This article can be presented as a lecture-recital, with the Tenor Matthew Sandy. For full details, please drop me a line to mark@marksmithhorn.com.
Not important stuff – Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears returned to the UK from their self-imposed exile in the United States on the 17th April 1942. That year saw the first performances of the Hymn to Saint Cecilia and the huge success of A Ceremony of Carols. Britten was also occupied with writing and conducting the music for a radio series entitled An American in England. The music was performed by the RAF Orchestra which had as its Principal Horn, the twenty-two year old Dennis Brain. Britten noticed him almost immediately and by his own account, ‘took every opportunity to write elaborate horn solos’ for him. Britten also took the opportunity to question Brain about the horn and its potential.
Early in 1943, Britten suffered a bout of measles and while convalescing began working on some songs for Peter Pears. He wrote to Elizabeth Mayer at the beginning of April saying that “I’ve practically completed a new work (6 nocturns) for Peter and a lovely young horn player Dennis Brain, & Strings……It’s not important stuff, but quite pleasant, I think.”
Britten possessed an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of poetry and had the assistance of BBC Producer and sometime critic, Edward Sackville-West, in selecting the texts that he used for the Serenade, as this new work was to be known. Sackville-West is the E. S-W. of the obscure dedication at the top of the score. The chosen texts were by Charles Cotton, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, William Blake, Ben Jonson, John Keats and as well as an anonymous fifteen-century dirge. There was to have been a seventh song (or, as has been suggested, a different final song), a setting of Tennyson’s seductive Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white, which Britten discarded, remaining in obscurity until after his death. The songs of the Serenade are framed by a Prologue and Epilogue for the horn alone.
The first performance was given by Peter Pears, tenor and Dennis Brain, horn with Walter Goehr and his orchestra at the Wigmore Hall, London on October 15th, 1943.
Prologue
Much has been written about Britten’s enjoyment of word-play, and how this is expressed in his compositions. One example in particular, his use of the tension between the notes B natural and B flat, which, for Britten, had the connotation of “be natural or be flat,”1 surfaces in many of his works with the note or key centre of B natural being associated with free self-expression, hope, dreams and positivity, with Bb associating with repression, conformity, being required to submit to orders, negativity in general and hopelessness1. By extension, melodic or harmonic movement upwards by a semitone often represents an attempt to free oneself from some form of tyranny and a fall by the same interval indicates failure or a collapse into a negative state.
The opening horn call of the Serenade is directed to be played on the instrument’s natural harmonics, meaning that the notes sound at their natural pitch, unadjusted to satisfy equal temperament. The major thirds sound slightly flat, the fifths are wide and the most noticeably “out of tune” harmonic is the eleventh, which, on a horn in F, sounds a pitch which lies directly between B flat and B natural but is neither one nor the other. Britten makes very deliberate use of this other-worldly pitch in the prologue, creating a compelling portrait of “inscrutable nature”, lying beyond the realm of sophistication and human society and which, by its nature, is innocent. The horn becomes a character in the dramatic narrative which follows.
Pastoral
This is a setting of Evening by Charles Cotton (1630-87), a poem described by Porter2 as being ‘like a painting of country life – it looks forward to the English School of Constable.’ Cotton’s ten verses reveal a certain unevenness both in quality and style that Britten overcame by simply selecting the four verses which best suited his scheme both in mood and equally importantly, in sound. The discarded verses are shown in italics.
The Day's grown old, the fainting Sun Has but a little way to run, And yet his Steeds, with all his skill, Scarce lug the chariot down the Hill. With Labour spent, and Thirst Opprest, Whilst they strain hard to gain the West, From Fetlocks hot drops melted light, Which turn the Meteors in the Night. The Shadows now so long do grow, That Brambles like tall Cedars show, Mole-hills seem Mountains, and the Ant Appears a monstrous Elephant. A very little little Flock Shades thrice the ground that it would stock; Whilst the small stripling following them, Appears a mighty Polypheme. These being brought into their Fold, And by the Thrifty Master told, He thinks his Wages are well paid, Since none are either lost or stray'd. Now lowing Herds are each-where heard, Chains rattle in the Villains Yard. The Cart's on Tayl set down to rest, Bearing on high the Cuckold's Crest. The hedge is stript, the Clothes brought in, Nought's left without should be within, The Bees are hiv'd and hum their Charm, Whilst every House does seem a swarm. Ths Cock now to the Roost is prest; For he must call up all the rest; The Sow's fast pegg'd within the Sty, To still her squeaking Progeny. Each one has his Supping Mess, The Cheese is put into the Press, The Pans and Bowls clean scalded all, Rear'd up against the Milk-House Wall. And now on Benches all are sat In the cool air to sit and chat, Til Phoebus, dipping in the West, Shall lead the World the way to Rest.
Britten’s setting opens with a gentle rocking motif played pp by the muted string orchestra, above which the voice enters dolcissimo, with a descending 5-3-1-5 arpeggio of the tonic triad of Db maj (‘The Day’s grown old’) immediately echoed by the horn. The effect of this elegiac opening opening is one of tremendous warmth, tenderness and welcome. The vocal line gently echoes the text while the horn follows with diatonic phrases, barely raising its voice above pp. The third verse in Britten’s setting (‘A very little little flock…….’) introduces action, elegantly painted by the strings pizzicato accompaniment – always in pp. Now the horn leads with the descending 5-3-1-5 motif, the voice following but with new, dynamic material, exquisitely illustrating the text (‘Appears a mighty Polypheme’) followed by a wry smile which gently ushers in the final verse. Here, the rocking motif is subtly concealed, being spread between the horn (an ostinato low Db, like a bell tolling the late hour) and the lower strings, the upper strings now answering the voice as the horn did in the first two verses. In the final line of the poem, Britten places a long and heartfelt emphasis on ‘lead’, at which point the horn ceases its tolling of the Db, sustaining its sound as the voice falls down the scale and comes to rest on Ab. The rocking motif now sounds again exactly as at the opening but is silenced by the entry of the horn with a final statement of the 5-3-1-5 motif.
The atmosphere created by Britten’s setting appeals to our sense of the rightness of earning our peace through a day’s innocent industry. We can rest our weary limbs and take our ease.
The horn’s repeated 5-3-1-5 motif is no longer tuned to natural harmonic pitch, it has been brought into polite society, so to speak. Interestingly, that final statement by the horn falls through the expected resting point and again comes to rest on the dominant, which by its lack of finality creates a not unpleasant feeling of expectation ahead of what now follows.
Nocturne
Known by a variety of names, The Bugle Song, Splendour Falls, He hears the Bugle at Killarney and Blow, Bugle Blow, these three verses were written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) in 1850 to go between parts III and IV of his epic poem The Princess. They were inspired – in part – by hearing a bugler playing by the ruins of castle at the lake of Killarney two years earlier. He was struck by the echoes, counting nine of them, describing them as being ‘like a chant of angels in the sky3’.
The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle, answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O, sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle, answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
Britten’s response to this glorious text is rich and multifaceted, opening with a fanfare-like motif played by the strings which suggests the flashing of late sunlight over rippling water. The strings continue with this material while the voice dominates, ebulliently describing the scene, becoming ecstatic at the words ‘And the wild cataract leaps in glory’. At this point there comes a Cadenza, ushered in with an expectant hush as the strings begin a long, sustained tremolando poco a poco cresc. over which the horn – silent up to this moment – enters with a bugle call modelled upon the notes of the voice’s ‘cataract leaps in glory’. The passage continues senza misura with a dialogue between the voice ‘Blow, bugle blow,’ and the horn which repeats the call; then the voice again, ‘set the wild echoes flying,’ answered by a developed version of the horn call. Britten reverses the order of the next two words of Tennyson’s text and sets ‘Bugle, blow,’ again answered by the developed horn call, the voice demands ‘answer, echoes, answer’ which is met by the climactic version of the horn call to which it has been leading throughout. ‘Dying, dying,’ laments the voice, the horn responds with a gentle reminder of its call, the dialogue continues ‘dying,’ horn call, ‘dying,’ horn call until the music settles, all passion spent.
The second verse moves very much in the same fashion as the first but in a much more restrained and delicate manner in a brighter tonality, reflecting the image of ‘The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!’ The horn’s utterances in the Cadenza are marked con sord (muted) rising to ff at the climax.
The final verse demonstrates Britten’s unerring understanding of the dramatic impact of poetry. The strings again begin their fanfare motif but the voice, passionate and impulsive, breaks in as if too soon, now accompanied by a new and noble theme in the low strings which drives the music forward to the vocal climax ‘And grow for ever and for ever,’ which is picked up by the horn – no longer muted – in the final ecstatic Cadenza. As the music subsides Britten takes us again to the fanfare motif of the opening, now just with three solo violins ‘like a chant of angels in the sky.’
Tennyson places the works of man (“castle walls”) in the same realm as rocks and mountains (“snowy summits old in story”) under the gaze of nature (“The splendour”). He goes on to tell us that the world of imagination (“Elfland”) has it’s own majesty and power but nothing can compare to the undying power of human love to do good (“our echoes roll from soul to soul, and grow for ever and for ever”). Britten provides a setting which amplifies these sentiments magnificently.
The horn has taken on a more independent role in this song, establishing its own place as an equal to the voice. The horn calls have a child-like innocence and simplicity, being based upon the tonic triad, always moving in thirds. Eight years later, Britten attached the same sense of innocent joy to Billy Budd by accompanying him with a horn obligato built upon the same harmony.
Elegy
Britten turned to William Blake’s (1757-1827) Songs of Innocence and of Experience for the first of the two central, defining texts for the Serenade: The Sick Rose. In the Songs of Innocence, Blake presents us with a vision of the natural world, innocent and light, more often than not seen through the eyes of children. Songs of Experience deals with the loss of innocence, the pain and frailty of adult life and the material world. The Sick Rose is drawn from the latter set.
O Rose, thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.
This setting conveys a profound sense of dis-ease using some simple but very powerful techniques. The dragging rhythm established in the strings at the outset conveys a strained, unsettled feeling rather as if one were struggling to move or even breathe. The horn enters above but unable to stay true, it keeps falling by a semitone despite its efforts to move by perfect intervals and as Carpenter points out ‘In a few bars [the horn] has ranged through all twelve notes of the chromatic scale4’. The part played by the Double Bass is worthy of note here. The Bass moves independently of the rest of the strings, playing pizzicato, each move in an upward direction is followed by a return, as if unable to break free. There is something of the paralysis experienced in dreams where the hapless dreamer struggles fruitlessly to escape from impending danger. The horn, continuing its chromatic journey utters a scream of pain before falling into a sullen silence. The voice enters now and renders the text as recitative, Britten’s masterstroke is the chillingly set ‘And his dark secret love etc.’ The horn resumes its obsessive ‘doleful peregrination around the twelve notes.4’ To bring this desolate setting to a close, the horn echoes the entry of the voice. Entering on a G sharp which is bent by way of hand stopping into a G natural (another fall of a semitone). In the light of this failure, the horn tries again with the same result but this time the note bends back up to G sharp as the sound dies away. The chromaticism of the horn part has subverted its nature and removed any semblance of innocence and ‘rightness’. As the text make clear, what was beautiful, innocent and healthy is now corrupted.
Dirge
The Lyke Wake Dirge dates from the fifteenth century and is said to be in an old Yorkshire dialect. It was sung or intoned over a corpse (‘Lyke’) and is concerned with the trials facing the soul after death. Britten does not set two of the verses (shown in italics), possibly because they were not included in the Oxford edition that he possessed or, as has been suggested, the demands placed upon the voice by this long and continuous piece required that the text should be trimmed.
This ae nighte, this ae nighte, Every nighte and alle, Fire and fleet and candle-lighte, And Christe receive thy saule. When thou from hence away aret past, Every nighte and alle, To Whinny-muir thou com’st at last; And Christe receive thy saule. If ever thou gav’st hos’n and shoon, Every nighte and alle, Sit thee down and put them on; And Christe receive thy saule. If hos’n and shoon thou ne’er gav’st nane Every nighte and alle, The whinnies shall prick thee to the bare bane; And Christe receive thy saule. From Whinny-muir whence thou may’st pass, Every nighte and alle, To Brig o’Dread thou com’st at last; And Christe receive thy saule. If ever thou gav’st silver and gold, Every nighte and all, At t’Brig o’Dread thou’lt find foothold, And Christe receive thy saule. But if silver and gold thou never gav’st nane, Every nighte and alle, Down thou tumblest to Hell flame, And Christe receive thy saule. From Brig o’Dread whence thou may’st pass, Every nighte and alle, To Purgatory fire thou com’st at last; And Christe receive thy saule. If ever thou gav’st meat or drink, Every nighte and alle, The fire shall never make thee shrink; And Christe receive thy saule. If meat or drink thou ne’er gav’st nane Every nighte and alle, The fire will burn thee to the bare bane; And Christe receive thy saule. This ae nighte, this ae nighte, Every nighte and alle, Fire and fleet and candle-lighte, And Christ receive thy saule.
The vocal line follows what is essentially a descending G min arpeggio, each line of the verse beginning and ending with the successive notes of the arpeggio G – D – Bb – G and the intervening words being set as a chromatic “wobble” above and below the chord note. The end of each verse, on the word ‘saule’ the voice makes an agonised slide back up to the top G of the chord and repeats the process. The metre of the text is very clearly in a four-beat pattern and Britten maintains this for the vocal part which begins totally solo and continues without pause through to the end. However, he creates a devilish accompanying motif which is rhythmically lop-sided and as the Dirge progresses, the effect of this figure superimposed upon itself is the create a bewildering texture in which it is really quite difficult to tell what is happening (also for the performers!) Britten’s genius here creating a visceral impression of the indistinct and confused fears of what awaits the soul after death.
The horn remains silent until the journeying soul leaves the Brig o’Dread, the narrow footbridge that it must cross in order to arrive in Purgatory at which point the horn enters with a ferocious account of the devilish motif, with screaming glissandi and violent changes of register. The Dirge ends with the voice alone, as it was at the beginning, intoning the words ‘And Christe receive thy saule’ finally coming to rest on the low G.
The character of the horn has metamorphosed beyond all recognition now, in this incarnation it seems to take on the role of Satan himself, overseeing the fires in Purgatory. There is no connection with the natural world as portrayed in the Prologue.
Hymn
Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess, excellently bright. Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose; Cynthia’s shining orb was made Heav’n to clear, when day did close: Bless us then with wished sight, Goddess excellently bright. Lay thy bow of pearl apart, And thy crystal shining quiver, Give unto the flying hart Space to breathe, how short soever; Thou that mak’st a day of night, Goddess, excellently bright.
To fully appreciate Britten’s choice of Ben Jonson’s Hymn to Diana for the fifth song in the cycle, we must consider the play from which it comes.
Jonson (1572-1637) wrote Cynthia’s Revels in 1601 and gave it the alternative title The Fountain of Self-Love. This play, a comedy of manners, is concerned with the narcissistic actions and their consequences of various gods and goddesses, principally the virgin queen Cynthia (known also as Diana) who has outlawed love in her court and plays on the desires of her courtiers who trade flatteries and courtly manners in order to win ‘favours’. In Act V, scene IV of the play, the text above is sung by Hesperus, wooing Cynthia.
Viewed in this light, the Hymn to Diana is revealed to be cynical and disingenuous. The text is elegant and witty on the surface but nothing is what it seems to be, there is always another agenda. Bamborough5 refers to the ‘exquisite finish and smoothness of this…………lyric’ which is reflected in Britten’s setting. The jaunty 6/8 metre of the horn part is very much in keeping with the long-established hunt idiom but Britten’s tempo marking of Presto e leggiero and a metronome marking of 168-176 beats per minute transform it into a flippant, glib, virtuoso show-off. The voice joins in with this overtly self-gratifying display of sophistry with its over-extended and over-egged ‘excellently bright’. Carpenter notes ‘The gaiety seems rather forced3’. It should come as no surprise to observe that this setting has a key signature of Bb major – the key of soul-less conformity. The song closes with a throw-away ending in the manner of a music-hall bawdy.
At this point in a performance of the Serenade, the horn player leaves the stage.
Sonnet
To Sleep John Keats (1795-1821)
O soft embalmer of the still midnight, Shutting with careful fingers and benign, Our gloom-pleas’d eyes, embower’d from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine: O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes, Or wait the “Amen” ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling charities. Then save me, or the passèd day will shine Upon my pillow, breeding many woes, - Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.
At the core of these drowsy lines lies an ambiguity. Is the poet wishing for sleep or death? References such as ‘embalmer’, ‘forgetfulness divine’ and ‘Casket of my Soul’ tend to lead us to the latter conclusion but the case is not proven. This ambiguity would, no doubt, have appealed to Britten and his setting of these immensely powerful lines is a miracle of economy of means: for example, the ease with which the mood turns under the words ‘Then save me, or the passed day will shine Upon my pillow.’ The vocal line is extraordinarily expressive throughout, painting the meaning of the words in musical sounds: the plunge of an eleventh on ‘gloom pleas’d eyes’; the melismatic treatment of ‘forgetfulness divine’, ‘lulling charities’ and the heartfelt plea ‘Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards’; the high strings taking our thoughts heavenward as the final words of the Sonnet (and the entire Serenade) are intoned ‘And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.’
The horn, of course is silent throughout this final setting, having lost its voice it has no part to play in this honest prayer for release from the worries of a troubled conscience.
Epilogue
The silence that follows the end of the Sonnet is broken by the distant sound of the horn. The music of the Epilogue is identical to that of the Prologue but is directed to played ‘Off Stage.’ We now understand the significance of the Prologue, for when the horn sounds its natural voice, we are reminded of the innocent state of the opening of the Serenade but now we hear it more distantly than we did before.
The Epilogue does however, contain a message of hope. It tells us that ‘rightness’. ‘innocence’ and ‘goodness’ are still in the world.
Not important stuff?
Bibliography
1 Be Flat or Be Natural? Pitch symbolism in Britten’s Operas.
Mervyn Cook
Rethinking Britten OUP 2013
2 The English Poets from Chaucer to Thomas
Ed. Peter Porter & Anthony Thwaite
Martin Secker & Warburg, London 1974
3 Tennyson The Unquiet Heart a biography
Robert Bernard Martin
Faber & Faber Ltd. 1980
4 Benjamin Britten A Biography
Humphrey Carpenter
Faber & Faber Ltd. 1992
5 Writers & their Work Ben Jonson
J. B. Bamborough
Longman 1959
The Poems of Tennyson
Ed. Christopher Ricks
Longmans, Green & Co. 1969
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
William Blake
Oxford 1967
Critics on Blake
Ed. Judith O’Niell
Allen and Unwin 1970
William Blake
Edward Larrissy
Blackwell 1985
Oxford Authors Ben Jonson
Ed. Ian Donaldson
OUP 1985
Ben Jonson A collection of Critical Essays
Ed. Jonas A. Barish
Spectrum 1963
Keats
Andrew Motion
Faber & Faber 1997
Dennis Brain A biography
Stephen J. Pettitt (With an appreciation by Benjamin Britten)
Robert Hale 1976
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