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A Boy Was Born: an Examination of the Stylistic Influences on the Young Benjamin Britten Stephen Sieck

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A Boy Was Born: an Examination of the Stylistic Influences on the Young Benjamin Britten Stephen Sieck A Boy was Born: An Examination of the Stylistic Influences on the Young Benjamin Britten Stephen Sieck enjamin Britten (1913–1976) was a pro- sources and techniques and applied them in his digious and gifted composer for the unique way, a more coherent understanding of voice whose collective oeuvre demon- A Boy was Born and of Britten’s broader style Bstrates an especially distinctive style and ap- may emerge. proach. Most of our musical and scholarly in- Britten’s journal entries from Letters from terest lies in the adult Britten, from Hymn to St. a Life reveal a college student who was con- Cecilia (1942) and Peter Grimes (1943) through stantly listening to music and attending con- the War Requiem (1963) and beyond. But I sug- certs. He frequented the Proms at the Queen’s gest there is much to be gleaned from examin- Hall, London, concerts given by the London ing Benjamin Britten’s early works. Specifically, Symphony, the BBC Symphony, and anything what were his influences and how did they af- Frank Bridge conducted. He would often bor- fect the formation of his mature compositional row someone’s radio to listen to BBC broad- style? We should therefore give close study to casts. In short, he was immersed in the British Britten’s first published choral work, A Boy was concert culture of the early 1930s. He listened Born, Opus 3. Written in 1932-33 and published to and formed opinions about the canon of in 1934 by Oxford University Press, A Boy was the German tradition, including such com- Born was Britten’s final school project (one that posers as Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, and occupied him for an uncharacteristically long Mozart; other Romantics such as Schumann, period of six months). It is an a cappella choral Mendelssohn, Rimsky-Korsakov, Sibelius, and tour-de-force theme and six variations of about Dvořák; British composers such as Vaughan 30 minutes’ duration for SSAATTBB choir Williams, Elgar, and Walton; plus modern and treble choir. such composers as Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Given that Britten composed A Boy was Berg. He was exposed to at least five centuries Born at a relatively early age and while still a of art music, and we therefore cannot expect student at the Royal College of Music, an inves- tigation into Britten’s musical influences is ap- propriate inasmuch as it helps us to understand The from where and why he chose the composition- al design elements that become hallmarks of his mature style. My goal here is not to assign a di- C HOR A L rect causal relationship between the techniques of established composers and the student com- SThe OnlineCH Journal of the NationalO CollegiateL ChoralA OrganizationR poser — that would imply that Britten had es- sentially no original ideas. Rather, when we Volume 1, Number 1 Spring 2009 examine how Britten drew from these various Sieck / A Boy was Born 17 that his influences would be clearly delineated Palestrina, a fugue, and so on. Indeed, it may or simple. Instead, as I will show below, Britten be said that Britten was afforded the opportu- parsed compositional ideas from a variety of nity to develop a distinct musical language so composers and assembled them in his own way. early in his career because neither of his teach- Specifically, I suggest that the young Britten’s ers exerted a didactic stylistic influence. harmonic vocabulary is heavily influenced by William Walton, using Belshazzar’s Feast as an example; his voice-leading is influenced by William Walton’s Harmonic Vocabulary Ralph Vaughan Williams, using A Fantasia on as Seen in Belshazzar’s Feast Christmas Carols as an example; and the use of ostinato and layering are influenced by Igor Britten first became interested in Walton’s Stravinsky, using Petrushka as an example. In music in 1931 when he bought a piano score each case, I will demonstrate that the influenc- of Walton’s Viola Concerto before attending a ing composition was active in Britten’s mind performance of the work on September 10. and how Britten translates the technique into A His diary entry for the day includes this glow- Boy was Born. ing review: “Walton’s wonderful Vla Concerto Notably absent from this list of influences (beautifully played Tertis) stood out as a work are Britten’s official composition teacher at the of genius.”3 Much later in life, after decades of Royal College of Music, John Ireland, and his friendship, Britten wrote to Walton in 1963 and de facto composition teacher, Frank Bridge. said: While Bridge wrote some choral music early on, his interest and focus, particularly after World I don’t know if I ever told you, but hear- War I, was in chamber and orchestral literature. ing your Viola Concerto & Portsmouth Point Bridge’s WWI period marked a rather signifi- (works which I still love dearly) was a great turn- cant stylistic change toward a more Continental ing point in my musical life. I’d got in a mud- dle; poor old John Ireland wasn’t much help, & I style, especially regarding Berg, and while couldn’t get on with the 12-tone idea (still can’t) there was no doubt some transmission of this - & you showed me the way of being relaxed & language in lessons, it was clearly not the kind fresh, & intensely personal & yet still with the of teacher-student relationship where Britten terms of reference which I had to have.4 was pushed into the Second Viennese School. Rather, Britten describes Bridge’s teaching as Britten’s first contact with Walton’s based on the idea that “you should find your- Belshazzar’s Feast was a little later that autumn, self and be true to what you found,”1 not “write on Wednesday, November 25, 1931. In prepa- as I do.” As for Britten’s studies with Ireland, ration for the concert, Britten went to Oxford Britten’s sometimes scathing journal entries University Press to purchase a score of the about him make clear that the lessons were not work, and then attended the B.B.C. concert always productive or inspiring, though he ac- that evening. His review in the journal entry is: knowledged later in life that Ireland “nursed me “Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast (National Chorus very gently through a very, very difficult musi- – mod. good) — very moving & brilliant (es- st cal adolescence.”2 Britten’s work with Ireland pecially 1 half) — but over long — & to [sic] tended to be in exercises: a mass in the style of 1 Benjamin Britten, “Britten Looking Back,” The 3 Donald Mitchell and Philip Reed, eds. Let- Sunday Telegraph, November 17, 1963 in Britten on ters from a Life: Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Music, ed. Paul Kildea (New York: Oxford Univer- vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, sity Press, 2003), 253. 1991), 204. 2 Ibid., 147. 4 Ibid., 202. The Choral Scholar : www.ncco-usa.org/tcs Sieck / A Boy was Born 18 continuously loud – I felt.” 5 Britten rarely uses are biblical, while Walton’s libretto is strictly words like “moving” and “brilliant” in his re- from the Bible; Britten’s work has no soloist or views. But it was not a completely positive re- narrator while Walton’s features a baritone solo- view. Rather, he cites two flaws: 1) overlong, ist who functions as narrator. We can summa- and 2) too continuously loud. As to the latter, rize these contrasts by stating that Belshazzar’s I think Britten signals his preference for a more Feast was not a significant influence on Britten’s balanced action/reflection scheme. To the for- setting of A Boy was Born, with respect to li- mer, I suspect the concert itself was ‘over long,’ bretto, scoring, and overall structure. Rather, it since Belshazzar’s lasts only about a half-hour. is the pervasive use of non-tertian harmonies in The full program was indeed long: Haydn both works that links the two compositions. Symphony No. 88, Mozart Symphony Concertante, Let us look at salient examples of non-ter- Holst’s Hammersmith, and Walton’s Belshazzar’s tian harmony in Belshazzar’s Feast. First, I will Feast – and Britten didn’t get home until 12:30 examine the pervasive use of quartal/quintal am. Almost a year later, on November 2, 1932, harmonies. In the haunting opening section for Britten attended another performance of the men’s chorus, measures 9–11, “howl ye, there- work at the B.B.C. and gave the performance fore,” collections of fourths are emphasized: this review: “H. Samuel playing well (but not perfectly) Bach’s D min Concerto. Not as good as I have heard him. Ireland’s beautiful ˙ #œ ˙œ#œ Forgotten Rite & a by no means perfect perfor- V Œ œ œ b œ Œ bœ˙ n œ #bœœ œœ Œ mance of Belshazzar’s Feast by B.B.C. Chorus. Denis Noble is v. fine singer. It is amazingly œ œ œ ˙œbœ œ œ clever & effective music, with some great mo- ? Œ ˙ œ Œ #œ˙ œ œ œ Œ ments, I feel.”6 This was ten days before Britten went to Chatto and Windu’s to get a copy of [D/G, B/E] [B/E, C# /Gb][D/G, Bb/D#] Ancient English Carols and start the composition 8 of A Boy was Born, so we know that Belshazzar’s Figure 1: TTBB, mm. 9–11 Feast was in his recent memory when he began composing. Further, Britten began piano study At two measures after Rehearsal 22, at “They on an arrangement of Walton’s Sinfonia concer- drank wine again”: tante in June 1932 and reviewed Walton’s Façade in July of 1932 as “Delightful & attractive.”7 In summary, Britten heard and studied Walton’s ˙ ˙ œ n˙ music and reveals later that Walton’s music was & œ 42 ˙ 43 ˙ œ 42 n ˙ inspirational in his compositional process.
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