Britten - Vocal Works

Thompson:Bournemough Sinf

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Cat No: 8553834

Release Date: 01 January 2000

Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099483421

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: Britten - Vocal Works

Description
BenjaminBritten (1913-1976)SerenadeLesIlluminationsNocturne Born in theSuffolk port of Lowestoft in 1913, Benjamin Brit ten was destined to become thepre- eminent British composer of his generation and, as the works recorded hereamply testify, the most consummate setter of the English language in song sinceHenry Purcell, Brit ten began to compose at the age of five, displayingprodigious natural gifts which hastened, in his thirteenth year, a definingperiod of study with Frank Bridge. In 1930 he entered the Royal College ofMusic in London to studypiano and composition. Four years later, after hearing Alban Berg's Wozzeck,he resolved to further his studies under Berg in Vienna, but in the eventhad to content himself with the rather less appealing prospect of writing filmmusic for the General Post Office's Documentary Department. It was here thatBrit ten met W.H. Auden, a future collaborator on such works as the symphonicsong-cycle Our Hunting Fathers. Radical and disjunctive compositions of thelate 1930s stamped Brit ten as an enfant terrible in the eyes of aconservative British musical establishment, and in 1939 he left for the United States of America, accompanied by the tenor Peter Pears. Comparativeartistic freedom resulted in several ground-breaking works, notably the Sinfoniada Requiem and First String Quartet, but Brit ten's growing uneaseprecipitated a retum to England in 1942, and the start of almost three decadesin which the 'angry young man' of British music consolidated growing universalfame, largely through a succession of major operatic triumphs. Centering hislife around the Suffolk village of Aldeburgh, his home for the remainder of hislife, Benjamin Brit ten always retained a Kiplingesque 'common touch',affirming his personal artistic credo in the words '1 want my music tobe of use to people, to please them, to enhance their lives...'. As the musicologistDonald Mitchell noted in 1977, a year after Britten's death, 'there is anintensely solitary and private spirit, a troubled, sometimes even despairingvisionary, an artist much haunted by nocturnal imagery, by sleep, bypresentiments of mortality...'. Such indeed are the universally compellingissues, at once disquieting and consolatory, which inform the works heard onthis recording. The threeworks assembled here reflect one of the principal forces at work in Britten'smature creativity. No other British composer of his epoch resorted so often norwith such conspicuous success to the orchestral song cycle. Of Britten's song-scapeswith orchestral accompaniment there are six. The series began in 1928 with QuatreChansons francaises; Our Hunting Fathers followed in 1936, and then came LesIlluminations in 1939, the Serenade/or tenor, horn, and strings in1943, and in 1949 the mighty Spring Symphony, with its settings of poemsfrom Spenser to Blake and W.H. Auden, before ending in 1958 with the Nocturne,Op 60. When considered by the side of his song-cycles for voice and singlea
Tracklisting