep now’ lullaby of War Requiem. genuinely secular choral pieces include remained one of Britten’s favourites among From the mid-1960s comes one of the ever-popular Choral Dances from his own compositions and he practically Britten’s least successful choral works, ‘’, a suite of madrigal-like settings wore out his copy of the BBC tape-record- Voices for Today, composed for the 20th from Britten’s 1953 coronation opera about ing made of the premiere, so much did he anniversary of the founding of the United , in which the musical gestures admire and enjoy what Malcolm and his Nations. Although Britten’s humanitarian of the Tudor-period are refracted through Westminster forces achieved. intentions in this multi-layered ten-minute Britten’s own 20th-century perspective; Among the lesser known of Britten’s anthem are unquestionably sound, the the a cappella Five Flower Songs, composed choral works with orchestra are two works work is let down by the nature of its libretto for the silver wedding of philanthropists from the 1960s composed either side of – an anthology of worthy sentences from Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst of War Requiem, both of which are within the a variety of individuals from Christ to Dartington fame, who were also keen

PHOTOGRAPHER: CATHARINE PH/4/255 COURTESY FOUNDATION OF THE BRITTEN-PEARS SCUDAMORE, AND DARTINGTON HALL amateur botanists – hence Britten’s choice Dartington Hall in August 1959: Britten with of subject-matter; and, in 1976, his fi nal George Malcolm and four choristers from Westminster Cathedral Choir, for whom the pair of works: Welcome Ode, for young composer wrote the Missa Brevis people’s chorus and orchestra, written for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee visit to Ipswich in 1977, and Praise We Great Men, a setting of a text by Edith Sitwell left unfi nished at Britten’s death, but orchestrated by Colin Matthews and posthumously published. Despite Britten’s failing health, this work shows, even as his life drew to its close, just how powerful the creative urge remained. www.brittenpears.org

Philip Reed was Head of Publications at and conducts the Bury St Edmunds Bach Choir. His publica- tions on Britten include six volumes of the composer’s correspondence and contribu- tions to studies of Peter Grimes, Gloriana, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, War Requiem and .

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