I have been turning over in my mind when to write something about Benjamin Britten.  Conducting his music and staying with it unravels so much of the depth that he achieved throughout his complex life.  In an earlier blog, I mentioned my times in Cambridge amongst the anarchists and fundamentalists.  The fundamentalists were the composers who wrote music which (I presume) spoke only to themselves and a few other fellow-travellers.  Britten never embraced the uncompromising avant-garde whose music he considered to be isolated from the music-loving public.  He was happy to embrace dissonance and his music was modern – a huge departure from the more traditional style of the likes of Elgar and Vaughan Williams.  In accepting the first Aspen Award at Aspen, Colorado, in 1964, a prize ‘for the individual anywhere in the world judged to have made the greatest contribution to the advancement of the humanities’, Britten said ‘I certainly write music for human beings… I do not write for posterity… I want my music to be of use to people’.
Britten has left us with an extraordinary tapestry of works which bear out the success of his aim, and, whilst I cannot speak for any other, I cannot think of any large-scale choral work since the War Requiem from 1962 of a remotely similar stature which has secured its place in the universal choral repertoire.  That is not to suggest that there have not been works which have become popular.  As with Britten with his rejection of the extremes of the avant-garde, I hold my position in distinguishing his music from that of the, for some, more accessible and recent music of others.
My chosen work this week is the Serenade Op.31 for Tenor, Horn and Strings (the comma is essential! More safely it is written in the score as Serenade for Tenor solo, horn and strings).
It was written for Britten’s lover from 1939 to the end of his life, Peter Pears, and the horn player Dennis Brain.  I was lucky (and stupid) enough as a student to have had the opportunity to conduct this work with Peter Pears in 1973.  I shudder now at how little I must have known and how embarrassingly inexperienced I was.  The Serenade had made a great impression on me since I first heard it, and Pears responded favourably to my out-of-the-blue letter inviting him.  (He also sang a short piece of Finzi at the beginning of the concert called ‘A Farewell to Arms’.  I had asked him to sing Dies Natalis together with the Serenade.  He’d probably have needed an ambulance after that). 
I was also fortunate to have sung at Snape Maltings in 1972 under Benjamin Britten as part of the semi-chorus in Britten’s recording of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius.  Britten came over to Cambridge to rehearse us separately in King’s College Chapel.  (If you have never seen this building it is worth looking it up…it is one of the finest in England and, I suppose, the world).  We had not looked at the music ahead of that, and the experience was not a little embarrassing.  We were prepared properly for the recording afterwards!  I shall never forget the moment I first heard Peter Pears whilst listening to a rehearsal of Gerontius in King’s College Chapel on a previous occasion.  I had never heard the work, and was sitting about ten rows of seats in front of him in a fairly empty chapel.  Suddenly I was aware of a truly ear-shattering noise which I first I couldn’t place.  I looked around thinking something had happened, and then up at Pears who was stretched to his full height (he was tall), and in his characteristic lean slightly to the right and backwards was declaiming ‘Take me away’ with the most terrifying power on the top A.  It was a moment not to forget.
I am thinking of writing more in general about Britten at a later date, but these things are still in gestation and need to await a future blog.  I have deleted some spoilers from this!  Britten and Pears had been in America between 1939 and 1942, during which time they cemented (you know what I mean…) their relationship which was to last until Britten’s death in 1976.  Much, or even most, of Britten’s subsequent vocal writing had Pears at the forefront.
In 1943 various works were simultaneously forming in Britten’s mind (as was usual), and one such work was the Serenade. He was in poor health with very bad measles and flu and had spent two weeks in isolation in Tooting Hospital – not an experience one would wish on oneself given the squalid conditions. On top of that, the German aeroplanes seemed to have a special attraction to it on their way to and from home.  Despite his illness he produced this unique and engaging work.
Britten had met the horn player Dennis Brain soon after his return to England in 1942 and was astounded by his playing – its control and versatility.  Britten was a stern and uncompromising judge so this would have been praise indeed from the man who later became close friend of two of the greatest Russian musicians, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and pianist Sviatoslav Richter.  It is a measure of Britten’s pianistic prowess that Richter and he would play duets together.  There is a picture of him turning pages for Richter in a song recital with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.  Brain was playing in the RAF orchestra when Britten first heard him, as was the conductor Norman Del Mar, the Richard Strauss scholar and biographer, also a horn player.  Brain asked for a horn concerto and the Serenade was the result.  Richard Strauss’s 2nd horn concerto dated from the same time, and was premiered in the Salzburg Festival in August 1943.  Britten’s Serenade was premiered in London’s Wigmore Hall two months later in October 1943 – extraordinary but coincidental that two of the most significant works ever written for horn solo appeared in such close proximity.  The contrast in styles could hardly have been greater, but Britten took the horn’s potential to new pastures having consulted both players on what was possible.
The horn had evolved as one of the most significant solo orchestral instruments since the time of Mozart and Haydn.  Taking just a few examples (there are many more), one thinks of Beethoven symphonies, Schumann and Schubert, Weber and then Wagner’s ‘hunting’ music in operas, the opening of the 4th movement of Brahms’ 1st symphony, and then the glorious writing for horns in works of Mahler and Strauss (whose Four Last Songs had not yet been written).  Britten fed off these examples and developed his own ideas in the Serenade.  His quickly-acquired mastery of writing for the horn is apparent from the start.
The underlying theme of the Serenade is nocturnal and Britten’s genius shines through his representation of the poems that he selected.  Before any singing takes place, we have the intriguing and tantalising Prologue on the solo horn (also played at the end).  Those who are uninformed beware!  Britten had learnt from Dennis Brain about the effect of hand-stopping on the tuning.  This Prologue is played on natural harmonics without using the valves or hand-stopping, making it ‘out of tune’, and especially the 4ths (F) above the opening note C which sound very sharp (intentionally).  This creates a distinctly mysterious quality – noises of the night.  There follow settings of six poems in separate movements.

Prologue (horn solo)

1.         Pastoral (Charles Cotton 1630-1687)
The musical mood is set with end-of-day fatigue for all save the flock whose lightness of foot is portrayed with pizzicato strings and a rather jumpy few bars for the tenor soloist (easily caricatured!).  The evening shadows appear three times larger than life for the sheep, and that of the boy rounding them up the size of the monster Polyphemus.  Tiredness eventually prevails as the sun in the West leads the word to rest.

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.

The shadows now so long do grow,
That brambles like tall cedars show;
Molehills 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.

And now on benches all are sat,
In the cool air to sit and chat,
Till Phoebus, dipping in the West,
Shall lead the world the way to rest.

2.         Nocturne (Tennyson 1809-1892)
The sun sets on the castle, snowy mountains behind, reflections on the lakes, the waterfall ‘leaping in glory’ and a bugle’s echoes die away.  This is a more dramatic setting with each verse ending as the horn and tenor soloist represent the bugle and the dying echoes – dying, dying, dying.  The second section stanza takes us to ‘Elfland’ with similar effects, but in the final stanza the echoes of love keep growing.  (Peter Pears was never far from his thoughts).  The hunting horn (‘bugle’) is reserved for the final two lines of each verse to significant and growing effect

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,
Bugle blow; 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:
Bugle, blow; answer, echoes, answer, 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.

3. Elegy (William Blake 1757–1827)
One of Blake’s ‘Songs of Experience’, imagery where dark secret love is destroyed.  During the long introduction and conclusion in the strings and horn, Britten takes the theme of the worm, as it were, shuffling along under the ground as portrayed by the string accompaniment, while the horn gradually takes flight, rising with an exposed entry in the 15th slow bar on a top C, as it were ‘stinging’ and poisoning the rose as it slips a semitone after a strong crescendo.  The soloist recites the poem as a recitative, and the orchestra then plays the extended conclusion.  Throughout the movement the double basses play a weighty pizzicato – this creates an unsettled further layer of disturbance in the overall depiction.  Britten’s originality is captivating here.  I have attached Blake’s original engraved poem in the hope that the file is not too big.  

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.

4 . Dirge (Lyke Wake Dirge, anonymous 16th century)
This setting of the Lyke-Wake Dirge is the most eye-catching (‘invisible [ear] worm’) of all the movements, and is built round a constantly-repeated 6-bar theme in the tenor solo, proceeding as a lament in march-like fashion with eight variations.  It speaks of the journey of the soul to purgatory.  Britten does not use the full title, but Lyke is an old word for a corpse and the wake refers to watching over the dead between death and the funeral.  Far removed from the use of the word ‘lyke’ today!  It is written in an old Yorkshire dialect. I have put a few modern versions of words in italics, for the benefit of Swedes!  The tenor begins and ends on his own and the volume slowly rises until the horn makes its dramatic entry at ‘From Brig o’ Dread’, playing the same music as the cellos and basses at their first entry.  After the sixth dramatic verse with the horn the movement slowly subsides, and then suddenly evaporates without slowing.
This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle lighte,
And Christe receive thy saule. (soul)

When thou from hence away art past,
Every nighte and alle,
To Whinnymuir thou com'st at last;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gav'st hos'n and shoon, (clothing and shoes)
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 (none)
Every nighte and alle,
The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane; (bone)
And Christe receive thy saule.

From Whinnymuir when thou may'st pass,
Every nighte and alle,
To Brig o' Dread thou com'st at last;
And Christe receive thy saule.

From Brig o' Dread when 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 sall 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 Christe receive thy saule.

5. Hymn (Ben Jonson 1572–1637)
This movement serves as a foil for what surrounds it.  It has the characteristics of a scherzo, fast and light, the horn returning to hunting mode, and virtuosic in its speed and athleticism.  ‘Queen and huntress’ represents Queen Elizabeth, and Peter Pears was able to display his coloratura technique – rather distinctive in the way he skips (toboggans?….) through it, something he had refined in the Italian operas in which he had performed.  There is a ‘false’ start for the horn as the third verse begins – Britten probably making a joke, and a trap, together with the ‘out-of-tune’ horn in the Prologue, for an unwary critic such as the one who reviewed my performance in 1973!  Britten loathed critics. The strings play pizzicato throughout and it skips off at the end leaving quietness in preparation for the Keats sonnet about to begin.

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 wishèd 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 so-ever:
Thou that mak’st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.

6. Sonnet (John Keats 1795–1821)
A murky stillness pervades the final movement, the strings moving in chords not unlike the opening of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis in character, though I’m not sure Britten would have wanted to read that about it.  The tenor soloist has to sustain and move as if freely through the drifting phrases. The ninth line begins a more agitated phase rising to a peak with the words ‘Turn the key deftly’, before dying back at the last on a repeated D as the thick string chords drift quietly and dream-like around the solo note.

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 oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd Casket of my Soul.

Epilogue
The horn has been silent throughout the Sonnet and has left to play the Epilogue from behind the stage.  The music is the same as the Prologue with the open harmonics in the horn, distant, retrospective and tantalising.  The end is stillness – a tranquillity that would be repeated most remarkably in the dying moments of the War Requiem.

The Serenade is accessible and captivating for the listener, holding its place together with the best of his writing.   One has to stand back and marvel at his perception and originality, finding a musical language with which to illustrate and enhance the distinctive written texts, and then to admire the interweaving between the horn, soloist and orchestra.
A word about Peter Pears, whose voice was unusual in many ways, not least for what many regard as his excessive vibrato and his many idiosyncratic habits.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone else doing a double portamento, but I may be imagining that – easily mimicked, again! When I heard him in concert I was less aware of the vibrato, and more aware of his control and total domination of the stage in any setting, not least as Evangelist in the Bach Passions.  One found oneself captivated and gripped in rapt attention by all he did. 
I have put his Spotify performance below here for historic reference as much as anything, and a chance to engage with the great horn playing of Dennis Brain, who died tragically in a car crash, aged just 36.  Perhaps the better recording (the overall quality is somewhat better as it is more recent) is here on YouTube, sung by Robert Tear with Alan Civil on the horn.  Tear was also somewhat vibrato-heavy, but there are plenty of other recordings of others with a rather cleaner approach.  You will hear some tobogganing in the Pears coloratura of the ‘Hymn’, but every note is there!  There is a later Pears recording with Barry Tuckwell on the horn – perhaps the best of the lot.
Robert Tear, tenor, Alan Civil, horn.  Neville Marriner, ASMF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0lgNLiHlag

Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, Dennis Brain… the team!
https://open.spotify.com/track/1kiWx47az4GlXUETAua7Gz?si=K-FQxOg0TlmSwmTIP_tOOw
https://open.spotify.com/track/0xyvcAhiuri70acxXEvTSb?si=Jnz94F8HSf-HflgEqNg-YQ
https://open.spotify.com/track/4HLOsGsE1WEkyuuNGTHOdR?si=PbWSIT5SRVOqhjYMijspgw
https://open.spotify.com/track/6mZa08v6nm0bSNEEfD2VMY?si=DNpRAyvqT9muXbRl-d-9AQ
https://open.spotify.com/track/4u5KyEEhehinigFn7qDS3E?si=gtsRFEjRRnGWkxlfI57Pow
https://open.spotify.com/track/5VnnBIrOoIQE3aV14iGHOG?si=fzHj-7avQiO11z-ythifbA
https://open.spotify.com/track/5bSolWZ7q6l6fphWMarbtI?si=gGrQOi9lRgW5ihPmRiM8Og
https://open.spotify.com/track/3TKUFePxRIAc7lo8oNIvcZ?si=WD-59gZzTs2QrB7yyAtDZg