Barbican Britten: The Sixteen, 22 Nov

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texts rather more, with the latter poised right on the edge of Victoriana, even as ‘dewdrops pearl the evening’s breast’. This is as close as Britten ever gets to Elgar: not quite pastiche perhaps, but certainly an affectionate echo. Britten’s mastery, however, lies in his juxtapositions. The ‘slimy root’ of Crabbe’s ‘Marsh Flowers’ quickly reasserts nature’s muddier, uglier aspect, while anyone lingering over the tranquil beauty of Clare’s primrose finds themselves pulled up briskly by the impetuous energy of the ‘Ballad of Green Broom’, its witty, quasi-instrumental effects (recalling the Hymn to St Cecilia) imitating the limited range of a novice guitar or lute player. It’s a sophisticated joke to end a cycle of rare sincerity and sweetness from Britten. Composed in 1943, The Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard is a concise masterpiece. Britten takes an anonymous ballad and morphs it into a sophisticated exercise in musical narrative. Set for the unusual ensemble of men’s voices and piano, the work was composed for officers in a German concentration camp, where it was performed during their incarceration. It’s a heady tale of lust, murder and revenge, in which Lord Barnard kills his wife and her lover. Each stage of the story is minutely wrought, from the tolling church bells of the opening (heard in the piano) that transform into the hooves of Barnard’s horse, to the duel between the two men, and finally the mourning song of the grieving husband. Coherence and continuity – of theme, music or treatment – may have characterised Britten’s earlier cycles, but Sacred and Profane is more interested in contrast and oppositions. The conflict of the work’s title permeates this riotous, virtuosic work that celebrates the cultural collisions of medieval England. It’s as though the two choirs of the Hymn to the Virgin have come together as one, lurching artfully from the spiritual to the emphatically secular. It’s curious that so energetic a work (both in its vocal demands and the complexity of its invention) should have emerged so late in Britten’s career. By 1975 the composer was ill; heart surgery had prolonged his life but had also weakened him. Yet the same late surge that produced Death in Venice and the cantata Phaedra also yielded this choral cycle, composed for the five unaccompanied SSATB voices of Peter Pears’s Wilbye Consort. Writing for soloists rather than massed choral forces, Britten allows himself unusual freedom and range in constructing his vocal lines, and the effect is striking for its freewheeling athleticism. We open in pious mood; ‘St Godric’s Hymn’ has the stark, declamatory intensity of a Poulenc motet, but soon regains its Brittenish flavour as harmonies thicken and meander. Before the prayer has a chance to rise up to heaven the animal cries and wails of ‘I mon waxe wod’ break in – as vivid a musical evocation of madness as ever composed. The spiritual and secular collide directly in the vivid imagery of ‘Lenten is come’, delighting in the wriggling, teeming signs of spring life, that are soon subdued by darkness in ‘The long night’. Sober meditation on Christ’s crucifixion (‘Yif ic of luve can’) is likewise interrupted by the pulsing babble of the ‘Carol’, just as Christ’s invitation to behold his death on the cross (‘Ye that pasen by’) has the rug pulled quickly from under it by the meticulous catalogue of human frailties of ‘A death’. Here, an old woman laboriously describes her bodily disintegration, facing death with a final insouciant bit of defiance: ‘For the whole world I don’t care a jot!’ It’s a brave and heroic final stand from a composer whose own health was nearly exhausted, and who would be dead within a year. Programme note © Alexandra Coghlan 6
Texts Hymn to the Virgin Alexandra Kidgell soprano Kim Porter alto Mark Dobell tenor Eamonn Dougan bass Of one that is so fair and bright, Velut maris stella, Brighter than the day is light, Parens et puella: I cry to thee, thou see to me, Lady, pray thy Son for me, Tam pia, That I may come to thee, Maria! All this world was forlorn Eva peccatrice, Till our Lord was yborn. De te genetrice. With ‘ave’ it went away Darkest night, and comes the day Salutis; The well springeth out of thee. Virtutis. Lady flow’r of ev’rything Rosa sine spina thou bare Jesu, Heaven’s King Gratia divina: Of all thou bear’st the prize, Lady, Queen of paradise, Electa: Maid mild, mother Es effecta. Anon. A Shepherd’s Carol Alexandra Kidgell soprano Kim Porter alto Mark Dobell tenor Eamonn Dougan bass O lift your little pinkie, and touch the winter sky. Love’s all over the mountains where the beautiful go to die. If Time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I’d pay for riding lessons and take his gun away. O lift, etc. If I were a Valentino, and Fortune were abroad, I’d hypnotise that iceberg till she kissed me of her own accord. O lift, etc. If I’d stacked up the velvet and my crooked rib were dead, I’d be breeding white canaries and eating crackers in bed. O lift, etc. But my cuffs are soiled and fraying. The kitchen clock is slow, and over the Blue Waters the grass grew long ago. O lift, etc. W H Auden (1907–73) A New Year Carol Here we bring new water from the well so clear For to worship God with, this happy New Year. Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, the water and the wine; The seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine. Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her toe, Open you the West Door, and turn the Old Year go. Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, etc. Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin, Open you the East Door, and let the New Year in. Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, etc. Anon. 7 Texts
Page 1 and 2: 1 Barbican Britten: The Sixteen Fri
Page 3 and 4: Welcome to Barbican Britten At the
Page 5: contradicted by complex fugal count
Page 9 and 10: Five Flower Songs 1 To Daffodils Fa
Page 11 and 12: With that beheard a little tiny pag
Page 13 and 14: Wimmen waxeth wounder proude, So we
Page 15 and 16: Marco Borggreve About the performer

Barbican Britten: The Sixteen, 22 Nov

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