Nocturne (Britten)
Nocturne, Op. 60, is a song cycle by Benjamin Britten, written for tenor, seven obbligato instruments and strings.[1] The seven instruments are flute, cor anglais, clarinet, bassoon, harp, French horn and timpani.
Nocturne was Britten's fourth and final orchestral song cycle, after Our Hunting Fathers (Op. 8, 1936), Les Illuminations (Op. 18, 1939) and Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (Op. 31, 1943). It was dedicated to Alma Mahler.[2]
Nocturne was premiered in the
The theme of the piece, as its name is also evident throughout, reflecting the contrast between the untroubled and the more perturbed aspects of sleep which are also described by Britten's choice of poems.
Structure
The piece sets eight sections of poetry to music, each accompanied by strings and (with the exception of the first) by an obbligato instrument:
- Shelley – "On a Poet’s Lips I Slept" from Prometheus Unbound
- Tennyson – "The Kraken", with bassoon
- Coleridge – "Encinctured with a twine of leaves" from The Wanderings of Cain, with harp
- Middleton – "Midnight Bell" from Blurt, Master Constable, with French horn
- Wordsworth – "But that night when on my bed I lay" from The Prelude (1805), with timpani
- Owen – "The Kind Ghosts", with cor anglais
- Keats – "Sleep and Poetry", with flute and clarinet
- Shakespeare – Sonnet XLIII, with all the obbligato instruments
Notes
- ^ Britten himself used the spelling "obligato".
- ^ "Alma in the music of other composers – Benjamin Britten: Nocturne, Op. 60 (Dedicated to Alma), short analysis
- ^ "Britten's Complete Works"by Scott Eric Smith Archived 26 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Britten: Serenade, Nocturne and Les Illuminations, Decca Records, Presto Classical
- ^ 'rocking' as in "Rock the baby to sleep"