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The Graduate School
2004
The Voice of the New Renaissance: The
Premiere Performances of Peter Pears
Christopher Swanson
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF MUSIC
THE VOICE OF THE NEW RENAISSANCE:
THE PREMIERE PERFORMANCES OF PETER PEARS
By
CHRISTOPHER SWANSON
A Treatise submitted to the
School of Music
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Music
Degree Awarded
Summer Semester, 2004
The members of the Committee approve the treatise Christopher Landon Swanson defended on
June 1, 2004.
___________________________________
Douglas Fisher
Professor Directing Treatise
____________________________________
André Thomas
Outside Committee Member
____________________________________
Stanford Olsen
Committee Member
____________________________________
Roy Delp
Committee Member
The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members
ii
To Dr. Kenneth and Mary Jewell
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for their support and
assistance in the creation of this document: The staff of the Britten-Pears Library: Dr. Nicolas
Clark, Victoria Bennett-Hall, Elizabeth Gibson, Heather Grant, Christopher Grogan, Wendy
Philips, Andrew Plant, Anne Surfling, Judith Tydeman, and Pamela Wheeler; Felicity Bromage,
Mayor of Aldeburgh; Rhain Davies, Reader Services of the National Library of Wales; Professor
Roy Delp; Peter Dickinson; Linda Fairtile, University of Richmond Music Library Liaison; Jean
Fickett; Professor Douglas Fisher; the Florida State University Dissertation Research Grant
Committee; Sarah Francis; Professor Larry Gerber; Antony Hopkins; Mary Jewell; Michael
Johnson; Dr. Evan Jones; Longwood University and the Longwood University Department of
Music; Dr. Patricia Lust; Cara McAleese; Dr. Donald Mitchell CBE; Peter Mountain; Carolyn
Nott; Stanford Olsen; Robin Orr; Barry Peter Ould, Bardic Edition Music Publishers; Ian
Partridge; Alasdair Pettinger, Information Officer for the Scottish Music Information Center;
Howard Pollack; Anthony Rooley; Gerard Schurmann; Fiona Searle; Sue Seymour, Cheltenham
International Festival of Music; Donald Simpson; Merit Stephanos, Society for the Promotion of
New Music; Rosamund Strode; Dr. André Thomas; Susie Webster, Chester Music; and Stacie
Wong, Edition Peters.
I would especially like to thank my family for their constant encouragement, patience,
and support: my wife Jennifer Gallagher, my children Ellie, Abby, and Charlie, and my parents
Lois and Landon Swanson.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Musical Examples
Abstract
ix
xv
INTRODUCTION
The New Renaissance
Peter Pears: The Voice
1
1
5
1. YOUTH
Brent Smith: “My Eyes for Beauty Pine”
Britten: The Company of Heaven
Britten: On This Island
10
10
13
14
2. AMERICA
Britten: A. M. D. G.
Purcell/Britten: “Hark the Ech’ing Air”
Purcell/Britten: “The Knotting Song”
Britten: “The Salley Gardens”
Britten: “Little Sir William”
Britten: “The Bonny Earl o’Moray”
Britten: “Oliver Cromwell”
Britten: “Calypso”
Britten: “The Crocodile”
Britten: “The Ash Grove”
16
16
18
18
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
3. HOME
Britten: “I Wonder as I Wander”
Britten: “The Seven Blessings of Mary”
Britten: “Hymn”
Britten: The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo
Britten: “The Foggy, Foggy Dew”
21
23
23
23
24
26
4. 1943
Britten: “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes”
Britten: “La belle est au jardin d’amour”
Britten: “Quand j’étais chez mon père”
Schubert/Britten: “Ach, neige du Schmerzenreiche”
28
28
28
28
29
v
Purcell/Britten: “Not All My Torments”
Tippett: Boyhood’s End
Hopkins: Songs of Cyprus
Purcell/Britten: “There’s Not a Swain on the Plain”
Purcell/Britten: “I’ll Sail upon the Dogstar”
Purcell/Britten: “On the Brow of Richmond Hill”
Britten: “O Can Ye Sew Cushions”
Britten: Serenade
29
30
32
32
32
32
33
33
5. 1944
Wordsworth: “The Snowflake”
Wood: Three Songs
Tippett: A Child of Our Time
Greene/Britten: Two Solo Anthems for Tenor
Purcell/Britten: The Queen’s Epicedium
Purcell/Britten: “Pious Celinda”
Purcell/Britten: “Evening Hymn”
Purcell/Britten: “Sound the Trumpet”
38
38
38
41
43
43
43
43
43
6. 1945
Purcell/Britten: “Turn Then Thine Eyes”
Britten: Peter Grimes
Britten: “Sweet Polly Oliver”
Britten: “The Plough Boy”
Britten: “There’s None to Soothe”
Britten: “Birthday Song for Erwin”
Purcell/Britten: “Music for a While”
Purcell/Britten: “Mad Bess”
Purcell/Britten: “Lord, What is Man?”
Purcell/Britten: “I Spy Celia”
Purcell/Britten: “Lost is My Quiet”
Purcell/Britten: “What Can We Poor Females Do?”
Purcell/Britten: Saul and the Witch at Endor
Purcell/Britten: “Fairest Isle”
Purcell/Britten: “If Music be the Food of Love” (third version)
Purcell/Britten: “Man is for a Woman Made”
Britten: The Holy Sonnets of John Donne
Purcell/Britten: “If Music be the Food of Love” (first version)
Purcell/Britten: “Sweeter than Roses”
45
45
46
50
50
50
50
52
52
52
52
52
52
52
52
52
52
55
59
59
7. 1946
Purcell/Britten: “We Sing to Him”
Schurmann: Five Facets
Purcell/Britten: “Celemene, Pray Tell Me”
Britten: “The Miller of Dee”
Britten: The Rape of Lucretia
Purcell/Britten: “Morning Prayer”
Britten: “O Waly Waly”
60
60
60
61
61
61
61
61
vi
Purcell/Britten: Suite of Six Songs from Orpheus Brittanicus
Britten: “The Stream in the Valley”
61
61
8. 1947
Purcell/Britten: “I Attempt from Love’s Sickness to Fly”
Britten: Albert Herring
Berkeley: Stabat Mater
Britten: Canticle: My Beloved is Mine
Purcell/Britten: “When Myra Sings”
Searle: Put Away the Flutes
65
65
65
67
68
70
70
9. 1948
Purcell/Britten: Job’s Curse
Oldham: Summer’s Lease
Oldham: The Sunne Rising
Britten: Beggar’s Opera
Britten: Saint Nicolas
72
72
73
73
74
74
10. 1949
Holst/Britten: The Wandering Scholar
Oldham: Five Chinese Lyrics
Lier: The Song of Songs
Britten: Spring Symphony
Britten: Wedding Cantata (Amo Ergo Sum)
78
78
79
80
81
83
11. 1950
Orr: Three Romantic Songs
Copland: Old American Songs (First Set)
Purcell/Britten: “Dialogue of Corydon and Mopsa”
Williams: Three Traditional Welsh Ballads
85
85
86
88
89
12. 1951
Britten: “Ca’ the Yowes”
Monteverdi: Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
Tippett: The Heart’s Assurance
Purcell/Britten: “I Take No Pleasure”
Oldham: The Commandment of Love
Britten: Billy Budd
93
93
93
94
97
97
99
vii
13. 1952
Britten: Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac
Oldham: Love in a Village
Berkeley: Variations on a Hymn of Orlando Gibbons
101
101
103
105
14. 1953
Berkeley: Nelson
Berkeley: Four Ronsard Sonnets
Bush: The Voices of the Prophets
Seiber: To Poetry
Britten: Gloriana
Rainier: Cycle for Declamation
Britten: Winter Words
106
106
106
107
107
110
112
114
15. 1954
Britten: “The Brisk Young Widow”
Britten: The Turn of the Screw
Bernard: Shepherd’s Warning
Walton: Troilus and Cressida
117
117
117
121
122
CONCLUSION
124
APPENDIX A
125
APPENDIX B
164
APPENDIX C
166
APPENDIX D
168
BIBLIOGRAPHY
178
INDEX
190
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
193
viii
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
Example 1
Benjamin Britten, The Company of Heaven, mvt. VII, “A thousand,
thousand gleaming fires,” mm. 35-45.
14
Example 2
Henry Purcell, “Hark, the Ech’ing Air!” mm. 7-15.
18
Example 3
Benjamin Britten, The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, “Sonetto XVI,”
mm. 11-24.
25
Example 4
Benjamin Britten, The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, “Sonetto XXIV,”
mm. 8-15.
26
Example 5
Benjamin Britten, “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes,” mm. 65-68.
28
Example 6
Henry Purcell, “Not All My torments,” mm. 2-6.
30
Example 7
Michael Tippett, Boyhood’s End, mm. 108-116.
31
Example 8
Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Pastoral,” mm. 2-3.
34
Example 9
Benjamin Britten, “Little Sir William,” mm. 5-6.
34
Example 10
Benjamin Britten, The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, “Sonetto LV,” mm.
23-24.
34
Example 11
Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Nocturne,” m. 9 cadenza.
34
ix
Example 12
Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Dirge,” mm. 1-6.
35
Example 13
Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Hymn,” mm. 14-15.
35
Example 14
Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Hymn,” mm. 43-48.
35
Example 15
Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Hymn,” mm. 91-95.
36
Example 16
Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Hymn,” mm. 135-142.
36
Example 17
Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Sonnet,” mm. 34-37.
37
Example 18
Benjamin Britten, The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, “Sonetto XXXI,”
mm. 38-48.
37
Example 19
R. W. Wood, Three Songs, “Sonnet No. 64,” p. 2, third system.
40
Example 20
R. W. Wood, Three Songs, “Epitaph,” mm. 4-13.
40
Example 21
Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, Act I, Scene 2, fig. 76, mm. 1-6.
48
Example 22
Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, Act I, Scene 2, fig. 76, mm. 15-16.
49
Example 23
Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 55, mm. 3-5.
49
Example 24
Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 62, mm. 4-9.
49
Example 25
Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, Act III, Scene 2, fig. 51.
49
Example 26
Benjamin Britten, “Birthday Song for Erwin,” mm. 3-10.
51
x
Example 27
Henry Purcell, Lord, What is Man? mm. 36-38.
53
Example 28
Henry Purcell, Lord, What is Man? mm. 87-92.
53
Example 29
Henry Purcell, Lord, What is Man? mm. 105-109.
54
Example 30
Henry Purcell, Saul and the Witch at Endor, mm. 26-34.
54
Example 31
Henry Purcell, Saul and the Witch at Endor, mm. 140-144.
55
Example 32
Benjamin Britten, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, “At the Round
Earth’s Imagined Corners,” mm. 30-32.
56
Example 33
Benjamin Britten, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, “Oh, to Vex Me,”
mm. 63-71.
56
Example 34
Benjamin Britten, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, “What if This
Present,” mm. 8-10.
57
Example 35
Benjamin Britten, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, “At the Round
Earth’s Imagined Corners,” mm. 1-6.
57
Example 36
Benjamin Britten, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, “Thou Hast Made
Me,” mm. 64-73.
58
Example 37
Benjamin Britten, The Rape of Lucretia, “Intermezzo,” fig. 49, mm. 1-23.
63
Example 38
Benjamin Britten, Albert Herring, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 87, mm. 8-11.
66
Example 39
Lennox Berkeley, Stabat Mater, V, “Eia mater fons amoris,” mm. 11-14.
68
Example 40
Benjamin Britten, Canticle, mm. 4-6.
69
xi
Example 41
Benjamin Britten, Canticle, mm. 33-35.
69
Example 42
Benjamin Britten, Canticle, mm. 39-43.
70
Example 43
Benjamin Britten, Saint Nicolas, “The Birth of Nicolas,” mm. 70-76.
76
Example 44
Benjamin Britten, Saint Nicolas, “Nicolas Comes to Myra and is Chosen
Bishop,” mm. 11-14.
76
Example 45
Arthur Oldham, Five Chinese Lyrics, “A Gentle Wind,” mm. 3-8.
80
Example 46
Benjamin Britten, Spring Symphony, “The Merry Cuckoo,” mm. 10-16.
82
Example 47
Benjamin Britten, Spring Symphony, “Waters Above,” mm. 6-9.
82
Example 48
Benjamin Britten, Spring Symphony, “When Will My May Come,” mm.
68-71.
83
Example 49
Benjamin Britten, Wedding Anthem (Amo Sum Ergo)
84
Example 50
Aaron Copland, Old American Songs (first set), “The Boatmen’s Dance,”
mm. 2-3.
87
Example 51
Michael Tippett, The Heart’s Assurance, “Song,” mm. 53-63.
95
Example 52
Michael Tippett, The Heart’s Assurance, “The Heart’s Assurance,” mm.
51-53.
95
Example 53
Michael Tippett, The Heart’s Assurance, “The Dancer,” 56-63.
96
Example 54
Michael Tippett, The Heart’s Assurance, “Remember Your Lovers,” mm.
1-2.
96
xii
Example 55
Michael Tippett, The Heart’s Assurance, “Compassion,” mm. 33-34.
96
Example 56
Arthur Oldham, The Commandment of Love. “My Sang is in Sighing,”
mm. 62-69.
98
Example 57
Arthur Oldham, The Commandment of Love, “Lo, Leman Sweet, Now
May Thou See,” mm. 31-40.
98
Example 58
Benjamin Britten, Billy Budd, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 97, mm. 7-20.
100
Example 59
Benjamin Britten, Billy Budd, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 99, mm. 21-30.
100
Example 60
Benjamin Britten, Canticle II, mm. 1-3.
102
Example 61
Benjamin Britten, Canticle II, mm. 7-13.
103
Example 62
Alan Bush, Voices of the Prophets, II, mm. 124-30.
108
Example 63
Alan Bush, Voices of the Prophets, IV, mm.92-96.
108
Example 64
Mátyás Seiber, To Poetry, “Invocation,” mm. 21-26.
109
Example 65
Mátyás Seiber, To Poetry, “Tears,” mm. 42-44.
109
Example 66
Benjamin Britten, Gloriana, Act II, no. 6, “Second Lute Song,” mm. 1-4.
111
Example 67
Benjamin Britten, Gloriana, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 77, mm. 12-15.
111
Example 68
Priaulx Rainier, Cycle for Declamation, “In the Wombe of the Earth,”
mm. 10-16.
113
xiii
Example 69
Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “At Day-Close in November,” mm.
10-18.
115
Example 70
Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “Midnight on the Great Western,” mm.
23-28.
115
Example 71
Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “Before Life and After,” mm. 22-25.
115
Example 72
Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “Midnight on the Great Western,” mm.
9-15.
116
Example 73
Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “The Little Old Table,” mm. 37-41.
116
Example 74
Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “The Choirmaster’s Burial,” mm. 17-19.
116
Example 75
Benjamin Britten, Turn of the Screw, Act I, Scene 8, mm. 4-11.
119
Example 76
Benjamin Britten, Turn of the Screw, Act II, Scene 8, mm.13-19.
120
Example 77
Benjamin Britten, Gloriana, Act III, Scene 1, no. 3 “The Second Duet of
the Queen and Essex,” mm. 137-141.
120
Example 78
Benjamin Britten, Turn of the Screw, Act II, Scene 8, fig. 133.
120
Example 79
Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “Before Life and After,” mm. 31-32.
120
xiv
ABSTRACT
Sir Peter Pears (1910-1986) was the foremost interpreter of Benjamin Britten’s vocal
music. Britten composed a majority of his vocal works with Pears’s voice in mind: seven song
cycles, twelve original opera roles, five canticles, and eight works for voice and orchestra.
Britten also prepared most of his folksong arrangements and realizations of Baroque vocal works
for Pears. The tenor’s reputation stretches far beyond Britten’s music. A popular recital artist,
Pears gave countless performances across four continents. In recital and opera, he performed a
great variety of music, from early Baroque to Contemporary. He was a founder of a major music
festival, frequently wrote essays on music, and later in his life, devoted his time to teaching.
This treatise concentrates on other important aspects of Pears’s career, namely his
commissioning of and performance of new works. Over the course of his career, he premiered
more than two hundred pieces of music. Britten composed, realized, or arranged about 120
works for Pears, while over 40 other composers provided the rest. The treatise focuses on the
music that Pears premiered during the first half of his career, performances that took place
between 1932 and 1954, discussing music by Benjamin Britten, Alexander Brent Smith, Michael
Tippett, Antony Hopkins, William Wordsworth, R. W. Wood, Gerard Schurmann, Lennox
Berkeley, Humphrey Searle, Arthur Oldham, Bertus van Lier, Robin Orr, Aaron Copland, Grace
Williams, Alan Bush, Mátyás Seiber, Priaulx Rainier, James Bernard, William Walton,
realizations of music by Henry Purcell and Maurice Greene, and arrangements and works by
Franz Schubert and Gustav Holst. Discussion will cover a wide variety of genres and styles, and
will analyze the music from the singer’s perspective. The treatise includes a complete
chronological list of Pears’s premiere performances. Through these, the author wishes to
illuminate the influence of Peter Pears upon the musical world in the second half of the twentieth
century.
xv
INTRODUCTION
The New Renaissance
During the years between the two World Wars, the dominant musical force in England
came from composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), Gustav Holst (1874-1934),
Arnold Bax (1883-1953), and others “who had laid the foundations for the country’s prewar
‘musical Renaissance’.”1 In the early 1940s, a new generation of artists rose to the cultural
forefront. They were at once attempting to distinguish themselves from the older generation of
artists as well as from the movements of other nations. Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) wrote to
Imogen Holst (1907-1984) in October 1943 about this new air of artistic creativity.
It is… encouraging that you too sense that ‘something’ in the air that heralds a
renaissance. I feel terrifically conscious of it, so do Peter [Pears], & Clifford [Curzon], &
Michael Tippett & so many that I love & admire – it is good to add you to the list!
Whether we are the voices crying in the wilderness or the thing itself, it isn’t for us to
know, but anyhow it is so very exciting. It is of course in all of the arts, but in music,
particularly, it’s this acceptance of ‘freedom’ without any arbitrary restrictions, this
simplicity, this contact with the audiences of our own time, & of people like ourselves,
this seriousness, & above all this professionalism. One mustn’t and can’t deny the many
heavenly genius[es] of the last century, but it is also a greater sympathy with the earlier
centuries that marks this thing perhaps the most clearly.2
Britten and his generation were indeed the “thing itself.” They created a new sound that was
distinctive to their nation and their generation.
In order for the music of this new renaissance to be heard, however, there must be
performers as dedicated to the music as the composers, who would commission, present, and
promote new works. Tenor Peter Pears (1910-1986) was one such performer. From the
beginning of his career, he commissioned new works from young composers, gave premiere
1
Robert P. Morgan, Twentieth Century Music: A History of Musical Style in Modern Europe and America (New
York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 270.
2
Donald Mitchell and Phillip Banks, eds. Letters from a Life: Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten,
1913-1976, Volume 2, 1939-1945 (London: Faber and Faber, 1998), 1162.
1
performances with astounding frequency, and often kept new works in his performance
repertoire. Pears was as much a part of this new wave of artists as any composer. In August
1944 from his home in England, he wrote to friends in America, “We have the feeling here that
in these dark times, the seed is slowly growing. English music is really appearing again as music
and itself, free of odd nostalgias and preoccupations with non-musical ideas!”3 Pears’s interest in
music went far beyond the scope of his career. He commissioned works by composers who wrote
in styles that ranged from neo-classical to twelve-tone, a technique for which he had little
interest.4 His devotion to new music grew to eventually include premieres of works by
composers who lived outside of England. It is this vast range of music that is so astonishing. Dr.
Donald Mitchell CBE, Life President of the Britten Estate Limited, says that one must consider
the extraordinary catholicity of the premieres that he gave, because at first sight it would
be quite hard to find any common ground among the talents. They were as diverse as you
could possibly imagine…. On the whole, [Pears] was bold and adventurous with what he
commissioned himself and what he was willing to take on. Even looking down that list of
first performances, it is extraordinary how it is not exclusive and some of it is really
different from what he spent most of his life singing…. The scope of the commissioning
process was very wide indeed. But it’s the composers of genius, like Tippett or Britten or
[Witold] Lutoslawski, who ultimately tell one the most about Pears as an artist.5
The voice of Peter Pears was one of the most distinguished of his generation, not only because of
the unique qualities of his voice, but because of the quantity and variety of music that composers
wrote specifically for his voice.
In anticipation of Pears’s seventy-fifth birthday, the archivists at the Britten-Pears Library
in Aldeburgh, England celebrated the singer’s work in promoting new music by preparing a list
of the premiere performances in which he took part during his career. They identified 108
premieres. Faber Music published the list in A Tribute to Peter Pears on his 75th Birthday with
this introductory statement,
We have attempted to list here all those works of which Peter Pears gave the first
performance, or in whose premières he took part. In a project of this kind – which is
designed to be a surprise to its dedicatee – one has an insoluble problem from the start:
3
Mitchell, Letters from a Life, vol. 2, 1215-6.
This is true for both Pears and Benjamin Britten. Humphrey Carpenter in Benjamin Britten: A Biography, on p.
336 (see footnote 53 for full citation) quotes Britten as saying in 1964, “[Serialism] has simply never attracted me as
a method… I cannot feel that tonality is outworn, and find many serial ‘rules’ arbitrary.” Meanwhile, Christopher
Headington in Peter Pears: A Biography on p. 315 (see footnote 11 for full citation) quotes Pears as saying, “Unless
serial composers for the voice are prepared to use less violent methods both towards the text and towards the voice,
singing of new art songs may be expected to die.”
5
Dr. Donald Mitchell, interview by author, 15 March 2003, London, tape recording.
4
2
how can everything be discovered when questions cannot be asked of the one person who
would be able to help? All the same, we hope that any composer who has been
inadequately represented or inadvertently left out altogether will understand the dilemma
and forgive the omission, applauding with the rest of us Peter’s constantly encouraging
enthusiasm for presenting and promoting the works of all those composers who have
been fortunate enough to write for him.
Works premièred by the BBC Singers while Peter Pears was singing with them
have not been included, nor have any stage premières of that pre-war period in which he
may have sung. And although many of Benjamin Britten’s realizations of songs by
Purcell and his contemporaries were written for PP to sing, these and the Britten
Folksong Arrangements (likewise mostly made for their joint recital programmes) have
been omitted.6
The published list is admittedly incomplete and needs to be presented in a finished form
with a fuller explanation. The present treatise has three goals: to provide a complete and correct
list of all of Pears’s premiere performances, to explain Pears’s role in the creation of the music,
and to identify some unifying musical characteristics that one can observe throughout this
catalogue of music.
To satisfy the first goal, a complete list of premieres, presented in chronological order,
including dates, composers’ names, titles, performers’ names, and locations, appears at the end
of the document as an appendix. This list does not include music premiered while Pears sang
with the BBC Singers, or the “stage premieres of that pre-war period,” but does include Pears’s
premieres of Britten’s realizations of Baroque vocal works and folksong settings. It also includes
the dates of broadcast premieres and important premieres to various countries.
The scope of discussion of the second and third goals is limited, approximately, to the
first half of Pears’s premieres as it would be disadvantageous to attempt to give detail to all of
the music that he premiered within the narrow confines of a treatise. The text will only go as far
as the first 106 premieres, beginning with his first in 1932 and extending to near the end of 1954,
roughly mid-way through his career. In pursuit of the second goal, the author will answer several
questions. Did Pears commission the said piece? Was the music written with Pears’s voice
especially in the mind of the composer? What was the tenor’s relationship with the composer? In
answering these questions, one is able to realize how Pears and his extraordinary talents came to
inspire as much music as they did.
6
th
Marion Thorpe, ed., Peter Pears: A Tribute on His 75 Birthday (London: Faber Music in Association with the
Britten Estate, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, 1985), 121.
3
There are several musical features that are present in a majority of the works composed
for Pears. To observe one or two of these characteristics in a single piece of music would not
necessarily tell one anything about the singer for whom the music was written; to observe like
characteristics in several works by a single composer still might only speak to the composer’s
personal style; but seeing several characteristics in many examples by various composers,
composed over a long period of time, can give insight into not only the physical abilities and
limitations of a singer, but their preferences and interests as well. This treatise is an analysis of
music not from a theoretical or historical perspective but rather from the performer’s perspective.
The author will consider five recurring musical elements: a high tessitura, descending
phrases, monotone lines, coloratura writing, and monophonic voice setting. The tessitura of
Pears’s music is specifically set in most of the music between E flat and G above middle C in the
tenor voice. Composers have tended to emphasize E4 in many compositions.7 Often, this
prominent pitch is to be sung repeatedly or even intoned. Ralph Woodward referred to E4 as
“Pears’s ‘best’ note.”8 It was a note that he sang with great control at a low dynamic, producing
his characteristic mezza voce. Pears produced this tone throughout his entire range, but, judging
by the frequency at which E4 appears in the music, the timbre of the note must have had a
particularly strong effect upon composers.
Those phrases with descending lines begin between E-flat 4 and higher, and they
typically appear at a low dynamic. Monotone phrases are usually written on a note in the higher
part of Pears’s voice. The tendency for composers to leave Pears’s vocal lines exposed or to
write extended passages without any accompaniment is most assuredly due to the characteristic
timbre of Pears’s voice as well as his ability to sensitively interpret texts. Donald Mitchell said,
“The one feature that wonderfully distinguishes Peter’s singing from most other singers is the
ability to use the words to color the pitches…. No matter which language he was singing in, the
words color the pitches.”9 Mitchell, who witnessed many coaching sessions with Pears and
young singers, recalled the advice that both Pears and Britten gave.
‘Don’t worry about producing beautiful tone or beautiful sounds, use the words … to
color the pitches.’ This was their famous dictum and I think that is an absolutely essential
7
Henceforth, when a pitch is specifically named, the author will identify it by its sounding pitch, not its written
pitch. For example, the note named here will be identified as E4.
8
Ralph Woodward, “Music for Voices,” in The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten, ed. Mervyn Cooke
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1999), 263.
9
Mitchell, interview by author.
4
part of Pears’s thoughts about singing and training other singers – not to engulf or sink
the words in a swamp of beautiful sound, but in fact, to articulate the words with
maximum clarity and in doing that … the words would color the pitches. So don’t worry
about color all of the time – the words will do that for you.10
Peter Pears: The Voice
Before discussing the music that Pears inspired and how it reflects his abilities, the reader
should consider the voice itself. Discussions of Pears’s voice tend to stay in the area of his
interpretive skills. Very rarely has a reviewer or critic attempted to diagnose the voice of this
artist. As well, credit for building this musician usually falls upon Benjamin Britten. Christopher
Headington’s 1992 biography on Peter Pears concludes with the question, “Would Peter Pears
have become a great singer without Benjamin Britten? And the answer is probably ‘no’.”11
Pears’s career was indeed focused on the music of Britten, but Pears had his own success as a
singer even before Peter Grimes in 1945. It is impossible, and perhaps useless, to try to predict
what may have become of Peter Pears had he not been Britten’s singer of choice, yet many
assume that without Britten, Pears would have amounted to very little. Headington’s comment
gives little credit to Pears’s personal study and development as a singer. The tenor, in fact,
studied with several teachers throughout the 1930s and 40s and continued in the mid 1960s.
Pears, admittedly, placed little emphasis on the technique of singing. Even in 1972, when
he opened the School for Advanced Study in Music (now the Britten-Pears School) in
Aldeburgh, England, he said, “I’m not concerned with technique, but with style, working from
certain points of view that free the imagination.”12 It is a paradox of sorts that a singer who
outwardly under-stressed the importance of teaching vocal technique was also a singer who
studied privately during most of his career and who strove for technical virtuosity.
Pears’s first teacher of record was Dawson Freer at the Royal College of Music in
London. Pears recalled, on one hand, that Freer was “a good teacher and a good, decent singer”13
but also remembered the
haphazard way in which he had begun his own training, working at almost his first
lesson… on full-blooded Wagner, Seigmund’s ‘Wintersturme wichen dem Wonnemund’
10
11
12
13
Mitchell, interview by author.
Christopher Headington. Peter Pears: A Biography (London: Faber and Faber, 1992), 330.
Alan Blyth, “Here and There,” Gramophone 55 (June 1977): 29.
Headington, Peter Pears, 40.
5
from Act I of Die Walküre, and then, a few months later and still inexperienced after only
a few singing lessons, playing the Duke in Rigoletto at the Royal College of Music.14
After leaving the College and working professionally as a singer in and around London,
Pears began studies with German mezzo-soprano Elena Gerhardt (1883-1961), working with her
from 1936 until 1938. Gerhardt, who was “perhaps the finest of all Lieder singers,”15 had been in
London for just over two years when Pears began studying with her. Gerhardt had a considerable
reputation as a singer through her recital performances and gramophone recordings.16 Pears later
recalled, “She was very dear, but I must honestly say that she didn’t teach me very much about
technique.”17 Interestingly though, the entry for Gerhardt in New Grove’s Dictionary of Music
and Musicians, refers to her “penetrating interpretations [of art songs], her mastery of light and
shade, her humour, rhythmic energy and wide variety of tone colour. She gave herself
completely to her art, making every song that she sang into a part of her own warm and rich
personality.”18 This same statement could be written about Peter Pears’s career, and one wonders
if he was able to learn something far more valuable than technique from her.
Pears’s time in North America, 1939-1942, allowed him the luxury of concentrating on
the training of his voice without having to work. He studied briefly with a teacher named
Campbell McInnes while in Ontario in June 1939. Pears later wrote that he “had a couple of
lessons from him. Interesting and he is a very charming old man…. I’m not sure that the lessons
were enough to be of much use – but I think he helped to loosen me up a bit.”19 As well as
private studies, Pears studied pedagogical texts by Shakespeare and Aikens.20
Pears began studying with German contralto Teresa Behr (1876-1959), wife of pianist
Artur Schnabel, in February 1940, traveling between Long Island and New York City for weekly
lessons. In March, Britten wrote in a letter, “Peter is terribly pleased with her, finds her charming
and extremely good (if severe) teacher. The improvement in his voice after only a month is quite
staggering. It is much clearer, more resonant, and much more controlled.”21
14
Headington, 317.
W. S. Meadmore, “Peter Pears,” Gramophone 32 (March 1955): 432-3.
16
Desmonde Shawe-Taylor, “Gerhardt, Elena,” in The New Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 7, ed.
Stanley Sadie (London: MacMillan, 1980), 255.
17
Alan Blyth, “Peter Pears talks to Alan Blyth,” Gramophone 46 (September 1968): 331.
18
Shawe-Taylor, “Gerhardt, Elena,” 255.
19
Mitchell, Letters from a Life, vol. 2, 731.
20
Mitchell, vol. 2, 731. Pears read William Shakespeare’s The Art of Singing: 3 volumes (1898) and W. A. Aiken’s
The Voice: An Introduction to Practical Phonology.
21
Mitchell, vol. 2, 780.
15
6
It is through this teacher that Pears comes into a very impressive pedagogical lineage.
Behr was a student of Julius Stockhausen (1826-1906), for whom Johannes Brahms wrote some
of his major vocal works, including Die schöne Magdelone and the baritone solos in Ein
deutsches Requiem, and who was a student of Manuel Garcia II (1805-1906). Behr also studied
with Etelka Gerster (1855-1920) in Berlin, and Gerster studied with Mathilde Marchesi (18211913) who was also a student of Garcia II.22 Tracing Pears’s lineage back to Manuel Garcia II,
one of the first great vocal pedagogues, is important because it validates the technical side of
Pears’s singing. Even though he stayed with Behr for less than a year, he certainly gained from
the background of his teacher.
Something about Behr’s method did not work for Pears, however. He said,“ I remember
doing a Bach concert with [Otto] Klemperer in New York and singing the taxing part in O
Ewigkeit, du Sonnerwort [Bach, Cantata # 60] her way, and knew it was wrong. So I went to
another teacher, Clytie Hine Mundy… I found her very helpful and sound in her advice.”23 The
performance of the Bach Cantata occurred on November 27, 1940,24 and before the end of the
year, Pears went to Mundy. She was born in Australia and studied music at the Royal College of
Music in London and later became a leading member of Thomas Beecham’s Opera Company.25
Pears said about Mundy in 1985 that she “was a fine teacher of singing in New York and had a
lot of excellent pupils… she worked with me quite a lot on the voice, and I learned a lot from her
and loved working with her.”26 In a 1974 interview Mundy remembered her first encounter with
Pears,
I asked to hear Peter sing. He started in on ‘Il mio tesoro,’ and I was not too impressed
with his technique. My husband…said, ‘Young man, you will never be a Caruso, but with
your potential you will be a great artist and have a wonderful career. But you have to be
better trained.’…. At the end I said, ‘Well, if you want to, I would be happy to work with
you and see what we could do.’…. You see I had no – what is commonly called –
method. Just a few exercises that never changed. And then I would try to approach the
problems of each individual singer: with Peter it was almost entirely a matter of voice
production, because basically, he had a wonderfully lyric quality.27
22
John Morgan, “Behr, Teresa,” in The New Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 2, ed. S. Sadie
(London: MacMillan, 1980), 416.
23
Blyth, “Peter Pears,” 331.
24
“Final Bach Program Led by Klemperer,” New York Times, 28 November 1940, p. 29.
25
Mitchell, vol. 2, 907.
26
Headington, 98.
27
Robert Daniels, “American Friends,” Opera News (December 14, 1974): 28.
7
Pears studied with Mundy almost daily throughout the remainder of his time in America,
and Britten would usually come to the lessons to accompany. In addition to lessons in vocal
technique, Pears also had the benefit of his teacher’s friends in the music world, including
Giorgio Polacco, the then-Metropolitan Opera conductor, who would come to the Mundy house
to give coaching sessions to her students.28
Mundy was Pears’s last teacher in America, although she was not his last teacher. The
teachers discussed above are those who brought Pears to vocal maturity. His voice, in its
maturity, has presented music critics with something of an enigma. On one hand, it had great
flexibility, control, impeccable diction, and a strong sense of style and expression. On the other
hand, his voice not very large and was not necessarily beautiful. Reviews often addressed both
sides of the voice and described how one side could compensate for the other. Hans Keller, in
one of the first published biographical articles on Pears, described the tenor’s voice as:
A voice of character which carries farther and deeper than any voice thrice as strong….
Half a year ago I wrote that the psychic force of Pears’ voice could make the physically
impossible possible – could make his the best Tristan of our time…. I submit that if he
had been handicapped by a voice of greater physical “stature,” he would have found it
more difficult to achieve the pronounced character of his timbres, the powerful tensions
of his phrases (on whatever dynamic level) [italics Keller’s].29
In a recital review from 1949, another author noted that Pears was “so consummate a
musician that the fact that his voice is not intrinsically very impressive is soon forgotten by the
listener…. Mr. Pears’ voice is light in texture and lacking in natural color, but he projects it so
skillfully that he can produce any emotional or dramatic effect he desires.”30 A review of a
recording of songs criticized certain aspects of the voice but admitted, “The recitals given by
Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten are always so well chosen, and so artistically performed, that
the limitations of the singer are often overlooked.”31 Other reviews have praised his “finely
drawn line, and expressive singing,”32 “his characteristic timbre and his very individual way of
placing a phrase within his voice,”33 and his “supreme artistic intelligence,” calling it “a voice of
unmistakable individuality… one which he has made responsive to all demands on it. His legato,
his florid passages, his soft high notes… his instinct for words and the phrase, all these give
28
29
30
31
32
33
Daniels, 28.
Hans Keller, “Peter Pears,” Opera 2 (1950-51); 287.
R[obert] S[abin], “Peter Pears, tenor,” Musical America 69 (November 1949): 18.
J[?] F[?], “Songs,” Gramophone 29 (April 1952): 256.
J[?] F[?], “Songs,” Gramophone 30 (April 1953): 294.
Andrew Porter, “Choral and Song,” Gramophone 34 (August 1956): 91.
8
unique pleasure to the hearer.” This review goes on to say that while “there may be tenors with
more beautiful voices in the world today: I know of none who has Peter Pears’s rare combination
of qualities.”34
To be sure, Pears’s voice did not have the same qualities as other great tenors of his day,
and because of this he has been criticized. Regardless of one’s opinion of Peter Pears’s singing,
one must admit that the unique traits of his voice and his individuality in how he used his gifts
have inspired scores of composers and have produced for the world well over two hundred
compositions.
34
Alec Richardson, “Choral and Song,” Gramophone 32 (November 1954): 261.
9
CHAPTER 1
YOUTH
Peter Neville Luard Pears, born on June 22, 1910, in Farnham, England, was the
youngest of seven children to Arthur Pears and Jessie Luard. From 1916 to 1923, he attended
The Grange, a preparatory school, where he was a successful student, excelling in mathematics,
English, French, and classics. After graduating, he went to Lancing Public School, where he
stayed until 1928. During those years, Pears explored music and poetry, the interests that would
shape his future. He was involved in clubs that read and discussed poems and plays, he studied
composition, and he organized a school orchestra for which he taught himself to play the
bassoon. Pears also sang in the choir and participated in school operetta productions.
The year before graduation Pears studied organ and after graduation auditioned for an
organ scholarship at Christ Church in Oxford. He failed to win the scholarship and entered Keble
College in Oxford in September 1928 as an undergraduate. At Keble, he failed to pass his
compulsory exams and left after two terms. He stayed in Oxford and worked at Hertford College
as an assistant organist. After a year, Pears returned to The Grange, as an instructor at the rank of
Junior Usher, a title which “meant teaching music and just about everything else for £100 per
year.”35
Brent Smith: “My Eyes for Beauty Pine”
Pears’s first premiere performance happened when he was only twenty-two years old,
before he had any career as a singer. Sometime in 1932 Pears performed in a recital in which he
gave the premiere performance of a setting of Robert Bridges’s “My Eyes for Beauty Pine” by
35
Blyth, “Peter Pears,” 331-2.
10
Alexander Brent Smith (1889-1950).36 Brent Smith was an English music educator, author and
composer. His compositions include operas, choral works, symphonies, and chamber pieces. An
important figure in Pears’s education, Brent Smith was the Director of Music at Lancing College
from 1913 to 1934, and was Pears’s organ instructor and the director of the Lancing College
Orchestra.37 Brent Smith was “a teacher whom [Pears] remembered with gratitude and affection,”
and Pears recalled his mentor as “quite a considerable minor composer, good with the choir and
also a wonderful organist.”38 The song that Pears sang is unpublished and the Britten-Pears
Library does not hold a copy, although there are three other scores in the collection by the
composer, all bearing Pears’s signature.
This performance shows that Pears did perform as a soloist in his early twenties, but it is
not known how much singing he did at that time. It was enough for one of his close friends to
take notice and encourage him. This friend, Nell Burra, suggested to him in 1932 that he audition
for a singing teacher in London. The response to his audition was that he had “a marvelous
mezza voce, but nothing much else to develop.”39 Pears next went to Clive Carey, a voice teacher
and opera producer who recommended that Pears go to Dawson Freer at the Royal College of
Music. Pears auditioned there in 1933 and, as at Hertford College, Pears failed to pass his
audition. The Royal College awarded Pears the alternative award of operatic exhibition, which
he accepted. He found that “his chief obligation was to sing tenor in the operatic class. This was
certainly not what he had wished for or wanted, for he had imagined that most of his time would
have been occupied with singing lessons and the training of his voice.”40 When Pears took the
scholarship, he left The Grange, and moved to London to live with his parents, who had recently
relocated there. He received eight pounds sterling per term as well as weekly singing lessons
with Freer.
During the summer of 1933, Pears inquired into an audition for a new BBC ensemble
called the Wireless Chorus. He auditioned nearly a year later and on June 28, 1934 joined the
ensemble. At the end of the summer of 1934, Pears left the Royal College of Music to sing with
36
This information, as well as many other premiere dates, was discovered and compiled in an unpublished list by
Anne Surfling, an Archivist Consultant at the Britten-Pears Library. This author is greatly appreciative to Ms.
Surfling, her tireless efforts and for allowing her findings to be published here. Subsequent references to Surfling’s
findings are noted as “Surfling, ‘Premiere List’.”
37
Eric Blom, “Brent Smith, Alexander,” in The Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., vol. 1, ed. Eric
Blom, (London: Macmillan, 1968), 927.
38
Headington, 21-2.
39
Headington, 39.
40
Meadmore, 432-3.
11
the ensemble full time. Headington wrote that in doing so, Pears “abandoned the operatic
direction in which his studies there were leading him.”41 Judging however from Pears’s own
disappointment at his time at the College, it appears that he was not focused on being primarily
an opera singer and that leaving school was the ideal move for him at this time in his life.
When he left school, he moved out of his parents’ home and into a flat in London with
two friends from the BBC, Trevor Harvey, the assistant chorus master, and Basil Douglas, a
tenor in the chorus. During the time Pears lived there, he was frustrated as a singer because he
felt he lacked technical polish, and his roommates found that he was often depressed.42
Nevertheless, Pears had a busy schedule with the BBC choir and as a soloist as time permitted.
In 1936 he made his first recording as the tenor soloist in Peter Warlock’s Corpus Christi Carol.
Listening to it today, we at once notice a thoughtful word delivery and a sensitive
moulding of quietly flowing phrases, but also a certain whiteness of tone. To call the
sound bloodless or emasculated is too strong, but it is ‘churchy’, with a kind of English
cathedral sound, and though that is appropriate in this piece one guesses that at this stage
of Pears’s career he lacked the flexibility to do justice to the wider repertory, and that his
acquisition of a ringing, virile sound as well as some other vocal colours was still some
way off.43
Contralto Anne Wood, also on the recording, recalled that Pears’s voice was “young, intensely
sensitive to words…. But technically, it wasn’t a big voice… and he didn’t have enough range;
he was short a couple of notes on top of the voice.”44
Pears left the Wireless Chorus and joined the New English Singers, a professional sextet,
early in 1936. Cuthbert Kelly, a founding member, invited Pears to join, and he remained in the
group for two years. The NES was an ensemble that specialized in a cappella Renaissance music
and often performed in the traditional Elizabethan, or round-table manner, in which the
performers sat around a table while singing.
Pears devoted time to other musical interests as well. He sang a small role in the English
language premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk under the direction of
Albert Coates on March 18, 1936 at Queen’s Hall, London.45 He also continued to explore
41
Headington, 42.
Headington, 44.
43
Headington, 54.
44
Headington, 54.
45
nd
Derek C. Hulme, Dmitri Shostakovich: A Catalogue, Bibliography, and Discography, 2 ed. (Oxford: Clarendon,
1991), 68.
42
12
composition. On March 27, 1936, Anne Wood sang Pears’s composition, “When Within My
Arms I Hold You”46
Britten: The Company of Heaven
Without question, the single most influential person in Pears’s career was Benjamin
Britten. The exact date and the circumstances under which Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten first
met are unknown, but the first documented meeting between them was on March 6, 1937, when
Britten attended a BBC Singers rehearsal and afterward, according to his diary, had lunch with
“T[revor] H[arvey], Peter Piers [sp.], & [Basil] Douglas – at their flat.”47 Their relationship grew
after their mutual friend, Peter Burra, died in a plane crash on April 27, 1937. Pears and Britten
traveled to Burra’s home after the funeral to sort through his belongings, and after the trip, they
spent an increasing amount of time together both socially and musically.
The first musical product of this friendship was Britten’s cantata, The Company of
Heaven. In the 1930s, the BBC produced a series of programs which combined music and
spoken verse, for which the BBC generally used parts of familiar religious music and oratorios.
In 1937 Trevor Harvey, the assistant chorus master of the BBC and roommate of Pears,
suggested that Britten compose an original piece for a program.48 The BBC commissioned
Britten to compose two such programs:49 The Company of Heaven, broadcast on St. Michaelmas
Day, September 29, 1937 and The World of the Spirit, broadcast June 5, 1938.50
By September 10, 1937, Britten had composed much of the first cantata, including the
seventh movement, “A thousand, thousand gleaming fires,” an aria for tenor and string orchestra,
“almost certainly the very first vocal music that Britten composed with Pears’s voice
specifically in mind.”51 After rehearsing the aria on September 10, Britten wrote, “The tenor –
Peter Pears – is first-rate. I’ve shown him his big number, & he’s already reconciled to it.”52 The
46
Headington, 43.
Mitchell, vol. 1, 519n.
48
Phillip Reed, “A Cantata for Broadcasting,” Musical Times 130 (June 1989): 328.
49
Michael James Weber, “Benjamin Britten’s The Company of Heaven” (DMA diss., University of Arizona, 1990),
32.
50
Paul Banks, comp. and ed., Benjamin Britten: A Catalogue of the Published Works (Aldeburgh, Suffolk: The
Britten-Pears Library for The Britten Estate Limited, 1999), 38.
51
Reed, 328.
52
Mitchell, vol. 1, 509.
47
13
tenor aria holds one element in its vocal line that appears in later works for Pears: an extended
monotone vocal line on B3 near the end of the aria (ex. 1).
Example 1: Benjamin Britten, The Company of Heaven, mvt. VII, “A thousand, thousand gleaming fires,”
mm. 35-45.
This is the first time that Britten wrote such a line for Pears, but not the first time that Britten
wrote a monotone vocal line. It is unclear as to whether he wrote it because of Pears’s voice and
his ability to color words, or if it was a devise that Britten might have used for any tenor.
Regardless, it is a feature that will return again and again in the music composed for Pears.
Britten: On This Island
The second work by Britten that Pears may have premiered, although by no means is this
proven, is the song cycle On This Island. On two occasions Pears recalled that the first time he
performed in a recital with Britten was in 1937. Carpenter’s biography on Britten quotes Pears as
saying, “‘I think the year ’37 was our first concert together’, he said, adding that this was in aid
of a fund for Spanish War Relief and took place at Cambridge, perhaps in the Cambridge Arts
Theater.”53 In a 1968 interview, Pears recalled with more clarity that their “first joint concert was
in the autumn of 1937 – at Cambridge in aid of the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War….
53
Humphrey Carpenter, Benjamin Britten: A Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1992), 75.
14
We gave a Schubert group, Ben’s On This Island and some songs by Duran, who was a general
in the Republican Army.”54 There is, however, no printed proof of such a recital.
Britten completed On This Island on October 12, 1937, and Pears left England with the
New English Singers on October 27, 1937 not to return until January. Britten, however, wrote to
Pears on October 24, from Suffolk, to say goodbye to his friend. Pears sang some of the songs on
October 14 with Britten at his flat, and the next day, they gave a private performance for Lennox
Berkeley and Christopher Isherwood. Britten wrote in his diary, “[They] are considerably
pleased – as I admit I am. Peter sings them well.”55 If Pears and Britten gave a recital in the
autumn of 1937 that included On This Island, it would have had to be between October 16 and
October 23. This would proceed by a month the accepted premiere date of the cycle, November
19, 1937 sung by soprano Sophie Wyss (1897-1983). It is possible, and an intriguing thought,
that Pears sang a public performance of the songs before Wyss. In any case, Britten wrote On
This Island specifically for Wyss, not for Pears.
Pam Wheeler, an Archive Consultant at the Britten-Pears Library, is skeptical of such a
performance. She states that in the Autumn of 1937, Pears and Britten were
both much occupied with their separate lives throughout this period. B[ritten] is moving
out of [his house on] Finchley Road and is often in Suffolk with his sister and her
fiancé’s family; P[ears] is regularly rehearsing and performing with BBC Singers and
Cuthbert Kelly’s New English Singers. I really do still think it most unlikely that their
first recital was given at this point. I know Pears thought that perhaps this was roughly
the date at one stage, but he was the first to say that his memory was unreliable, and the
date has been passed around without any documentation ever having come to light. One
such instance is in Grove itself.56
54
Blyth, “Peter Pears,” 331.
Headington, 74.
56
Pam Wheeler to the author, email, 19 September 2003. She compared Pears’s and Britten’s pocket diaries for
October 1937. “They are a source not reproducible without written permission from the trustees, but I can pass on
the facts I have ascertained.”
55
15
CHAPTER 2
AMERICA
Britten and Pears decided to travel to America in early 1939. Britten’s reasons for leaving
England were both professional and personal. Through Aaron Copland, Britten had an offer from
Hollywood to compose film music. He was also deeply concerned with the political atmosphere
and the war that would be declared in September. Pears explained, “We were both pacifists, we
didn’t see much what we were going to do – short of going to prison or something for a long
time. And that didn’t appeal to him – he wanted to write lots of music.”57 Pears’s reasons for
leaving his home were less clear. He had been to America on two previous occasions, but did not
have any professional contacts. Initially, he planned to stay in America with Britten until August
1939 and “stood little chance of achieving much during a short and scarcely planned visit.”58
Pears worked as Britten’s musical assistant, copying parts and scores and making vocal scores.
He remembered many years later “I was going [to America] as [Ben’s] esquire… in a way… I
thought it was part of my duty, and certainly part of my pleasure as well.”59
Britten: A. M. D. G.
Pears and Britten arrived in Canada on May 9, 1939 and spent the first two months of
their trip there.60 They stayed first in Quebec and later went on to Toronto and Ontario. In June
1939, Pears gave a recital of Britten’s songs over a Toronto radio station.61 From the end of June
until the middle of August 1939, Pears and Britten rented a cabin in the Catskill Mountains, NY,
near the home of Aaron Copland, whom Britten met a year earlier. Britten worked on several
57
58
59
60
61
Tony Palmer, dir., A Time There Was, 102 min. (Kultur Film Inc., 1980), documentary film.
Carpenter, Benjamin Britten, 126.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 690n.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 631.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 668.
16
compositions while living in the Catskills, including A. M. D. G., a cycle of seven sacred partsongs with texts by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It was “intended for Peter Pears and his Round
Table Singers and was therefore designed for performance by a quartet of soloists.”62 The Round
Table Singers was an ensemble formed by Pears “probably before his departure for America.
The name clearly indicates an intention to perform in the Elizabethan manner.”63 Pears and
Britten planned the premiere of the cycle to take place on November 24, 1939 in London. Pears,
however, did not leave America when he had planned, and they cancelled the performance. Four
of the songs were performed “by Pears in America along the lines of the Round Table Singers.”64
By the end of the summer 1939, Pears and Britten were ready to move to a new home in
America. Around this time Pears wrote a letter to Elizabeth Mayer an old acquaintance in Long
Island, New York, “I and my friend Benjamin Britten, composer, have just arrived in New York,
and I am so looking forward to seeing you again.”65 Pears met Mayer two and a half years earlier
when the New English Singers left England for a concert tour of America. By chance, Mayer, an
acquaintance of Pears’s then roommate, Basil Douglas, and Pears were on the same ship for the
journey across the ocean. Pears rekindled that brief friendship after arriving in America and he
and Britten moved into the Mayer home in August. They stayed until 1942. Britten wrote a few
months later about the Mayers:
Peter and I have found some wonderful friends – who are (luckily) devoted to us - & on
no account will let us depart…. She – is one of those grand people who have been
essential through the ages for the production of art; really sympathetic & enthusiastic,
with instinctive good taste (in all the arts) & a great friend of thousands of those poor fish
– artists. She is never happy unless she has them all round her – living here or round
about at the moment are lots of them – many refugees. Wystan [Auden] comes here from
New York nearly every weekend – an excellent German painter lives here, too, - [Josef]
Scharl [(1896-1954)] – friends include the Manns [Thomas Mann, German novelist
(1875-1955)], Borgesi [Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, Italian essayist (1882-1952)],
[Albert] Einstein. That’s the kind of person she is!66
This spirit of giving to and supporting artists made an impression upon Pears and stayed
with him for the rest of his life. He encouraged young singers and instrumentalists, avidly
collected paintings by young artists, and supported composers by commissioning new works and
62
63
64
65
66
Banks, Britten: A Catalogue, 48.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 694n.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 694n.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 679.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 725.
17
performing them. Rosamund Strode, Britten’s music assistant, relates that Pears gained this sense
of giving from Elizabeth Mayer.
[Pears] was keen on new works by new composers and giving them a chance, in other
words, not just first performances. There are people who are only interested in doing first
performances of things, but he wasn’t one of them…. And that is something he learned
from Elizabeth Mayer, in the States…. The value of giving people a leg-up…. I know at
some point he said, ‘I learned that from Elizabeth Mayer’ – the value.67
Purcell/Britten: “Hark, the Ech’ing Air”
Purcell/Britten: “The Knotting Song”
One of Pears’s and Britten’s many recitals in America took place on November 19, 1939
at the Hotel Henry Perkins in Rivershead, NY. Pears sang the premiere performance of Britten’s
first two realizations of Purcell songs, “Hark, the Ech’ing Air”68 and “The Knotting Song.”69
These two realizations remained in their repertory throughout their careers, and they included the
latter in their final recital in September 1972.70 “Hark the Ech’ing Air!” displays extensive
coloratura writing. Although the vocal line was not originally written for Pears, the fact that
Britten chose this song to realize shows the facility that Pears’s voice had (ex. 2).
Example 2: Henry Purcell, “Hark, the ech’ing air!” mm. 7-15.
67
Rosamund Strode, interview by the author, tape recorded, Aldeburgh, England, 14 March 2003. Ms. Strode
became Britten’s assistant in 1964, replacing Imogen Holst. Strode worked with Britten until his death in 1976 and
continued on at the Britten-Pears Library until 1992.
68
Banks, 181.
69
Banks, 176.
70
Philip Reed, preface to Henry Purcell: A Miscellany of Songs for One/Two Voices & Piano, realized by Benjamin
Britten (London: Faber Music, 1994).
18
Britten wrote to his publisher Ralph Hawkes in late November that he had met with “the
musical director of Columbia with favorable results and on Friday next [December 1, 1939]
Peter and I probably shall go and perform [Les illuminations] for him.”71 Britten began
composing Les illuminations, a cycle for high voice and string orchestra, in March 1939 for
soprano Sophie Wyss. Pears had, in fact, been booked to sing the work in Chicago in late
November 1939, but the performance was cancelled.72 This would have preceded the Wyss’s
official premiere, which took place in London on January 30, 1940.73 On May 18, 1941 at the
18th International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in New York City, Pears gave the
American debut of Les illuminations with Britten conducting.74 The recording of this
performance “shows that Pears had now developed his characteristic voice, but not an Italian bel
canto or even and English ‘cathedral tenor,’ but a strange and unique sound in which any
technical limitations were lavishly compensated for by the strong personality it expressed.”75
Britten: “The Salley Gardens”
Britten: “Little Sir William”
Britten: “The Bonny Earl o’Moray”
Britten: “Oliver Cromwell”
Britten: “Calypso”
Britten: “The Crocodile”
Britten: “The Ash Grove”
Other performances in 1941 included an appearance at the annual Bach Festival in Grand
Rapids, Michigan in January,76 a recital with Britten for the British War Relief Society in
Providence, Rhode Island on February 20,77 and a performance of Les illuminations in Chicago
in November.78 From Chicago Pears and Britten went to Grand Rapids, Michigan where they
gave a recital at the First Park Congregational Church on November 26. At this recital they
performed Les illuminations with piano accompaniment79 and gave the premiere performance of
four of Britten’s folksong arrangements: “The Salley Gardens,” “Little Sir William,” “The
71
Mitchell, vol. 2, 737.
Carpenter, 142.
73
Banks, 50.
74
Mitchell, vol. 2, 932.
75
Carpenter, 151.
76
Mitchell, vol. 2, 649.
77
Mitchell, vol. 2, 906.
78
Mitchell, vol. 2, 886.
79
This information comes from the archive collection at the Britten-Pears Library. Subsequent information from
this source will be noted as “BPL Archive”.
72
19
Bonny Earl o’Moray,” and “Oliver Cromwell.”80 Britten later orchestrated the accompaniments
of these settings, and Pears premiered them on December 13, 1942. Paul Banks notes in
Benjmain Britten: A Catalogue of Published Works, that “there may have been an earlier (and as
yet untraced) performance of [the orchestrated version of The Salley Gardens] in the first half of
the year.”81 In the coming years, Britten would arrange dozens of folksongs for his recitals with
Pears, who sang several selections in most recitals.
At a recital in Long Island, New York on December 14, 1941, they premiered three more
songs by Britten: “Calypso,”82 and folksong arrangements “The Crocodile” and “The Ash
Grove.”83 The folksong settings were composed especially for Pears, but “Calypso” was one of
four cabaret songs with texts by Auden composed for soprano Hedli Anderson (1907-1990) for
later performances in England.84
80
81
82
83
84
Banks, 155.
Banks, 157.
Banks, 48.
Banks, 155.
Banks, 48.
20
CHAPTER 3
HOME
After spending over three years in North America, Pears and Britten boarded the ship, the
Axel Johnson, headed for England on March 16, 1942.85 Pears later wrote that during the
journey, “while Ben was writing A Ceremony of Carols and Hymn to St. Cecilia… I was
planning the original shape of the Peter Grimes libretto.”86 Pears and Britten discovered Peter
Grimes when Pears purchased The Poetical Works of the Rev. George Crabbe in a used
bookshop in California about a year earlier.
They arrived at Liverpool, England on April 17, 1942, and on April 22, Boosey &
Hawkes engaged Britten and Pears to perform all of Britten’s new works in a private hearing.
Pears sang several works and played the piano in works either for two pianos or in orchestral
transcriptions. Julian Herbage (1904-1976), English conductor, music scholar and administrator,
was among those at the hearing. His official position was Assistant Director of Music at the
BBC, for which he “often found himself required to pronounce on new music.”87 Pears sang
Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, composed in 1940, about which Herbage reported, “An
extremely fine cycle – Italianate virility of vocal line and simplicity and extreme effectiveness of
piano accompaniment have produced an unusual and notable work. The whole was sung twice, at
the beginning and at the end of the audition, and confirmed more deeply first impressions on
second hearing.”
Pears also sang some of the folksongs that Britten arranged in America, what Herbage
titled “Irish folk songs for tenor and piano.” Herbage wrote, “The least satisfying of the four
works, though quite charming and well executed, they have an ingenuousness which to my mind
85
Headington, 114.
Philip Brett, “‘Fiery visions’ (and revisions): ‘Peter Grimes’ in progress,” in Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes, comp. Philip
Brett (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1983), 47.
87
Mitchell, vol. 2, 652.
86
21
descends to the childish or silly clever. They make quite pleasant listening if not too critically
approached.”88
A few days after the hearing, Britten wrote in a letter, “On the strength of [Pears’s
performance at the hearing] Peter has had this Tales of Hoffmann offer (to sing Hoffmann) which
will be a splendid experience for him.”89 Pears’s debut in Offenbach’s opera took place on May
6, 1942 in the Strand Theater in London, and after several performances there, the opera went on
tour. A few days after his debut, Pears wrote to Elizabeth Mayer:
I was asked at very short notice to sing the title role in “Tales of Hoffmann” now running
here in an elaborate production. Oddly enough I wasn’t at all nervous at my first
performance last Wednesday afternoon & apparently was a big success & am going to
tour in two weeks when we have finished in London. It’s a big role with a lot of singing,
& though I haven’t even now after 4 performances sung it as well as I should like to, it
goes across alright!90
Meanwhile, Britten concentrated on several compositions, one of which was his opera
Peter Grimes. From its inception it was a project that involved both Pears and Britten. On May
17, 1942, Britten wrote in a letter that he was going to discuss the opera with the librettist,
Montagu Slater, and that, “Peter & I will be in it up to our necks.”91 Pears was only a
collaborator at this point, not the intended singer of the title role. Britten made a list of the
characters sometime after June 1, 1942, on which he identified Grimes as a baritone. 92 Pears said
in 1975, “I don’t think Ben really thought of me as playing Peter Grimes. At that time… I was
more a recitalist than an opera singer.”93 Considering the number of operatic performances that
Pears would give between 1942 and 1946, this seems an absurd comment, yet it serves to show
what Pears considered his strengths to be as a young singer.
Pears’s work as a recitalist centered on an organization called CEMA, the Committee for
the Encouragement of Music and for the Arts, later the Arts Council of Great Britain. Because
they were pacifists, Pears and Britten went through War Tribunals when they returned to
England in order to keep out of military duty. They were each awarded Conscientious Objector
status and in exchange for active duty the government required them to work for CEMA.
88
Mitchell, vol. 2, 653.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1037
90
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1039.
91
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1050.
92
Phillip Reed, “A Peter Grimes Chronology,” in The Making of Peter Grimes: Essays and Studies, ed. Paul Banks
(Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2000), 25.
93
George Gells, “Peter Pears – the Voice that Inspired Britten,” New York Times, 2 November 1975, p. 158.
89
22
Typically, they performed together, but Pears also sang with other pianists, such as Norman
Franklin, on occasion. Some CEMA concerts could be in London, but most required travel into
other cities. Britten explained the concerts to Elizabeth Mayer in a letter on September 30, 1942.
Whenever possible Peter or I, mostly together, do concerts for [CEMA]. We go all over
the place, under the strangest conditions – playing on awful old pianos – singing easy, but
always good programmes - & really have the greatest successes with the simplest
audiences…. I feel it absolutely worth it, because as we have so often agreed, it does get
music really to the people, finds out what they want & puts the emphasis on the music, &
not the personality of the artist, or their previous fame. One starts completely from
‘scratch’ as it were, since more often than not, they haven’t even heard of Schubert –
much less, Britten or Pears!!94
Britten: “I Wonder as I Wander”
Britten: “The Seven Blessings of Mary”
Britten: “Hymn”
These recitals were immensely important to both Pears and Britten, and they would at
times give premiere performances at them, especially Britten’s folksong settings. At a CEMA
recital on September 11, 1942 in Ipswich, Pears and Britten gave the first recorded performance
of Britten’s arrangement of “I Wonder as I Wander.” Britten arranged this song in the belief that
it was in the public domain, however he later found that the song was an original composition by
John Jacob Niles. As a result, Britten’s arrangement was not published during his lifetime. The
setting was a favorite of Pears, who programmed it in concerts until the end of his career.95 In
Britten’s setting, the vocal lines are completely unaccompanied, and the four verses are separated
by interludes in the piano which consist of wandering monophonic melodies. Britten probably
arranged this song just after composing the last song of his cycle The Seven Sonnets of
Michelangelo, another work for Pears that uses monophonic texture.
On that same program, there are two other curious inclusions. The first is a folksong
arrangement by Britten called “The Seven Blessings of Mary” and the other, also by Britten, for
tenor, cello, and piano, simply titled “Hymn.” These were most likely premiere performances of
songs by Britten, but there is no record of the scores at the Britten-Pears Library beyond their
titles on the program.
94
95
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1090.
Banks, 155.
23
Britten: Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo
On September 23, 1942, Pears and Britten gave the first public performance of Britten’s
Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo in a concert organized by the publisher Boosey & Hawkes that
show-cased several new works by their composers. Britten composed the songs two years earlier
in America, completing them in March 1940. This was the first song cycle that Britten wrote for
Pears, and it reflected not only the specific abilities of Pears’s voice but Britten’s personal
feelings for the tenor as well. Graham Johnson wrote that “this cycle ranks with Schumann’s
Myrthen as a garland of songs to celebrate a marriage of minds and hearts.”96
Although Pears and Britten gave “a number of private performances of the work and had
made a private recording… while in America,”97 they waited to give the official public premiere
until 1942. Donald Mitchell says, “It is clear that the main reason for the delayed premiere was
Pears’s wanting to wait until such time as he felt vocally ready to give the best possible account
of the work.”98 Reviews for Pears’s performance of the Seven Sonnets in 1942 were unanimous.
The Daily Telegraph ran a review written by Ferruccio Bonavia that stated, “The reception left
no possible doubt as to the pleasure the audience had derived from the performance of Peter
Pears and the composer, who accompanied him.”99 The London Times said that the Sonnets are
“fine songs for singing – or so Mr. Pears, who returns with his pleasing voice grown more robust
and his skill considerated by experience, easily persuaded. For they are big songs they made a
singularly direct appeal.”100 A review by Edward Sackville-West in the New Statesmen and
Nation said, “The singer, Peter Pears, is something of a portent, too. It is long since we have
heard an English tenor with a voice at once so strong, so pure and so sweet.”101
The range of the cycle extends from C3 to B4, the highest note that Britten would even
write for Pears. He wrote it only two other times – in quick, melismatic passages in Peter Grimes
and The Burning Fiery Furnace. There are two musical characteristics in the cycle that appear in
later works for Pears: the exploitation of the note E4 and the use of unaccompanied writing.
Ralph Woodward wrote, “This was the first song-cycle to be written expressly for Peter Pears,
96
Graham Johnson, “Voice and Piano,” in The Britten Companion, ed. Christopher Palmer (Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 1984), 290.
97
Banks, 53.
98
Mitchell, vol. 2, 930.
99
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1077.
100
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1076
101
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1078.
24
and the influence of Pears’s voice can be heard in the frequent use, especially for long notes, of
high E.”102 Several of the songs emphasize the note, but it is most apparent in the opening song
(ex. 3).
Example 3: Benjamin Britten, The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, “Sonetto XVI,” mm. 11-24.
The second musical characteristic appears in the seventh song when Britten sets the first
four lines of poetry with no accompaniment (ex. 4). Britten composed this song soon before his
setting of “I Wonder as I Wander,” another monophonic setting. One wonders from whence
came the idea to use that texture within a typically homophonic genre. One answer may be in a
song that Pears sang around the time that Britten composed his songs. Pears performed
Schumann’s Dichterliebe on December 9, 1940 in Carnegie Chamber Music Hall with pianist
Lucy Brown,103 and Britten completed the seventh sonnet on October 30. It stands to reason that
Pears would have prepared the Schumann cycle in Britten’s presence and with his assistance. In
the thirteenth song of Dichterliebe, “Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet,” the piano does not play with
the voice until the twenty-fourth bar. Perhaps this was the first song that Pears sang in which his
voice was unaccompanied and it was Britten’s source of inspiration for his songs.
102
103
Woodward, “Music for Voices,” 263.
“Lucy Brown’s Recital,” New York Times, 10 November 1940, p. 32.
25
Example 4: Benjamin Britten, The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, “Sonetto XXIV,” mm. 8-15.
Britten: “The Foggy, Foggy Dew”
On November 18, Pears and Britten gave a CEMA concert and included The Seven
Sonnets of Michelangelo as well as the premiere performances of Britten’s arrangement of “The
Foggy, Foggy Dew.” Banks’s Catalogue of Published Works gives the premiere of this song as
September 27, 1945 at Melksham Music Club, Melksham House.104 Headington biography of
Pears verifies that Pears performed the song on November 18, 1942, “In this programme, a group
of four Schubert songs.… Beethoven’s A major cello sonata… the Michelangelo Sonnets… a
104
Banks, 161.
26
group of cello solos and five of Britten’s folk-song arrangements including The foggy, foggy dew
and ending with Oliver Cromwell.”105
Near the end of 1942, operatic performances began to fill Pears’s singing schedule. In
late August 1942, during the end of the Hoffmann tour, representatives from the Sadler’s Wells
Opera Company in London heard Pears sing. He joined the company in January 1943 and
remained with them until 1946. During those years, Pears sang leading tenor roles in La bohème,
La traviata, Rigoletto, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Die Zauberflöte, Così fan tutte, The Bartered
Bride, and Peter Grimes.
105
Headington, 120.
27
CHAPTER 4
1943
Britten: “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes”
Britten: “La belle est au jardin d’amour”
Britten: “Quand j’étais chez mon père”
Pears and Britten gave a recital on February 28, 1943 at the Friend’s House in London
which included Dichterliebe, arias by Handel and Gluck,106 and three premieres of Britten’s
song: a setting of W. H. Auden’s “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes,”107 and two French folksongs,
“La belle est au jardin d’amour,” and “Quand j’étais chez mon père.”108 Britten composed “Fish
in the Unruffled Lakes” in January 1938 and gave the manuscript fair copy to Sophie Wyss,
assumedly for performance use. Pears’s performance of the song, however, predates any
performance by Wyss.109 The song has a range from C-sharp 3 to A-sharp 4 and a vocal line that
employs many leaps and coloratura (ex. 5).
Example 5: Benjamin Britten, “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes,” mm. 65-68.
106
BPL Archive.
Banks, 41.
108
Banks, 160.
109
Phillip Reed, preface to Fish in the Unruffled Lakes: Six Settings of W. H. Auden for High Voice and Piano, by
Benjamin Britten (London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1997).
107
28
For the next several months, Pears had opera engagements or CEMA recitals nearly every
day. He sang the role of the Duke in Rigoletto for the first time on April 3110 and the role of
Alfredo in La Traviata on April 29, 1943 under conductor Herbert Menges.111 On April 6,
Britten wrote to William Mayer,
Peter is with Sadler’s Wells Opera company these two weeks – doing Magic Flute,
Rigoletto, & rehearsing Traviata. He is singing so well and acting with such abandon,
that he is well on his way to becoming an operatic star…. When I write it, & if it is put on
here, I hope [Peter] will do the principal part in Peter Grimes. The ideas are going well
but I haven’t had time to start it yet.112
This was, according to Donald Mitchell, “The first indication that the role of Grimes was
intended for Pears” and not a baritone.113
Schubert/Britten: “Ach, neige du Schmerzenreiche”
On April 25, Pears and Britten performed a program of songs by Schubert and Britten,
and Pears sang a premiere of a song by Franz Schubert that Britten completed. In 1938, the BBC
commissioned Britten to complete the song “Ach, neige du Schmerzenreiche (Gretchens Bitte)”
for a program of Schubert songs composed between 1817 and 1818. Britten completed two
versions of Schubert’s song. He completed the first version in late 1938, and he and soprano
Mary Blyth premiered it on December 27, 1938 over BBC Regional Radio. The second version
“seems to have been written while he and Pears were in America… perhaps because the earlier
version had been left in England – and was included in their recital programmes in 1943.”114
Purcell/Britten: “Not All My Torments”
Pears performed a recital for CEMA on May 3 in which he gave the first performance of
Britten’s realization of Purcell’s “Not all my Torments.”115 This realization, the third by Britten,
110
111
112
113
114
115
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1125.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1142.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1145.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1146n.
Banks, 191.
Banks, 183.
29
is a quasi recitative and features several long melismas, which require the singer to negotiate
runs and turns at a high tessitura (ex. 6).
Example 6: Henry Purcell, “Not All My Torments,” mm. 2-6.
Tippett: Boyhood’s End
Pears and Britten took part in a concert on June 5, 1943 in the Holst Room at Morley
College. They performed the Michelangelo Sonnets and the premiere of Boyhood’s End by
Michael Tippett (1905-1998). Tippett came to Morley College in 1932 to organize and direct the
South London Orchestra, an ensemble “which was formed to provide performance opportunities
for out of work professional musicians.”116 He became the Director of Music at the college in
1940 and stayed until 1951.117 During those years the concert series at the college organized by
Tippett was an important part of musical life in London. John Amis, a student at Morley,
described the concert atmosphere during wartime.
A concert at Morley College during the war – it would be a Saturday evening and early
because of the raids, one of the regular ‘house’ concerts. Only a small part of the famous
college for working men and women was left unbombed; there was no big hall, just the
little Holst room with his ‘Planets’ painted on the ceiling, seats for a (crowded) 150 –
best to get there early – and a small, raised platform with a tiny but very good Steinway
116
117
Gordon Theil, comp., Michael Tippett: A Bio-Bibilography (New York: Greenwood, 1989), 5.
Theil, Tippett: A Bio-Bibliography, 6.
30
in light mahogany…. The atmosphere at the concerts was friendly but highly charged in
that hot Holst room.118
Pears met Tippett when he sang in a performance at Morley College of Gibbon’s verse
anthem My Beloved Spoke under him shortly after returning from America.119 Pears later wrote
about Tippett in a letter, “It has been wonderful having Michael Tippett as a fellow-artist &
composer whom we can both wholly admire and love…. Michael’s music is more complex than
Ben[‘s], but it is slowly being recognized, & the Cantata from W.H. Hudson [Boyhood’s End] of
his that we do, has made many friends.”120
Tippett composed Boyhood’s End in January 1943.121 It utilizes two characteristics that
are common in music written for Pears: unaccompanied sections and coloratura. There are four
brief unaccompanied phrases, all within the andante section (beginning m. 124) of the cantata.
This section was, according to Pears, “one of Tippett’s best things…. The subtle colouring of the
words throughout the wide range gives the singer, unaccompanied much of the time, chance after
chance to express the finest verbal nuances”122 Tippett uses coloratura several times in the
cantata, and often at the top of the tenor range (ex. 7).
Example 7: Michael Tippett, Boyhood’s End, mm. 108-116.
118
John Amis, “Wartime Morley,” in Michael Tippett: A Symposium on his 60th Birthday, ed. Ian Kemp (London:
Faber and Faber, 1965), 73.
119
Alan Blyth, Remembering Britten (London: Hutchinson, 1981), 62.
120
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1216.
121
Eric Walter White, “A Biographical Sketch,” in Michael Tippett: A Symposium, 20.
122
Peter Pears, “Song and Text,” in Michael Tippett: A Symposium, 48.
31
Tippett’s choice to use the cantata form for Boyhood’s End, as opposed to a song cycle,
was in response to his studies of music by Purcell and Monteverdi.123 A trend among English
composers of the 1940s and 1950s was “to make a song into more than a song, and even the
song-cycle more than a song-cycle…. It is as if the short, isolated song, suitable for musically
echoing the gently romantic poetry of former days, was no longer apt for the musical expression
of the different poetic ideas to which composers of lively minds were now attracted.”124 Tippett’s
composition was probably one of the first examples of this trend.
Hopkins: Songs of Cyprus
The next premiere that Pears gave was also at Morley College. On July 17, 1943, he took
part in a performance of Antony Hopkins’s Songs of Cyprus, “three short unaccompanied choral
pieces”125 with solo soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and bass parts. The soloists were Pears,
soprano Alison Purves, mezzo-soprano Rita Harris, and bass Donald Lumsden with the
composer conducting the performance.
Hopkins (b. 1921), an English composer, studied piano and composition at the Royal
College of Music where he afterward worked as a lecturer. While at Morley, he studied
composition with Michael Tippett and sang tenor in his choir. After leaving the RCM, Hopkins
“began to compose music for the theater, radio, and films, and quickly achieved success.” Songs
of Cyprus, one of Hopkins’s early compositions, does not appear on his list of works in the entry
in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 126
Purcell/Britten: “There’s not a Swain on the Plain”
Purcell/Britten: “I’ll Sail upon the Dogstar”
Purcell/Britten: “On the Brow of Richmond Hill”
On July 19, 1943, in Buckinghamshire, Pears and Britten gave a recital for the Friend’s
War Relief. Their program included Dichterliebe, Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, several of
123
Blyth, “Peter Pears,” 63.
Arthur Jacobs, “The British Isles,” in A History of Song, ed. Denis Stevens (New York: W. W. Norton, 1960),
177.
125
Antony Hopkins to the author, letter, 30 July 2003.
126
Richard Cooke, “Hopkins, Antony,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., vol. 11, ed.
S. Sadie (London: MacMillan, 2001), 697-8.
124
32
Britten’s folksong arrangements, and several Purcell songs, including the premiere of Britten’s
realization of Purcell’s “There’s not a Swain.”127 The next day, they performed live over the
BBC Home Service and premiered Britten’s realizations of Purcell’s ”I’ll Sail Upon the Dogstar”
and “On the Brow of Richmond Hill.”128 The performance also featured the broadcast premieres
of the Purcell/Britten songs “There’s not a Swain” and “Not All My Torments,”129 as well as the
broadcast premiere of The Michelangelo Sonnets. A review in The Listener stated of the Sonnets,
“the best set of songs that have appeared in this country for a generation, and they have a right
singer in Peter Pears.”130
Britten: “O Can Ye Sew Cushions”
Britten: Serenade
Between September 23 and October 15, Pears gave nearly a dozen performances, two of
which involved premiere performances.131 He premiered Britten’s arrangement of the folksong
“O Can ye Sew Cushions”132 on October 14, and the next day, at Wigmore Hall in London, Pears
sang the premiere of Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn, and strings. Britten met hornist Dennis
Brain in the summer of 1942 and “immediately contemplated producing a horn concerto for the
brilliant 21-year-old. At the suggestion of Erwin Stein, Britten elected to write an orchestra songcycle that would include a solo horn as a prominent obbligato instrument.”133 The Serenade
consists of six songs with a prologue and epilogue for solo horn.
There are elements to the Serenade’s vocal lines that appear in many previous
compositions, including Britten’s original works as well as his realizations and folksong settings.
The first vocal entrance of the first song in Serenade, “Pastoral” begins on A-flat 4 and then
descends by arpeggio (ex. 8). A similar lines are in the folksong “Little Sir William” (ex. 9) and
in the Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo (ex. 10).
127
Banks, 183.
Banks, 182. This source notes that “Pears sang “I’ll Sail Upon the Dog-star” and “On the Brow of Richmond
Hill” at three concert accompanied by Norman Franklin in April 1943, but it is not clear whether Britten’s
realizations were used.”
129
Banks, 183.
130
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1096.
131
BPL Archive. In addition to his opera schedule, Pears gave recitals and concerts on September 23, 29, 30,
October 3, 5, 7, 10, and 14.
132
Banks, 156.
133
Mervyn Cooke, liner notes to Benjamin Britten, Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, op. 31, Our Hunting
Fathers, op. 8, Folksong Arrangements, Ian Bostridge, EMI Classics 7243-5-56871-2-8, 1999.
128
33
Example 8: Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Pastoral,” mm. 2-5.
Example 9: Benjamin Britten, “Little Sir William,” mm. 5-6.
Example 10: Benjamin Britten, The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, “Sonetto LV,” mm. 23-24.
Similar vocal lines exist within the Serenade in “Nocturne” (ex. 11), “Dirge” (ex. 12), and
“Hymn” (ex. 13). The quite lines descend either by step or by arppeggio.
Example 11: Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Nocturne,” m. 9 cadenza.
34
Example 12: Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Dirge,” mm. 1-6.
Example 13: Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Hymn,” 14-15.
There are many melismatic passages in the cycle, but three notable examples appear in
the fifth song, “Hymn.” All three are fast and have a range of at least an octave. Two of the
melismas begin high in Pears’s voice, follow a descending line, and are to be sung quietly (ex.
14, 15, and 16). Looking at Britten’s earlier compositions for Pears, one sees melismatic lines in
the realizations of Purcell’s “Hark the ech’ing air,” “Not all my torments,” and “I’ll Sail upon a
Dogstar” as well as Britten’s setting of “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes,” which was probably
composed for Sophie Wyss. Before the Serenade, Britten had not yet fully exploited Pears’s
ability to sing highly florid music, though Tippett had in Boyhood’s End. Coloratura passages
appear with more frequency in Britten’s music written for Pears in the coming years.
Example 14: Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Hymn,” mm. 43-48.
35
Example 15: Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Hymn,” mm. 91-95.
Example 16: Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Hymn,” mm. 135-142.
Unaccompanied writing and monotone vocal line appear in the Serenade. In the refrains
of the second song, “Nocturne,” and in the third song, “Elegy,” the tenor’s vocal lines have very
little accompanying support. In the first strophe of the fourth song, “Dirge,” the first five
measures, the voice is completely unaccompanied (ex. 12). In the last setting of the cycle,
“Sonnet,” Britten has the tenor intone the last line of the poem on D4 above changing chords in
the orchestra (ex. 17). Peter Evans points out that this line “gives a foretaste of the power Britten
was to find in monotone in the ‘Great Bear’ soliloquy of [Peter] Grimes.”134 The monotone line
in Serenade however was not the first time that Britten wrote a monotone vocal line for Pears. It
appeared in the Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo in “Sonetto XXXI” (ex. 18) as well as the tenor
aria of The Company of Heaven (ex. 1).
134
Peter Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1979), 94.
36
Example 17: Benjamin Britten, Serenade, “Sonnet,” mm. 34-37.
Example 18: Benjamin Britten, The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, “Sonetto XXXI,” mm. 38-48.
37
CHAPTER 5
1944
Wordsworth: “The Snowflake”
Wood: Three Songs
In January 1944, Britten began composing Peter Grimes, and Pears made recordings of
“The Salley Gardens,” “Little Sir William,” “The Ash Grove,” and “Oliver Cromwell,”135
performed the title role in Handel’s Samson,136 as well as the Messiah, and several recitals.137 On
January 4 at Fyvie Hall in London, in a recital sponsored by the Committee for the Promotion of
New Music, Pears and Britten premiered two vocal works. The first was a song by William B.
Wordsworth and the second was a set of three songs by Ralph Walter Wood.
William Wordsworth (1908-1988), a descendant of the poet’s brother, was born in
London and trained at the University of Edinburgh, under Sir Donald Tovey. Wordsworth’s
connection with Pears and Britten probably began in 1943. In January of that year, Wordsworth
wrote to Britten, congratulating him on his successful war tribunal; Wordsworth, like Britten,
was a dedicated pacifist. He asked Britten if they could meet to discuss some music that he was
writing.138 Although there is no proof, it is possible that they met, as Britten and Pears premiered
his song twelve months later. In February 1946, Wordsworth suggested that the three of them
meet in London so that Britten and Pears could sing through some of Wordsworth’s songs.139 He
wrote several times to Britten after 1948, asking to have his music played at the Aldeburgh
Festival, but Britten never granted this.
135
136
137
138
139
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1155.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1182. Mitchell states, however, “We have not been able to locate that performance.”
BPL Archive.
BPL Archive.
BPL Archive.
38
In the January 1944 recital, Pears and Britten premiered Wordsworth’s song “The
Snowflake.” He composed this Walter de la Mare setting 1936 and published it in 1948 as the
first song in a set of four, op. 7 for high voice and piano. The autograph score of the entire song
set, now held at the Britten-Pears Library, shows a group of five songs with various dates: “Full
Moon” (1936), “The Image” (1943), “Serenade” (1941), “The Snowflake” (1936), and “Song of
Shadows” (1938). The first, fourth, and fifth songs are de la Mare settings, the second song is a
setting of R. Hughes, and the third is the familiar “Come, o Come, My Life’s Delight” by
Thomas Campion.140 There are notations throughout the entire set of songs written by Pears and
Britten indicating that they learned the whole song set but decided to only perform the one song.
Three Songs by Ralph Walter Wood (b. 1902) is not a part of the collection at the BrittenPears Library, and neither is any other music by him. Wood was born in London and was selftaught as a composer, though he studied briefly under Gordon Jacob and Herbert Howells.141
Wood is perhaps better known as a musicologist, having written several articles on various
composers. There is no available information on Wood after 1980, when an article on him
appeared in that year’s edition of Groves International Dictionary of Music and Musicians.142 He
does not appear in the 2000 edition or in the on-line version of the dictionary. Although there is
no documented evidence of a relationship between him and Pears, it is reasonable to think that
there was one, as Pears premiered a second set of songs by Wood in 1959.143
Wood’s music “has an individuality that his variety and versatility make difficult to
characterize, particularly in a composer who so carefully avoided conscious imitation.”144 The
Three Songs, composed in 1936 and published in 1939, are settings of sonnets by William
Shakespeare, Charles Baudelaire, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The range of the cycle never
rises above F-sharp 4, but it has a high tessitura. The first song, a setting of Shakespeare’s sixtyfourth sonnet, “When I Have Seen by Time’s Fell Hand,” frequently takes the singer to E4 and at
one point the singer intones an entire phrase on the note (ex. 19).
140
This is a very different set of songs than what was published in 1948. Opus 7 includes “The Snowflake,” “Full
Moon,” and “Night,” (texts by de la Mare) and “Awake, my Heart, to be Loved” (text by Robert Bridges).
141
Eric Blom, “Wood, Ralph (Walter),” in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., vol. 9, ed. Eric
Blom (London: Macmillan, 1968), 358.
142
Blom, “Wood, Ralph (Walter),” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 19, ed. S. Sadie
(London: Macmillan, 1980), 519.
143
Surfling, “Premiere List.” Pears premiered Five German Songs by R. W. Wood over BBC Third Programme on
September 21, 1959 with pianist John Willis.
144
Blom, “Wood, Ralph (Walter),” (1980).
39
Example 19: R. W. Wood, Three Songs, “Sonnet No. 64,” p. 2, third system.
In the final song, “Epitaph,” which is marked larghetto and piano, every note in the vocal line of
the song, except for the last four words, is on E4 (ex. 20). Considering the composition date of
Wood’s songs, one can assume that he did not write them with Pears’s voice in mind. However,
it is interesting that the songs, especially the third, rely as much as they do on Pears’s “best
note.” The performance of these songs occurred just after Britten began composing Peter
Grimes, and one cannot help but wonder if Pears’s performance of Wood’s songs helped to
inspire the “Great Bear” aria (see ex. 21).
Example 20: R. W. Wood, Three Songs, “Epitaph,” mm. 4-13.
According to the published list of premieres in A Tribute to Peter Pears, the tenor gave a
third premiere at this concert, “Winter Song” for high voice and piano by Thomas Pitfield. This,
however, was not a premiere performance, as Pitfield explained in his autobiography.
It was January day during the Second World War years…. The soprano soloist was Gwen
Berriman (later Doris Archer of the famous BBC programme). Michael [Mullimar] and
myself shared the song accompaniments, which included the first performance of ‘Winter
40
Song’ to Katherine Mansfield’s words. Its second performance was by Pears and Britten
in London.145
On February 11 Pears gave a live broadcast over the BBC North Region Home Service
with conductor Richard Austin and the BBC Northern Orchestra which featured the broadcast
premiere of two of Britten’s folksongs, arranged for voice and orchestra: “Little Sir William,”
and “Oliver Cromwell.”146 Two days later he gave another performance in the same venue with
soprano Emily Hooke and pianist Walter Susskind. The performance featured the UK premiere
of Leos Janacek’s Diary of a Young Man who Vanished, in an English translation by Iris Holland
Rogers.147 Pears gave a number of recitals with Britten as well, performing in Stafford,
Nottingham, and Pears’s home town Farnham.148
In a letter written on March 1, from Pears to Britten one begins to see the possible
influence that the tenor had over Britten’s compositions. Britten had been working on Peter
Grimes for about two months and by now had completed most of the Prologue.
Peter Grimes was quite madly exciting! Really tremendously thrilling. The only thing
you must remember is to consider that the average singer hasn’t much gift for intensity
off his own bat, so make sure that the tempi etc make a tense delivery inevitable. Actually
I feel very much that you have already done this, only you know what most singers are;
the bit I was thinking of was Swallow in the Prologue. Can it sound pompous at that
pace? Aggressive yes - & perhaps that’s enough. The more I hear of it, the more I feel
that the queerness is unimportant & doesn’t really exist in the music (or at any rate
obtrude) so it mustn’t do so in the words. P.G. is an introspective, an artist, a neurotic, his
real problem is expression, self-expression.149
Tippett: A Child of our Time
Pears sang in the premiere of Michael Tippett’s oratorio A Child of Our Time on March
19, 1944. Unlike Boyhood’s End, Tippett did not compose the oratorio with Pears’s voice in
mind. Tippett began composing it in September 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II,
and completed it 1941.150 He showed the score to his friend Walter Goehr, who advised him to
put it aside for awhile, which he did. When Britten saw it in 1944, he was immediately
145
146
147
148
149
150
Thomas Pitfield, A Song After Supper: Volume I of an Autobiography (London: Thames, c. 1990), 19.
Banks, 158-9.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1187.
BPL Archive.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1189.
David Matthews, Michael Tippett: An Introductory Study (London: Faber and Faber, 1980), 33.
41
enthusiastic about it and persuaded Tippett to have it performed.151 The oratorio calls for four
soloists, chorus, and orchestra. The soloists at the premiere were Joan Cross, mezzo-soprano
Margaret McArthur, Pears, and bass Norman Walker, and Walter Goehr conducted the London
Region Civil Defense and Morley College Choirs and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.152
Between Pears’s recitals, concerts, and operatic performance, the tenor was beginning to
tire, not physically, but mentally. There is evidence in letters that Pears wished to devote more of
his time to focusing on Britten’s music. On March 1, after missing a train to an opera
engagement, Pears wrote to Britten, “Oh for a holiday! I expect it’s Freudian my missing trains. I
just can’t cope with the work - & I couldn’t have wanted to do anything less than sing at
Greenock!”153 On May 11, while aboard a train, he wrote to Britten, “I had to sing Boheme last
night…. It’s dirty music! However it’s probably a good training for Peter Grimes, which is after
all what I was born for.”154 Britten, as well, wished that Pears could spend less time singing other
music. He wrote to Pears about his operatic career on June 29, “It is the bloodiest business and I
can’t wait to get you out of it all.”155 Pears wrote of this same sentiment on August 6, 1944 to
Elizabeth Mayer,
It has been the most terrifically busy time…. Sometimes I don’t know how I managed all
the endless travelling & then singing at the end of it. It’s been wonderful experience, if
only it doesn’t go on too long and wear me out. One can’t really get a proper holiday. The
five days I had last month have to last me until after Christmas, but I am very strong
physically…. We have done the Sonnets everywhere, and always people take to them as
if they had been waiting just for that very experience. And now of course since last
October, there has been the Serenade, which is subtle and beautiful and haunting, with a
wonderful setting of Blake’s poem “o rose thou art sick”. We have just made a record of
it with Boyd Neel’s Orchestra for Decca, but we shall do it again better soon…. Peter
Grimes is now two-thirds done…. It will be terribly difficult to do, for me especially, as
the part is so dramatic it needs a Chaliapin – & my voice is still lyrical and not dramatic.
However it was a year before I could tackle the Sonnets, do you remember, and now I
sing them best of anything. So perhaps I shall reach my Grimes by April!156
151
152
153
154
155
156
Headington, 192.
BPL Archive.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1189.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1197.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1208.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1215-6.
42
Greene/Britten: Two Solo Anthems for Tenor
Pears and Britten participated in a concert at St. Matthew’s Church, Northampton on
September 21, 1944, exactly one year after the premiere of Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb at the
same location. Britten wrote to Reverend Walter Hussey, Vicar of the cathedral, in July, “The
plans for Sept 21st are going ahead from our end. Are they from yours? Our plan now is to have a
‘cello, as we want to do some religious music with continuo. So I have asked Norina Semino,
who has agreed.”157
Pears’s program included two solo anthems for tenor by Maurice Greene (1696-1755),
“Blessed are they that dwell” and “O praise the Lord.” Britten arranged these anthems,
presumably for this concert, for tenor, cello and piano.158 The arrangements are unpublished and
they are not at the Britten-Pears Library. There is one score in the library by Greene, Seven
Sacred Solos of the Early English School, and the record in the catalogue reads, “Two of these
solos [Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; O praise the Lord] were annotated by Britten and
Pears for the performance at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948.”159 They performed the songs at a
recital during the first Aldeburgh Festival on June 8, 1948, the program for which reads, “Two
anthems with cello obbligato.”160 The annotations in the score may be the only existing remains
of Britten’s arrangement.
Purcell/Britten: The Queen’s Epicedium
Purcell/Britten: “Pious Celinda”
Purcell/Britten: “Evening Hymn”
Purcell/Britten: “Sound the Trumpet”
On October 8, the same day that Pears finished recording Britten’s Serenade, he and
Britten gave a recital at Morley College. They performed On This Island, substituting the third
song in the cycle, “Seascape,” with “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes.”161 Pears wrote that
“Seascape” is perhaps less well made and certainly less distinguished than its contemporary,
157
158
159
160
161
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1214.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1221.
Britten-Pears Library, “On-line Catalogue,” <http://www.britten-pears.co.uk/Catalogue.htm>
BPL Archive.
Banks, 41.
43
“Fish in the Unruffled Lakes.”162 They also premiered two realizations by Britten, The Queen’s
Epicedium,163 and “Pious Celinda.”164 Not long after this concert, Britten wrote to Pears, “I’ve
started [the realization of Purcell’s] Evening Hymn – what a piece that is!”165 Pears and Britten
performed at St. Matthew’s in Northampton on October 19 in a CEMA sponsored recital in
which Pears sang pieces by Dowland, Buxtehude, Bach, and Purcell. This concert, which was
broadcast live by the BBC Home Service, included the premiere of Britten’s realization of
Purcell’s “Evening Hymn.”166 On December 1, Pears and Britten gave a recital with soprano
Margaret Ritchie at the Museum Lecture Theater in Bristol. For this performance, Britten made
three new Purcell realizations. Ritchie premiered two of them, and Ritchie and Pears sang the
premiere of the duet “Sound the Trumpet.”167
162
Peter Pears, “The Vocal Music,” in Benjamin Britten: A Commentary on his Works by a Group of Specialists, ed.
Donald Mitchell and Hans Keller (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1952), 64.
163
Banks, 180.
164
Banks, 182.
165
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1224.
166
Banks, 179.
167
Banks, 182.
44
CHAPTER 6
1945
Purcell/Britten: “Turn Then Thine Eyes”
On February 10, 1945, Britten wrote to a friend, “I have actually just at this minute
written ‘End’ to the opera score.”168 He then went to Manchester, where Pears was on tour with
the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company and delivered the Prologue and Act I of Peter Grimes to the
singers.169 Britten wrote to Ronald Duncan on February 24 from Joan Cross’s dressing room
during a performance of Così fan tutte, “Peter and I have now got to leave for Paris on 5th
[March].… We are having a terrific time with Grimes - & Peter & I are pretty well re-writing his
part. Montagu agreed to the new Mad Scene…. Peter sends his love… 6 concerts in a row before
the Paris trip.”170 The comment about rewriting Pears’s part is curious. In all of the published
material on Peter Grimes and its history, there has been no explanation of this statement.
Pears and Britten gave four concerts in Paris between March 8 until March 13. In the final
concert at the Salle de l’ancien conservatoire they gave a recital of Dowland, Purcell realized by
Britten, Britten, and folksong arrangements. In their set of Purcell songs, they gave the premiere
performance of “Turn Then Thine Eyes.”171
168
169
170
171
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1242.
Carpenter, 216.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1243.
Banks, 182.
45
Britten: Peter Grimes
When Pears and Britten returned to England from France, there were only three months
until the premiere of Peter Grimes. During this interval, Pears took part in a tour with the
Sadler’s Wells Opera Company from May 8 until May 18, performing Così fan tutte, Rigoletto,
and The Bartered Bride. 172 It was typical for the company to perform the operas in their
repertory while rehearsing for the next production. In this case, the next show was Peter Grimes.
The premiere of Britten’s opera would serve as “the return of the Sadler’s Wells Opera
Company, after six years of exile, to their home in Rosebery Avenue.”173 Because of this, there
was tension within the company as to the choice of a first production. Many thought that a work
from the traditional operatic canon would be more appropriate while others supported Britten’s
opera. Eric Walter White, Britten’s first biographer, wrote that “Dissension broke out in the
[Sadler’s Wells] company, mainly between members of the old guard and the new, and this led
Britten to realize that it would be inadvisable for him to write his next opera for Sadler’s Wells.
A small but powerful group of artists was willing to secede and join whatever new venture he
was preparing to launch.”174 Eric Crozier recalled
During a free day from rehearsals at Wolverhampton, Britten, Pears, Joan Cross and I had
taken a boat up the river to Bridgnorth. Later we lay on the bank and discussed our
predicament. We knew that after Grimes we had to go on… but Sadler’s Wells had
turned against us. Covent Gardens was still in use as a Mecca dance hall. Glyndebourne
was closed…. I suggested that we should form a small company of gifted singers… with
ourselves as artistic directors, no chorus and the smallest group of instrumentalists that
Ben would find acceptable for chamber opera.175
This suggestion would later come into being, exactly as Crozier described it, as the English
Opera Group.
The Sadler’s Wells Company arrived at their home theater on May 23, and on May 31,
the principal singers in the cast gave a preview performance at Wigmore Hall with Britten
playing the piano and Eric Crozier narrating the story. Edward Sackville-West, a critic in
172
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1252.
Desmond Shawe-Taylor, “Peter Grimes: a review of the first performance,” in Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes,
comp. Phillip Brett (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1983), 153.
174
Eric Walter White, Benjamin Britten: A Sketch of His Life and Works, new ed., rev. and enlarged (New York:
Boosey & Hawkes, 1954), 15.
175
Carpenter, 225.
173
46
attendance, wrote, “London was about to hear the English equivalent of Wozzeck.”176 The
premiere of Peter Grimes, op. 33, took place at the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company in London on
June 7, 1945 under the musical direction of Reginald Goodall followed by another eight
performances over the next two months.177
Historically, there is no question as to the long-term success of Peter Grimes. Not all
critics at the time of the premiere, however, were positive about the opera or its performance.
Julian Herbage wrote in an internal circulation at the BBC the day following the premiere
I could hear practically no word of what was being sung…. The soloists could certainly
have improved their diction, if they had shouted less and articulated more. The opera was
excellently cast, and apart from the usual vocal limitations of the Sadler’s Wells
company, it seems invidious to pick any of them out for special praise. I should imagine,
however, that never will Peter Pears (Peter Grimes) or Joan Cross (Ellen Orford) be more
suitably cast. Incidentally, if Pears continues to sing his mad scene in his present throat
straining manner he would be liable to lose his voice.178
Scott Goddard wrote in the News Chronicle, “Peter Pears as Grimes… gave a profoundly
sympathetic rendering of the part for which he will be remembered. Singing and acting were of
one piece, and intensely moving,”179 while Frank Howes wrote in The Times “Mr. Peter Pears, as
Peter Grimes, commanded all the vocal resources required for a great and exacting part, though
he was not completely convincing as a sadist.”180 Pears, in effect, countered this critique via an
article he wrote in 1946, “Grimes is not a hero nor is he an operatic villain. He is not a sadist nor
a demonic character, and the music quite clearly shows that.”181 The music critic for The Times
wrote on June 15, “Grimes is… a dual personality, and the role will set a problem of
interpretation which may defeat singers of less intelligence than Peter Pears.”182 Another critic
wrote, “after hearing several performances…. there are moments in the role of Grimes which
demand a sort of tenor Chaliapin; Peter Pears is not that, but he is in every other way worthy of
the composer’s intentions.”183 One recalls Pears’s own comparison of himself to the great
Russian singer-actor Fyodor Chaliapin (1873-1938) in the letter he wrote on August 10, 1944
(see page 43). Composer Antony Hopkins wrote, looking back on Pears’s many opera roles,
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
Carpenter, 219.
Banks, 72.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 654-5.
Mitchell, 1256.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1253.
Peter Pears, “Neither a Villian nor a Hero,” in Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes, 152.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1254.
Shawe-Taylor, 158.
47
“Pears was a brilliant Pandarus in Walton’s Troilus and C., also Vasek in The Bartered Bride.
Too refined for a good Grimes!”184 A review of Pears’s recording of the opera read, “There have
been many excellent portrayals of Grimes since Pears created the part but none have reached his
artistic stature, even allowing for the fact that the part was written with his particular vocal
abilities in mind.”185
Considering the letter written by Britten some months earlier saying that he and Pears
were rewriting Pears’s part, one assumes that Pears had some part in the creation of the opera.
Throughout the score there are elements in Grimes’s vocal lines that suggest Pears’ voice and
music that he had sung in the past. In the Act I scene 2 aria, “Now the Great Bear,” the vocal line
is almost entirely written on a monotone E4 (ex. 21).
Example 21: Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, Act I, Scene 2, fig. 76, mm. 1-6.
Examples of coloratura writing in the role appear in the fast section of the same aria (ex.
22), and in Grimes’s opening statement in act II scene 2, “Go there!” This melisma begins high
then descends to the bottom of the voice (ex. 23). A third example is found in the aria “In dreams
I’ve built myself” later in the same scene. In this aria, Britten writes melismatic turns on
quintuplet figures (ex. 24). Another is at the climax of Grimes’s monologue in Act III, scene 2,
when he shouts his own name on a wild melisma that begins on D-flat 3, rises by leaps to A-flat
4, and winds back down to E-flat 3 (ex. 25).
184
185
Antony Hopkins to the author, letter, 30 July 2003.
Alec Richardson, “Operatic,” Gramophone 37 (October 1959): 188-9.
48
Example 22: Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, Act I, Scene 2, fig. 76, mm. 15-16.
Example 23: Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 55, mm. 3-5.
Example 24: Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 62, mm. 4-9.
Example 25: Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, Act III, Scene 2, fig. 51.
There are two extended instances of unaccompanied writing in Peter Grimes. The first is
the duet between Grimes and Ellen Orford in the later half of the Prologue. This type of writing
is exceedingly rare in opera, though one example of it exists in an opera that Britten may have
known when composing Grimes. The first several minutes of Gustav Holst’s Savitri feature an
49
unaccompanied duet. The second example of unaccompanied writing in Peter Grimes is in
Grime’s mad scene (Act III, Scene 2), which Donald Mitchell called
one of the most original and daring innovations in 20th century opera that anyone could
ever have thought of. That tells you everything about… words and color and letting the
words color, because that is the perfect example. All the color there in Peter’s wonderful
performance in that incredible scene is provided by the words. And it was Ben’s
understanding of what he could do with the words to actually shape that huge cadenza….
But what an incredible idea, that extended 12 or 13 minutes unaccompanied, for that one
voice and that one character on the stage with nothing else except very distant
interventions, occasionally, by the chorus and the horn. There’s nothing there. That in
itself tells one a lot about the potentialities of Peter’s voice.186
Much of this scene lies in the lower register of the tenor’s voice, and, besides a few quotations of
earlier lyrical melodies, it is declamatory. Although Britten had not yet written for Pears in a
declamatory style, he had realized a few comparable Purcell works for him. Britten and many
others would write declamatory music for the tenor in coming years. Throughout Grimes’s final
scene, the dynamic and expressive markings are very specific and change often. The dynamics in
the voice part only rise to forte a few times, and each time they return to piano almost
immediately. This specificity in instruction from the composer would allow Pears to rely upon
the color and flexibility of his voice and not merely its size.
Britten: “Sweet Polly Oliver”
Britten: “The Plough Boy”
Britten: “There’s None to Soothe”
Britten: “Birthday Song for Erwin”
Pears and Britten continued giving recitals while Grimes was in production. In a recital
on June 28 in Leeds, which the BBC Home Service broadcast, they performed the broadcast
premieres of the Purcell/Britten songs “Turn Then Thine Eyes” and “Pious Celinda.”187 Pears
sang premieres of several other works by Britten before the end of 1945. On September 26, he
and Britten gave a recital at the Bristol Grammar School at which they premiered Britten’s
arrangement of the folksong “Sweet Polly Oliver.”188 The next day, in a recital for the Melksham
186
Mitchell, interview by author.
Banks, 182.
188
Banks, 161
187
50
Music Club, they premiered two more folksong arrangements, “The Plough Boy” and “There’s
None to Soothe.”189
They premiered an original song by Britten on November 7, a setting of a poem by
Ronald Duncan called “Birthday Song for Erwin.” Both the poem and song were dedicated to
Erwin Stein (1885-1958) on his sixtieth birthday.190 Stein, a former pupil of Arnold Schoenberg,
came to England in 1938, worked as an editor for Boosey & Hawkes, and became “one of
[Britten’s] closest friends and advisors.”191 Britten did not have the song published during his
lifetime, and there were no performances of it after the premiere until 1988.192 In this brief song,
twenty-six measures long, the vocal line centers on E4. In the first several phrases, the voice
does not remain on the note but rather the note acts as a point of departure and return (ex. 26).
Example 26: Benjamin Britten, “Birthday Song for Erwin,” mm. 3-10.
189
Banks, 161.
Banks, 77.
191
Rosamund Strode, preface to The Red Cockatoo & Other Songs (1935-1960), by Benjamin Britten (London:
Faber Music, 1994).
192
This performance, which celebrated Britten’s seventy-fifth birthday, was by tenor Christopher Hobkirk and
pianist Rosalind Jones at the Royal College of Music in London on November 22, 1988.
190
51
Purcell/Britten: “Music for a While”
Purcell/Britten: “Mad Bess”
Purcell/Britten: “Lord, What is Man?”
Purcell/Britten: “I Spy Celia”
Purcell/Britten: “Lost is My Quiet”
Purcell/Britten: “What Can we Poor Females Do?”
Purcell/Britten: Saul and the Witch at Endor
Purcell/Britten: “Fairest Isle”
Purcell/Britten: “If Music be the Food of Love” (third version)
Purcell/Britten: Man is for a Woman Made”
Pears and Britten gave several concerts in late November, most of which were dedicated
to music by Purcell. For these concerts, Britten prepared thirteen new Purcell realizations. Here,
absolute accuracy of first performance date comes into question. Banks writes, “Britten very
rarely dated his arrangements and realizations…. It is likely that most… were prepared shortly
before their first performance, but… the dates of all such premieres cannot be reliably
established: in most cases it is possible to record only the earliest known performance of a
work.”193 To further complicate the matter, some programs which featured more than one singer
were not always clear as to which singer performed a particular piece.
A recital on November 17, 1945 at Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool was one such
program. Pears and Joan Cross, accompanied by Britten, sang several operatic excerpts, as well
as some individual songs. Pears premiered Britten’s realization of Purcell’s “Music for a While,”
although Banks notes, “or Joan Cross.”194 The other premiere of the evening was Britten’s
realization of Purcell’s “Mad Bess.” Banks gives Cross credit for the premiere but notes “or
possibly Pears.”195 Britten dedicated both of these songs to Cross.
Pears and Britten gave nightly concerts between November 21 and November 25, 1945,
each dedicated to the music of Purcell. The first, which took place at Wigmore Hall, also
celebrated the 250th anniversary of Purcell’s death. The concert involved Pears, Britten, soprano
Margaret Ritchie, baritone Richard Wood, the Zorian String Quartet, and violist Robert
Donington. The program featured performances of Purcell’s trio sonata in F, the “Golden
Sonata,” two fantasias for strings, the premiere of Britten’s second string quartet written “in
homage to Purcell,” and nine Purcell vocal works realized by Britten, eight of which were
193
194
195
Banks, x-xi.
Banks, 182.
Banks, 183.
52
premieres.196 Pears may have taken part in each premiere: a solo song “Lord, What is Man?”197
duets with baritone “I Spy Celia,” “Lost is my Quiet,” and “What Can we Poor Females Do?”198
the trio Saul and the Witch at Endor,199 as well as three more solo works, “Fairest Isle,” If Music
be the Food of Love” (third version), and “Man is for a Woman Made.” These three may have
been premiered by Margaret Ritchie.200
A later performance by Pears of “Lord, What is Man?” caused the critic William
McNaught to write that the song communicated “an intricate and unified whole, compounded of
Purcell’s mind, his fellow-composer’s and the mind and gifts of the singer.”201 The song is
divided into three sections, an accompanied recitative, an allegretto aria, and a quick “Halleluia.”
All of the sections have melismatic passages and high tessituras (ex. 27, 28, 29).
Example 27: Henry Purcell, Lord, what is man? mm. 36-38.
Example 28: Henry Purcell, Lord, what is man? mm. 87-92.
196
197
198
199
200
201
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1288.
Banks, 179.
Banks, 182.
Banks, 178.
Banks, 182-3.
Carpenter, 229.
53
Example 29: Henry Purcell, Lord, what is man? mm. 105-109.
Britten dedicated Saul and the Witch at Endor to Cuthbert Kelly, the man who in 1936
invited Pears to sing in the New English Singers.202 A paraphrase of Samuel I, 28:8-20, Saul and
the Witch at Endor is a dramatic work in which each of the three singers represents a character in
the story. The soprano sings the part of the witch, the tenor sings the part of Saul, and the bass
sings the part of Samuel. The drama is preceded and followed by all voices singing together as a
narrator. The tenor role is very high and, at times, extremely florid (ex. 30). The tenor is also
required to negotiate chromatic lines through the high tessitura (ex. 31).
Example 30: Henry Purcell, Saul and the Witch at Endor, mm. 26-34.
202
Banks, 178.
54
Example 31: Henry Purcell, Saul and the Witch at Endor, mm. 140-144.
Britten: The Holy Sonnets of John Donne
On November 22, St. Cecilia’s Day and Britten’s thirty-second birthday, at the second of
the concerts dedicated to Purcell, Pears gave the premiere of Britten’s Holy Sonnets of John
Donne, op. 35.203 Immediately after the run of Peter Grimes in London, the Sadler’s Wells went
on tour to Belfast and Dublin from July 23 until August 9. Pears sang Così fan tutte, La bohème,
and The Bartered Bride, nine performances in all.204 Much of this time, Britten was on a tour
with violinist Yehudi Menuhin to concentration camps in Germany “under the auspices of the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association.”205 On August 2, just after returning
home, Britten began composing his next song cycle, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. He
considered setting the poetry of John Donne for many years, but it was his trip to Germany that
finally made him put pen to paper. He completed the cycle of nine songs on August 19, though
Pears did not give the premiere until November.
There are “direct influences on the shape of [Britten’s] vocal declamation” in the Holy Sonnets
that come from Purcell’s vocal works found in the first book of the Harmonia Sacra (1688),
especially those realized by Britten and sung by Pears.206 As well, “both composers construct
vocal lines in which the words dictate rhythmic shape of such individuality as to form highly
asymmetrical melodic phrases.”207 This could only be so, on Britten’s part, had he witnessed
Pears’s ability to interpret such a line, as he had done in such realizations as “Lord, What is
Man?” and The Queen’s Epicedium.
203
204
205
206
207
Banks, 75.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1273.
Mitchell, vol. 2, 1269.
Evans, 350.
Evans, 351.
55
There is one unaccompanied line in the cycle. It is in the seventh song, “At the round
Earth’s imagined corners,” on the last line of the song (ex. 32). It bears a striking resemblance to
an unaccompanied line found in act III scene 2 of Peter Grimes, beginning low, rising above the
staff and descending to where it began (ex. 25).
Example 32: Benjamin Britten, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, “At the round earth’s imagined corners,”
mm. 30-32.
In the fourth song, “Oh, to vex me,” Britten sets the final phrase as a long melisma on triplets
(ex. 33). It is very similar to the melismas in the “Hymn” of the Serenade (ex. 14, 15, 16).
Example 33: Benjamin Britten, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, “Oh, to vex me,” mm. 63-71.
Another melisma in the Holy Sonnets appears in the fifth song, “What if this present,” on the
word “crucified.” This florid line begins high and descends (ex. 34).
56
Example 34: Benjamin Britten, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, “What if this present,” mm. 8-10.
The only other coloratura writing in this cycle is in the seventh song, in which the vocal line
employs quintuplet turns (ex. 35), as in the second act aria of Peter Grimes (ex. 24).
Example 35: Benjamin Britten, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, “At the round earth’s imagined corners,”
mm. 1-6.
There is one example of a monotone vocal line in this cycle. It appears in the eighth song, “Thou
Hast Made Me,” and is set on an E-flat 4 (ex. 36).
57
Example 36: Benjamin Britten, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, “Thou hast made me,” mm. 64-73.
As observed by Evans, “The vigilant ear will have detected that some melodic gestures
struck first in the Serenade have been given new significance in this cycle.”208 This holds true for
vocal gestures first heard in Peter Grimes as well. These gestures were born out of Pears’s voice,
and if through repetition they are maturing, it is certainly due to Britten having a keen ear to his
interpreter’s gifts.
Finally, while technically the Holy Sonnets are very demanding for the singer, they turn
away from pure vocal virtuosity, as is necessary in a work like Britten’s Our Hunting Fathers,
op. 8, and toward a need for “emotional intensity.”209 Headington writes that “without [Pears’s]
capacity for spiritual intensity and vocal virtuosity Britten could not have conceived [the Holy
Sonnets].”210 Pears wrote, “the attack of the very first notes [of the cycle] creates a tension that is
not wholly relaxed for twenty-five minutes.”211 Pears and Britten gave the broadcast premiere of
The Holy Sonnets of John Donne on September 1, 1946 over the BBC Third Programme, and
they recorded it in August and December 1947.212
208
209
210
211
212
Evans, 352.
Evans, 355.
Headington, 147.
Pears, “The Vocal Music,” 71.
Banks, 75.
58
Purcell/Britten: “If Music be the Food of Love” (first version)
Purcell/Britten: “Sweeter than Roses”
On November 23, the day after the premiere of the Holy Sonnets, at the National Gallery
in London, Pears and Britten shared a concert with the Aeolian String Quartet. This concert was,
again, devoted to Henry Purcell. Pears and Britten premiered two more of Britten’s realizations
of Purcell songs, “If Music be the Food of Love,” (first version) and “Sweeter than Roses.”213
They gave at least one more all-Purcell concert this month, on November 25 in Zurich.
213
Banks, 183.
59
CHAPTER 7
1946
Purcell/Britten: “We Sing to Him”
The first premiere of the year was another Britten’s realization of Purcell’s “We Sing to
Him.” The performance took place on January 11, 1946 in Amsterdam during a four day run of
performances by Pears and Britten.214 This was the nineteenth Purcell realization that Pears
premiered.
Schurmann: Five Facets
On January 20, 1946, Pears and Britten gave the premiere of Five Facets, a song cycle by
the Dutch composer Gerard Schurmann (b. 1924). Schurmann was born in the Dutch East Indies,
now Indonesia, and later studied composition with Alan Rawsthorne at the Royal College of
Music in London. Schurmann’s music attracted attention in the early 1940s and he had many
performances in England and the Netherlands. After serving in the Royal Air Force during
World War II, he held the position of cultural attaché at the Netherland’s Embassy in London.
He was “instrumental in arranging exchanges of musicians and art exhibitions, as well as setting
up scholarships between England and Holland.”215 He became acquainted with Britten and Pears
through his office and aided in arranging Pears’s first recital tours, as well as English Opera
Group tours, to the Netherlands. He also had a part in arranging the recital on January 20.
Schurmann composed the song cycle for this concert, though Pears and Britten did not
commission it.216
214
215
216
Banks, 179.
Carolyn Nott, “Gerard Schurmann,” Musical Opinion (January – February 2004): 22.
Gerard Schurmann, interview by author, telephone, 19 September 2002 and 20 June 2003.
60
Schurmann wrote to Britten in April 1945 about the song cycle, “[I] am glad you
considered the suggestion of my new songs favorably and of course I do not mind the delay [of
the performance] in the slightest…. I’ll send the songs along soon.”217 Although the program
states that the performance was the “first performance in England,” Schurmann is sure that there
was no previous performance of his songs. The songs are settings of Dutch poems written by the
Dutch poet F. Sybrand Bijlsma and were “especially written and devised for this cycle… in cooperation with the composer.”218 Schurmann coached Pears on the language and recalled that
Pears had a “fantastic ear” for the languange.219
Schurmann did not publish the songs, but rather destroyed them immediately after the
first and only performance. Throughout his career, Schurmann threw away music that he found
unworthy. In the 1956 Schurmann wrote another song cycle for Pears and Britten, Nine Poems of
Blake, which he sent to them, though as far as he knows they never performed it. Schurmann
discarded much of this cycle as well but revised three of the songs and published them in 1997 in
the cycle Six Songs of William Blake.220
Purcell/Britten: “Celemene, Pray Tell Me”
Britten: “The Miller of Dee”
Britten: The Rape of Lucretia
Purcell/Britten: “Morning Prayer”
Britten: “O Waly Waly”
Purcell/Britten: Suite of Six Songs from Orpheus Brittanicus
Britten: “The Stream in the Valley”
All other premieres that Pears gave in 1946 were arrangements, realizations, or original
works by Britten. On February 10, at the Cambridge Arts Theater. Pears, Britten and Joan Cross
gave a recital which included the premiere of “Celemene, pray tell me” a duet for soprano and
tenor by Purcell. This song “remained a feature of their joint recitals together until Miss Cross’s
retirement in the mid-1950s.”221 On March 11, Pears premiered the folksong arrangement “The
Miller of Dee” at the National Gallery in London.222 During a tour with Britten to the
217
Gerard Schurmann to Benjamin Britten, 10 April 1945, Britten-Pears Library Archive, Aldeburgh, England.
BPL Archive.
219
Schurmann, interview by author.
220
Schurmann, interview by author.
221
Phillip Reed, preface to Purcell: A Miscellany of Songs, realized by Benjamin Britten (London: Faber Music,
1994).
222
Banks, 161.
218
61
Netherlands, Pears premiered Britten’s realization of Purcell’s “A Morning Prayer” on October
30223 and Britten’s arrangement of “O Waly Waly” on October 31.224 A week later, on
November 7, in Harmonie, Leeuwarden, Pears gave the premiere performance of Suite of Six
Songs from Orpheus Britannicus, songs realized and arranged for tenor and orchestra by
Britten.225 The suite includes the songs “Let Sullen Discord Smile,” “Why Should Men Quarrel,”
“So When the Glittering Queen of Night,” “Thou Tun’st This World,” “‘Tis Holiday,” and
“Sound Fame Thy Brazon Trumpet.” Britten had not previously realized any of these pieces for
piano.
Over the BBC Light Programme on November 21, 1946, Pears, Britten, flutist John
Francis, and the Zorian Quartet gave the first performance of Britten’s new arrangement of “The
Plough Boy.”226 On the same program, Pears, Britten, and French cellist Maurice Gendron
premiered Britten’s arrangement of the German folksong “The Stream in the Valley.”227
The most important premiere of 1946 was of Britten’s third opera, The Rape of Lucretia,
in which Pears sang the role of the Male Chorus. After the success of Peter Grimes, Britten went
almost immediately to his next opera, beginning composition in January 1946 and finishing on
May 3. 228 The opera was not produced by the Sadler’s Wells Company, but rather by the new
opera group created by Britten, Pears, Eric Crozier, and Joan Cross. John Christie gave the
company financial backing and Rudolf Bing asked them to produce the opera at the
Glyndebourne Music Festival, which was trying to reopen after six years of wartime closure. The
company took on the name of the Glyndebourne English Opera Company, and the cast and
orchestra arrived at Glyndebourne on June 10, 1946, taking up residence there for the next month
and a half. 229 The premiere of the opera took place on July 12, 1946, conducted by Ernest
Ansermet.230
Throughout the score of this opera there are a cappella and coloratura passages in the
tenor role. The opera begins with a long recitative for the Male Chorus, “Rome is now ruled…”
in which most of the vocal line is unaccompanied. As the scene continues and the Male Chorus’s
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
Banks, 179.
Banks, 161.
Banks, 183-4. “’Tis Holiday” was not published with the other songs.
Banks, 162.
Banks, 163.
Banks, 79.
Carpenter, 236.
Banks, 80.
62
lines become more aria-like, one hears the melismatic nature of the role. Melismas occur more
frequently and at greater length in the tenor’s aria, “Tarquinius does not dare,” which begins just
before the first Interlude. Many of the melismas begin high and descend (ex. 36).
Example 37: Benjamin Britten, The Rape of Lucretia, “Intermezzo” fig. 49, mm. 1-23.
After a two week run at the Glyndebourne Festival, the group went on tour around
England and Scotland. In the first six months, there were eighty performances of The Rape of
Lucretia.231 Despite the number of performances, the tour was not financially successful.
Following his financial loss on the tour of Lucretia, John Christie said he could not
possibly support other tours. In any case Britten… now wanted nothing to do with
Glyndebourne beyond keeping the agreement to present the new piece there next
summer. The Glyndebourne English Opera Company was wound up, and into being came
the English Opera Group.232
The EOG, as it came to be known, was officially founded in early 1947. It “was launched on a
non-profit making basis with a manifesto headed by the names of three artistic directors (Britten,
Crozier and Piper) as well as other well-known people including Kenneth Clark, Ralph Hawkes
and Tyrone Guthrie.”233 Performances of The Rape of Lucretia continued in a tour to Amsterdam
231
232
233
Headington, 140.
Carpenter, 243.
Headington, 141.
63
in October 1946, and Pears sang in the broadcast premiere on October 11, 1946 on the BBC
Third Programme.234
234
Banks, 80.
64
CHAPTER 8
1947
Purcell/Britten: “I Attempt from Love’s Sickness to Fly”
In January 1947, Pears sang in Italy, Holland, Belgium, and Scandanavia, 235 then he and
Britten spent February in Switzerland on holiday and giving recitals. Britten composed much of
his next opera, Albert Herring, on that trip.236 In April, Pears sang the Evangelist in Bach’s St.
Matthew Passion in Amsterdam, about which a critic wrote, “Apart from his phenomenal
singing, there is in his rendering an ideal balance between narrative objectivity and dramatic
expression.”237 He and Britten went next back to Italy for recitals, and on April 26 in Teatro
Comunale, Florence, Pears and Britten premiered Britten’s realization of “I Attempt from Love’s
Sickness to Fly” by Purcell.238
Britten: Albert Herring
Pears created the title role in Albert Herring on June 20, 1947 at Glyndebourne.239 The
EOG performed the opera, although they were no longer officially affiliated with the
Glyndebourne Festival. The BBC Third Programme broadcast the premiere performance of the
opera,240 and there were eight subsequent performances at Glyndebourne.241
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
Headington, 147.
Carpenter, 248.
Headington 149.
Banks, 181.
Banks, 83.
Banks, 83.
Headington, 142.
65
Very few of the musical characteristics associated with Pears are present in this opera.
There is only one melismatic passage in the opera for Albert. It is in his second monologue of act
II scene 2, which begins high and descends (ex. 38).
Example 38: Benjamin Britten, Albert Herring, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 87, mm. 8-11.
There are no unaccompanied sections, except for a single bar in Act III scene 2, in which Albert
says the famous line, “Have a nice peach.” What one must consider though in seeing this role as
one made carefully for Pears is the role’s dramatic content. As emotional intensity is necessary to
successfully sing The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, so is the singer’s ability to act in a comic role
a factor in Albert Herring. Pears never formally studied acting, yet it is certain that he had
exceptional ability in this regard, especially in comic acting. He had great success in the comic
role of Vasek in The Bartered Bride and would later have the opportunity to use this gift singing
Pandarus in Walton’s Troilus and Cressida (1954) and Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(1960).
In late September 1946, Pears and the EOG performed Albert Herring in Newcastle and
again at Covent Gardens on October 8, just two days after Pears’s mother died. A review for the
performance said, “Peter Pears, as Albert, displayed a wonderful articulation of voice. By shrewd
management of his vocal strength and dramatic movements he built up the character in a manner
rarely seen on the stilted and conventional operatic stage.”242
242
Headington, 142.
66
Berkeley: Stabat Mater
After the first run of performances of Albert Herring, the English Opera Group went on
tour to Holland and Switzerland. While in Switzerland, the Group gave the first performance of
Lennox Berkeley’s Stabat Mater, op. 28. Although not a work for the stage, the English Opera
Group commissioned it.243 Britten asked Berkeley “to write a work for a tour of the English
Opera Group, which planned to give concert performances as well as theatrical productions.”244
Berkeley dedicated Stabat Mater to Benjamin Britten, who conducted the performance.245 Years
earlier, in 1938, Britten dedicated his piano concerto to Berkeley.246
Lennox Randal Berkeley (1903-1989) was born in Sunningwell Plain, near Oxford. He
moved to Paris in the autumn of 1926 at the suggestion of Maurice Ravel and studied
composition with Nadia Boulanger until 1933.247 “The English academic or folksong tradition
thus played no part in his musical training, as they did in that of most British composers of his
generation.”248 Berkeley met Britten at the International Society for Contemporary Musicians
Festival at Barcelona in April 1936. “Berkeley immediately recognized Britten’s natural
brilliance. It was a case of hero worship and they became friends.”249 Berkeley was one of
Britten’s “closest friends for at least a few months until Britten got to know Peter Pears and took
a flat with him in London in March 1938.”250
Berkeley met Pears through Britten and may have written for Pears’s voice already in
1940. In April of that year, Berkeley wrote to Britten in America, “I’ll send you a copy of my
Housman songs – perhaps Peter might sing them.” Peter Dickinson wrote,
There is no evidence that the songs were sung until after Pears sent me the manuscript in
1975: Ian and Jennifer Partridge performed them on BBC Radio 3 in 1978 and they were
published in 1983…. How unfortunate that Pears simply hung on to the manuscript
instead of performing what is possibly the finest Housman cycle of all.251
243
Mitchell, vol. 1, 40.
Peter Dickinson, The Music of Lennox Berkeley (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2003), 114-5.
245
Carpenter, 148.
246
Banks, 43.
247
Dickinson, The Music of Lennox Berkeley, 8.
248
Wilfred H. Mellers, “Berkeley, Lennox,” in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., vol. 1, ed. Eric
Blom, (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 647.
249
Dickinson, 2.
250
Dickinson, 34.
251
Dickinson, 89.
244
67
Berkeley also dedicated his songs, “The Ecstatic” (C. Day Lewis) and “Lullaby” (W. B. Yeats),
for high voice and piano, to Pears. There is no known performance of either song by Pears.252
Berkeley scored Stabat Mater for six solo voices and a chamber orchestra of eleven
instruments and percussion. The EOG first performed it in Kleiner Saal of the Tonhalle in Zurich
on August 19, 1947, and it was broadcast for the first time on September 27, 1947 on the BBC
from Concert Hall in London. This was also the first British performance. The first concert
performance in the UK was on June 22, 1953 during the Aldeburgh Festival, again performed by
Pears and the EOG and conducted by Britten.253 Pears often extracted the fifth movement tenor
aria, “Eia mater fons amoris,” what Dickinson calls the “ most Rossinian moment in the entire
work,”254 and performed it several times in recitals with Britten. The aria contains long
melismas, many of which begin in a low dynamic and high in the tenor range and then descend
(ex. 39).
Example 39: Stabat Mater, V, “Eia mater fons amoris,” mm. 11-14.
Britten: Canticle: My Beloved is Mine
The Canticle was, according to Pears in 1952 “Britten’s finest piece of vocal music to
date.”255 He began composing it on September 4, 1947 and completed it eight days later.256 Pears
wrote that, “Fascinated by the form of such pieces as Lord, What is Man? [Britten] found in it
252
253
254
255
256
Stewart R. Craggs, Lennox Berkeley: A Source Book (Aldershots, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2000), 70.
Craggs, Berkeley: A Source Book, 78.
Dickinson, 118.
Pears, “The Vocal Music,” 72.
Banks, 85.
68
the ideal shape for an extended song, a sort of cantata.”257 Tippett’s Boyhood’s End had a similar
inspiration in Baroque vocal form and preceded the Canticle by four years. Tippett’s exploration
of the form may have helped to inspire Britten’s.
Before the premiere of the Canticle, Pears and Britten gave broadcast premieres of
folksongs “The Miller of Dee” and “The Foggy, Foggy Dew” during a recital broadcast on the
BBC Light Program on September 18.258 Pears then went to sing at the Edinburgh Festival for
the first time, where he sang two performances of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.259 Pears and
Britten premiered Canticle: My Beloved is Mine on November 1, 1947 in Central Hall at
Westminster.260 This occasion was a memorial concert for the Rev. Dick Sheppard, one of the
founding members of Peace Pledge Union, an organization with which both Pears and Britten
associated themselves.
There are monotone vocal lines in the opening stanza of the song (ex. 40), and there are
extended melismatic passages in the first section. Each begins high in the vocal range and
descends (ex. 41, 42). In the central recitative section of the piece, the vocal writing is in
declamatory style, similar to that seen in The Holy Sonnets and some of the Purcell realizations.
Example 40: Benjamin Britten, Canticle, mm. 4-6.
Example 41: Benjamin Britten, Canticle, mm. 33-35.
257
258
259
260
Pears, “The Vocal Music,” 72.
Banks, 161.
Headington, 149.
Banks, 85.
69
Example 42: Benjamin Britten, Canticle, mm. 39-43.
Purcell/Britten: “When Myra sings”
Later in November 1947, Pears and Britten gave the broadcast premieres of “Fish in the
Unruffled Lakes,”261 several Purcell realizations,262 and Canticle.263 On November 29, during a
BBC Third Programme broadcast, Pears and tenor Max Malli sang the premiere performance of
Britten’s realization of “When Myra Sings.” This version was not published and “is a different
realization than that which was completed by June 1971 for tenor, baritone and piano.”264 Pears
and Britten gave another recital over the BBC Light Programme on December 11 and gave the
broadcast premiere of Britten’s realization of “Sweeter than Roses.”265
Searle: Put Away the Flutes
Pears sang one other premiere in 1947, Put Away the Flutes by Humphrey Searle (19151982), “a short piece… for flute, oboe and string quartet. This had been commissioned by Peter
Pears, always a generous patron of young composers.”266 Pears gave the first performance of this
“emotionally telling work”267 on BBC radio, where Searle was a program producer. The first
261
Banks, 41. The specific date of this performance was not noted.
Banks, 180-2. On November 24, they performed The Queen’s Epicedium and “If Music be the Food of Love”
(third version). On November 29, they performed “Sound the Alarm.”
263
Banks, 85. This performance was on November 26 and included On this Island.
264
Banks, 177.
265
Banks, 143.
266
Humphrey Searle, “Quadrille with a Raven: Memoirs by Humphrey Searle” Classical Music on the Web,
(Accessed 24 October 2003), <http://www.musicweb.uk.net/searle/bbc.htm>
267
Jacobs, “The British Isles,” 179.
262
70
concert performance was at the International Society of Contemporary Musicians Festival in
Amsterdam in 1948, though Pears did not sing this concert.268
Searle was a student of Anton Webern for a short time in 1937, which “gave him an
insight into that composer’s outlook, as well as a sense of purpose for the future.”269 Searle
composed his first strictly twelve-tone work in 1946 and then composed Pears’s commission,
also in the twelve-tone style, almost immediately after. This is the first twelve-tone work of
Pears’s commissions and is a curious addition to the catalogue. Neither Pears nor Britten had
much admiration for that compositional technique, and they performed only one work by
Webern during their careers. In 1957 at the tenth Aldeburg Festival they performed Webern’s
Four Songs, op. 12. “No other work by that composer was done at Aldeburgh in Britten’s
lifetime.”270 In this performance, “[Pears] found that he could not help making mistakes; even so,
as he said later, ‘the avant garde boys came with tears in their eyes saying “We’ve never heard
this Webern sung like this!” – indeed they probably haven’t, but they think it’s absolutely
marvellous, and if they don’t know the difference between right and wrong, well, who does?”271
268
Searle, “Quadrille with a Raven.”
Francis Routh, “Humphrey Searle,” Classical Music on the Web (Accessed 24 October 2003),
<http://www.musicweb.uk.net/searle/routhhs.htm>
270
Headington, 190.
271
Headington, 315.
269
71
CHAPTER 9
1948
Purcell/Britten: Job’s Curse
Pears and Britten spent January 1948 touring in Italy, Switzerland, and Holland, during
which time Britten composed Beggar’s Opera, his next opera.272 At a recital in Amsterdam on
April 4, they gave the premiere performance Britten’s realization of Job’s Curse by Purcell. 273 In
this concert they coupled Job’s Curse with Britten’s Canticle, which became a common pairing.
Later that year, at their recital at the first Aldeburgh Festival, they sang both works calling them
“Two Divine Hymns.”274
On April 9, Pears and Britten performed over BBC Third Programme a set of Schubert
songs and Six Monologues from Jedermann by Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974). This
was the first performance of these songs in the UK.275 Martin composed Six Monologues for
baritone and piano, with text by Hugo von Hoffmannstal in 1944. According to the Frank Martin
Catalogue of Works, the premiere of this work was on August 6, 1944 and the UK premiere was
on February 29, 1952 with contralto Elsa Cavelti accompanied by the composer.276 The
performance by Pears and Britten, although it is not mentioned in the catalogue, clearly precedes
that one.
Broadcast recitals were an important part of Pears’s performance schedule. Pears gave
many broadcast premieres of works and he sang many of Britten’s works over the radio soon
272
Headington, 152.
Banks, 178.
274
BPL Archive.
275
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
276
Charles W. King, comp., Frank Martin: A Bio-bibliography: Catalogue of Published Works (New York:
Greenwood, 1990), 20.
273
72
after their concert premieres. In a broadcast recital, on April 15, Pears and Britten gave the
broadcast premiere of Britten’s realizations of “If Music be the Food of Love” (1st version) and
“Man is for the Woman Made.”277
Oldham: Summer’s Lease
Oldham: The Sunne Rising
Pears and Britten gave a Saturday afternoon recital on April 24, 1948 at Wigmore Hall,
billed as their “Only Recital this Season.”278 In the concert they gave the UK premiere of Job’s
Curse, programming it with Britten’s Canticle.279 They also premiered of a work by Arthur
Oldham (1926-2003) called The Sunne Rising. Oldham, who had studied composition with
Britten since 1944, had already written one piece for Pears. Oldham wrote, “Four years had now
elapsed since I had begun my studies with Britten…. He now began actively to encourage my
work by helping me to obtain commissions and performances. The first of these was a piece for
tenor and string orchestra, consisting of settings of Shakespeare sonnets, and which I entitled
Summer’s Lease.”280 The premiere took place at Chelsea Town Hall with the composer
conducting, but the precise date is unknown, although it took place. Oldham recalled that “Ben
was critical [of Summer’s Lease]… because it was a rather blatant attempt on my part to rival the
success of his Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo.”281
Oldham’s opinion of his setting of John Donne’s poetry in The Sunne Rising was not
high. In a letter written in April 1948 just after the premiere, Oldham said,
[Britten] asked me how I felt, hearing my piece at Saturday’s concert. I told him I loathed
every minute of it; and he said he does too, with his own pieces – ‘That’s why I can never
bear to go see Grimes.’… It’s a long time since I [Oldham] wrote the Donne – and there’s
been much better stuff since – and I hated it and thought everyone else did too. But Ben
assured me that, if he and Peter hadn’t thought very highly of it, they never would have
done it.282
Neither The Sunne Rising nor Summer’s Lease were published and were either lost or destroyed.
277
278
279
280
281
282
Banks, 183.
BPL Archive.
Banks, 178.
Arthur Oldham, Living with Voices: An Autobiography (England: Thames, 2000), 24.
Oldham, Living with Voices, 24.
Oldham, 22-23.
73
Britten: Beggar’s Opera
Britten’s fifth opera, The Beggar’s Opera, an arrangement of John Gay’s 1728 balladopera, had its premiere on May 24, 1948 at the Arts Theater in Cambridge. The Beggar’s Opera
is an arrangement as well as a realization due to Britten’s “more or less ‘free’ treatment of [the
original] material.”283 Britten began work on it in December 1947 and completed it in May.284
Pears created the role of Captain Macheath, the wealthy gamester, highwayman, and frequent
visitor of the town’s various bars and brothels, and sang all seven performances in Cambridge.285
During rehearsals for the opera, director Tyrone Guthrie was unhappy with Pears’s portrayal,
saying that Macheath “was a part that could only be played by a real man.”286 Although Pears
sang the role “admirably,” Britten revised the opera two years later and transposed Pears’s role
for a baritone. “The result was not altogether satisfactory, some of the buoyancy and sparkle of
the score being thereby lost.”287 The EOG cast, without Pears, premiered the revised version on
June 19, 1950 at the Aldeburgh Festival.288
The 1948 version, written for Pears, does not possess any unaccompanied sections or
extended melismatic passages. While Britten made free with the accompaniment of the opera, he
did not reshape any of the vocal lines. The tessitura of the role is high, although the range only
extends up to A-flat 4. The third act holds an extended solo scene for the tenor, in which he sits
in jail awaiting his execution and “reflects on his fate and consoles himself with wine.”289
Britten: Saint Nicolas
The First Aldeburgh Festival took place between June 5 and June 12 in Aldeburgh,
England, almost immediately after the performances of The Beggar’s Opera. The festival, which
Pears, Britten, and others discussed for the first time less than a year before, consisted of daily
283
Eric Rosenberry, “Old Songs in New Contexts: Britten as Arranger,” in The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin
Britten, ed. Mervyn Cooke (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1999), 297. For a complete discussion on Britten’s
Beggar’s Opera, see Hans Keller, “Britten’s Beggar’s Opera,” Tempo (new series) 10 (1948-49): 7-13.
284
Banks, 87.
285
Headington, 152.
286
Carpenter, 266-7.
287
White, Britten: A Sketch of his Life and Works, 70.
288
Banks, 87.
289
Rosenberry, “Old Songs in New Contexts,” 299.
74
events including musical performances, lectures, and poetry readings. In following years the
festival would also include films and nature walks. Events during the first several years took
place in local churches, the cinema, and the Jubilee Hall, a small theater in the town. The
opening concert of the first festival occurred on a Saturday afternoon at the Aldeburgh Parish
Church. In the first half of the concert, there were performances of works by Purcell and Handel,
and God’s Grandeur, a choral work by Martin Shaw (1875-1958) written for this concert.290 The
second half of the concert consisted of a single piece by Britten, Saint Nicolas op 42, a cantata
for tenor solo, chorus, semi-chorus, four solo boy singers, string orchestra, piano duet,
percussion, and organ. The Aldeburgh Festival Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Leslie
Woodgate and Pears as the tenor soloist performed the work.291
Britten completed Saint Nicolas on May 31, 1948, just after the premiere of The Beggar’s
Opera, and presumably during its first run of its performances. Lancing College, Pears’s alma
mater, commissioned Britten to compose the new cantata for “performance at the centenary
celebrations of Lancing College.” The college, however, gave Britten permission to have the
work performed first at the Aldeburgh Festival. The official premiere of Saint Nicolas took place
at Lancing College on July 24, 1948.292
Ten years earlier, in June 1938, Pears wrote in a letter to Britten, “Exciting about Osbert
[Sitwell, who may have been providing a text for Britten to set]. Make him do a Tenor
Cantata!!”293 In all of the music that Britten wrote for Pears over the next ten years he had not
written a tenor cantata until Saint Nicolas. The cantata features the tenor soloist prominently in
all but one of the nine movements. The second movement, “The Birth of Nicolas,” has only a
single solo line for the tenor on the phrase, “God be glorified!” The phrase is monotone on E4,
perhaps a glorification of Pears’s voice as well (ex. 43).
290
291
292
293
BPL Archives.
Banks, 88.
Banks, 88.
Mitchell, vol. 1, 559.
75
Example 43: Benjamin Britten, St. Nicolas, “The Birth of Nicolas,” mm. 70-76.
This is an important note throughout the role, as several of the solo melodies rely upon it. There
is a recitative in the fifth movement, “Nicolas Comes to Myra and is Chosen Bishop,” for
example, which is almost entirely on an E4 (ex. 44).
Example 44: Benjamin Britten, St. Nicolas, “Nicolas comes to Myra and is chosen Bishop,” mm. 11-14.
Pears sang the cantata under Britten’s direction in Amsterdam on December 9, 1948, a
performance that was broadcast over the radio, making it the first broadcast of the work. The
chorus sang in English, but Pears sang his solo parts in Dutch, possibly calling upon his coaching
on the language with Gerard Schurmann in 1946.294 There was another broadcast of the work
with Pears singing on January 6, 1949 over the BBC Third Programme, which the Radio Times
294
Banks, 88.
76
called the premiere broadcast. It, of course, was not, but it was the first broadcast within the UK,
and the first sung in English.295
On December 29, Pears, Joan Cross, bass George James, and pianist Boris Ord gave a
recital over the BBC Third Programme. In it Pears took part in the broadcast premiere of several
of Britten’s realizations of Purcell songs. He sang solos Job’s Curse,296 “Lost is My Quiet,”297
“Alleluia,”298 duets “Celemene, Pray Tell Me” for soprano and tenor,299 “What Can We Poor
Females do?” for tenor and bass,300 “I Spy Celia” for tenor and bass,301 and trio Saul and the
Witch at Endor.302
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
Banks, 178.
Banks, 182.
Banks, 179. This piece may have been sung by Joan Cross.
Banks, 73.
Banks, 182.
Banks, 182.
Banks, 178.
77
CHAPTER 10
1949
Holst/Britten: The Wandering Scholar
The first of the five premieres that Pears sang in 1949 was an arrangement by Britten and
Imogen Holst of the chamber opera in one act, The Wandering Scholar by Gustav Holst (18741934). Britten and Imogen Holst, the daughter of the composer, arranged the opera in late 1948
“in preparation for the broadcast of the work” given by the English Opera Group.303 The
broadcast took place on January 5, 1949 over BBC Third Programme sung by Pears, soprano
Margaret Ritchie, baritone Frederick Sharpe, and bass George James. The EOG later gave the
stage premiere on July 1951 at the Cheltenham Festival, though this cast did not include Pears.304
In late 1948, Britten began to experience health problems and doctors ordered him to take
three months of rest. “Britten now gave Pears a hint they might have to cease doing recitals
together.”305 Britten’s health limited his touring and performing, and he spent more time at his
home in Aldeburgh where he worked on his commissions for the year. In early 1949 he began
work on Billy Budd, the Spring Symphony, and his children’s opera Let’s Make an Opera. The
first two had substantial parts for Pears, but Let’s Make an Opera did not. On April 8, Britten
wrote to Pears, “I am pushing on terrifically with the children’s opera…. It’s funny writing an
opera without you in it – don’t really like it much, I confess, but I’ll admit that it makes my vocal
303
304
305
Banks, 190.
Banks, 190.
Carpenter, 270.
78
demands less extravagant.”306 Pears and Britten did finally give recitals in April and May in such
locations as Dartington Hall in England, Brussels, Amsterdam, Milan, and Vienna.307
Oldham: Five Chinese Lyrics
At the second Aldeburgh Festival, there were performances of three of Britten’s operas;
Albert Herring and The Rape of Lucretia, both with Pears, and the premiere of Let’s Make an
Opera. Pears also sang in serenade concerts, choral and orchestral concerts which included two
Bach Cantatas and Saint Nicolas. The closing event of the festival on June 19 in Jubilee Hall was
a recital given by Pears and Britten. They performed Elizabethan songs by Thomas Ford, John
Dowland, Philip Rosseter and Robert Jones, six of Britten’s Purcell realizations, songs by Frank
Bridge and Gustav Holst, and Five Chinese Lyrics, a new song cycle by Arthur Oldham.308
Oldham composed this cycle, the third of his works premiered by Pears, some time
between 1943 and October 1945. Britten and Pears heard three of the songs in a performance in
Paris in late October 1945 during the tour of Ronald Duncan’s play This Way to the Tomb, for
which Britten composed the incidental music and Oldham was the music director. The entire
company, including Oldham, Britten, and Pears went on the tour. Oldham wrote,
During [the]… tour in Paris… I included [three songs to translations of Chinese texts] in
a recital…. Ben and Peter got to hear of them and suggested that I should expand the
group. With two new additions, they included my Five Chinese Lyrics in a recital of
English songs, the concluding concert of the 1949 Aldeburgh Festival. They were an
immediate success, were recorded (three of them) by Britten and Pears, and remain in the
repertoire to this day.309
A music critic wrote in 1965, “The delicate and luminous Five Chinese Lyrics has
become perhaps the most frequently performed [of the songs by Oldham].”310 Pears and Britten
continued to perform the songs for many years after the premiere. They gave the broadcast
premiere on October 10, 1949 on the BBC Third Programme,311 the first performance in London
on October 13, 1949, and on December 8, 1949 in New York, most assuredly the American
306
307
308
309
310
311
Carpenter, 273-4.
Headington, 155.
BPL Archives.
Oldham, 25.
Conrad Wilson, “Arthur Oldham,” Musical Times 106 (1965), 947.
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
79
premiere. The last recorded performance of a recital by Pears to include the songs was on April
23, 1955 at Wigmore Hall. 312 Pears and Britten recorded three of the five songs in September and
October of 1955 at the Decca Recording Studio as part of an album entitled Twentieth Century
English Songs.313 There are unaccompanied sections in three of the five songs: the first song
“Under the Pondweed,” the fourth “The Pedlar of Spells,” and the fifth “A Gentle Wind.” This
last song also has a highly melismatic vocal line (ex. 43).
Example 45: Arthur Oldham, Five Chinese Lyrics, “A Gentle Wind,” mm. 3-8.
Lier: The Song of Songs
After the 1949 Aldeburgh Festival, the English Opera Group went on tour with the same
three operas that it presented at the festival.314 This tour took them to Amsterdam where Pears
sang in two premieres performances. The first, on July 12 in Oude Kerk, Amsterdam was of
Bertus van Lier’s The Song of Songs. This is how the title reads in Tribute to Peter Pears,315
however the proper, Dutch title is Het hooglied. Bertus van Lier (1906-1972), a Dutch composer,
was also active in musicology and conducting.
As a frequent conductor of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, van Lier had noted that
movement no. 30 of the work contains a quotation from the Song of Songs. This led him
312
313
314
315
BPL Archive.
BPL Archive.
Headington, 155.
Thorpe, A Tribute to Peter Pears, 128.
80
to undertake extensive research on the text, finally resulting in the composition of his
own Het hooglied (‘The Holy Song’) for soprano, tenor, bass, mixed chorus and chamber
orchestra (1949)…. It counts among his most successful and impressive works.316
Pears sang Lier’s work with soprano Dors van Doorn-Linderman, bass Hermann Schey and the
Amsterdam Chamber Music Society, with the composer conducting.
Britten: Spring Symphony
Two days after the Lier premiere, Pears took part in the premiere of Britten’s Spring
Symphony, op 44 for soprano, alto, and tenor soloists, chorus, boys’ chorus and orchestra. The
soloists were Pears, soprano Jo Vincent and contralto Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953). They sang
with the Dutch Radio Chorus and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, with Eduard van Beinum
conducting. The performance was broadcast on the BBC Third Programme.317
The symphony features the tenor prominently in six of the twelve movements, including
three arias and one duet. The first and second arias, “The Merry Cuckoo” and “Waters Above,”
feature high tessituras, stretches of unaccompanied sections, and long melismatic phrases (ex. 46,
47). The first aria is scored for tenor and three solo trumpets while the second is scored for tenor
and two solo violins, leaving the voice exposed throughout each aria.
316
Marius Flothuis, “Lier, Bertus van,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 20
October 2003), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
317
Banks, 92.
81
Example 46: Benjamin Britten, Spring Symphony, “The Merry Cuckoo,” mm. 10-16.
Example 47: Benjamin Britten, Spring Symphony, “Waters above,” mm. 6-9.
82
The last aria, “When will my May come,” has a fuller accompaniment, consisting of a full string
section and two harps. It has a high tessitura and several unaccompanied phrases. The last phrase
of the aria rises to A4, marked ppp, at which point the orchestra stops playing (ex. 48).
Example 48: Benjamin Britten, Spring Symphony, “When Will My May Come,” mm. 68-71.
Britten: Wedding Anthem (Amo Ergo Sum)
After the premiere of the Spring Symphony, the EOG went on to Copenhagen and Oslo
for more performances of Albert Herring and The Rape of Lucretia from September 12 through
23. During this time, Britten completed the next composition that Pears would premiere, A
Wedding Anthem: Amo Ergo Sum, op, 46 for soprano, tenor, choir, and organ.318 Britten
conducted Pears and Joan Cross and the choir of St. Mark’s Church in the premiere on
September 29 at St. Mark’s Church in London. The occasion of the performance was the
wedding of Lord Harewood and Marion Stein, close friends of Britten and Pears. Queen
Elizabeth and King George VI, the uncle of Harewood, were among those at the ceremony.
Although one does not find in this work the typical markers for Pears’s voice, there is a tenor
line that is similar to one heard in the Spring Symphony. The arioso, “As Mountain Streams Find
One Another,” closes with an ascending line, marked piano with a decrescendo, which ends on a
sustained A4 (ex. 49).
318
Banks, 93.
83
Example 49: Benjamin Britten, Wedding Anthem.
84
CHAPTER 11
1950
Orr: Three Romantic Songs
The first of several premieres in 1950 was Three Romantic Songs by Robin Orr (b.1909).
The performance took place on May 10, on the BBC Third Programme with Pears, oboist
Terrance MacDonagh and the Aeolin String Quartet.319 Pears became acquainted with Orr in
1947, and in 1949 Orr participated as an organist in a concert at the Aldeburgh Festival. 320 Not
long after, Pears commissioned a work from Orr. Orr later revised the songs, and on November
14, 1950, Pears premiered Four Romantic Songs with members of the London Harpsichord
Ensemble.321
The titles of the songs in the original version were “Winter,” “Spring,” and “Summer.” In
the revised version, Orr renamed each song by the first line of its text, inserting a new song
between the second and third: “Down from the Branches,” “Comes Now the Spring,” “Now the
Fields are Laughing,” and “While Summer on is Stealing.” Orr made a significant cut from the
original set: eighteen measures of an interlude that connected the second and third songs. Beyond
these changes, the work is basically the same. There are a few changes in rhythmic patterns and
meter, but this is generally confined to the accompaniment. Orr did not alter the vocal line, save
some enharmonic note name changes, and the reshaping of one phrase. In both versions, Orr
wrote one unaccompanied phrase, which appears at the end of the second song.
319
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
BPL Archive.
321
The manuscript of both versions of Orr’s music are at the Britten-Pears Library. The later version was
published.
320
85
Copland: Old American Songs (first set)
At the 1950 Aldeburgh Festival, Pears sang in a complete performance of the St. Matthew
Passion in German as the Evangelist, the first performance of its kind to take place in Britain.322
He also participated in a concert of operatic arias and duets with Joan Cross, accompanied by
Britten, as well as a choral and orchestral concert that featured Britten’s Amo Ergo Sum.323 On
June 18, he and Britten gave a recital in Jubilee Hall and performed Schumann’s Dichterliebe,
music by Purcell, John Ireland and Frank Bridge. The concert concluded with the premiere of
Aaron Copland’s (1900-1990) first set of Old American Songs. The audience was enthusiastic
toward the new songs, and Pears repeated the last song, “I Bought Me a Cat,” as an encore.324
The program from the premiere performance reads, “The songs were arranged at the
instigation of today’s performers on their recent tour of the United States,”325 a tour which lasted
from October until early December 1949. Copland and Britten met in London at an ISCM
concert in June 1938.326 Afterward, Britten invited Copland to spend the weekend at his home in
Snape, during which time they played through some of their compositions, offering suggestions
and criticisms. As a result of this weekend visit, Britten helped to secure Copland with a contract
with Boosey & Hawkes. 327 Pears was not present for any of this, as he was engaged with the
Glyndebourne Opera Company throughout the summer of 1938 singing in the chorus.328 He did
not meet Copland until the following year when he and Britten lived in Woodstock, NY.
Britten wrote to soprano Sophie Wyss from America in January 1940, describing
Copland as “by far the best American composer,”329 an opinion “seconded by Pears…. Both
Britten and Pears loved Copland’s music…. and were troubled by the fact that Copland had not
yet written any songs…. As a duo, they especially regretted the dearth of songs in the Copland
catalog.”330
322
Carpenter, 289.
BPL Archive.
324
BPL Archive.
325
BPL Archive.
326
Carpenter, 124.
327
Howard Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man (Chicago: University of Illinois,
2000), 73.
328
Headington, 81.
329
Mitchell, vol. 2, 772.
330
Pollack, Aaron Copland, 74.
323
86
Although Pears and Copland commissioned the songs in 1949, Copland began composing
them as early as 1945. He composed “I Bought Me a Cat” in 1945 as part of his unfinished
opera, On Tragic Ground.331 Copland’s biographer, Howard Pollack wrote that “[Copland] had
used – or considered using – at least six of these songs [from the two sets of Old American
Songs] in the past, so in some respects the project represented a cleaning house of sorts.”332 It is
difficult to know, then, whether or not Copland’s arrangements purposefully reflect his
conception of Pears’s voice. As well, Pears transposed three of the five songs when he performed
and recording them; the second song, “The Dodger,” up a full step, from G to A major, the third
song, “Long Time Ago,” up a minor third to D flat major, and “I Bought Me a Cat” up a major
second to G major. The most striking transposition is in “Long time ago,” in which the higher
tessitura would better suit Pears’s voice and would allow him to sing Copland’s long piano
phrases, with his characteristic mezza-voce. Pears also reordered the songs when he performed
them, reversing the second and third songs as to produce a fast-slow-fast-slow-fast pattern in the
set.
A significant feature in the first song that points to Pears’s voice, is in the refrain of the
first song, “The Boatmen’s Dance.” The refrain is repeated six times at different dynamics
throughout the song, each one emphasizing the tenor’s E4. Perhaps Pears’s voice and music that
he performed inspired Copland to set “The Boatman’s Dance” in the key that he did or to place
this song first in the set (ex. 50).
Example 50: Aaron Copland, Old American Songs (first set), “The Boatmen’s Dance,” mm. 2-3.
331
332
Pollack, 421.
Pollack, 468.
87
On May 23, 1950, Copland wrote to Pears saying how happy he was to know about the
many planned performances of his songs. He went on to say that his Twelve Poems of Emily
Dickinson had its premiere just a few days before, on May 18, 1950 and that he was anxious to
compose more songs. In fact, after Copland composed his second set of Old American Songs in
1952, he only wrote one more song during his life, “Dirge in the Woods” in 1954.333
Pears and Britten performed the Old American Songs often in the coming years, and at
the end of September 1950, Britten and Pears recorded Copland’s songs for the HMV record
label. In 1952, Copland completed a second set of Old American Songs, which American
baritone William Warfield and Copland premiered on July 24, 1953.334 Copland later
orchestrated both sets. Warfield and Pears were both a part of the songs’ lives and reputations,
but Warfield’s reputation has outlasted Pears’s, as is seen in an introductory comment found on
the Old American Song (second set). “The first set of Old American Songs was completed in
1950, and William Warfield gave the first performance in New York on January 28, 1951.”335
Copland’s music was not performed at the Aldeburgh Festival for more than ten years
after the world premiere of Old American Songs. On July 13, 1959, Copland wrote to Britten
answering a request for participation in the next Festival. He suggested that Pears sing both sets
of Old American Songs in their orchestrated versions, conducted by Copland.336 The songs were
not performed at that Festival or any following, and Pears never sang the second set of Old
American Songs, nor did he sing the orchestrated version of either set.
Purcell/Britten: “The Dialogue of Corydon and Mopsa”
In a recital at Central Hall, Westminster in London on September 25, 1950, Pears and
Kathleen Ferrier premiered Britten’s realization of Purcell’s duet “The Dialogue of Corydon and
Mopsa.”337 This was a different version “from that included in the Britten-Pears-Holst edition of
The Fairy Queen.”338 In the program, which was in aid of the National Appeal Fund, Ferrier sang
333
334
335
336
337
338
Pollack,, 563.
Pollack, 467.
Preface to Old Amercian Songs (second set) by Aaron Copland (U.S.A.: Boosey & Hawkes, 1954).
BPL Archive.
Banks, 173.
Banks, 173.
88
some of Britten’s realizations and folksongs,339 and Pears sang Copland’s Old American Songs
as well as an aria by Handel. It was perhaps this performance that caused Richard Butt, a friend
of Pears’s, to write about, “A recital with Kathleen Ferrier and Ben [and Pears] at the Central
Hall, Westminster that included ‘Waft her, angels’, and it was in the singing, and the playing [by
Britten], of that single Handel aria… that one became aware of a new doorway into Music.”340
Williams: Three Traditional Welsh Ballads
On November 14, 1950, Pears performed at the Friend’s House in London with members
of the London Harpsichord Ensemble.341 Pears performed frequently with this ensemble and, in
fact this group formed the core of the English Opera Group Orchestra. Under the guise of the
London Harpsichord Ensemble, they focused “on the Baroque repertoire, but not exclusively so.
We performed many contemporary and near contemporary works, especially of British
composers and those with whom we were personally associated.”342 This concert included the
premiere of Orr’s revised Four Romantic Songs and the premiere of Grace Williams’s Three
Traditional Welsh Ballads.
Grace Williams (1906-1977) was born in Barry, South Wales into a musical family which
“overflowed with music and gramophone records, and her family eagerly attended concerts of
visiting orchestras and went to London for the Promenade concerts.”343 She studied composition
at the University College in Cardiff from 1923 until 1926, where she studied harmony and
counterpoint, but had little opportunity for her own composition.344 She went on to the Royal
College of Music in London, and studied composition with Ralph Vaughan Williams and
339
Christopher Fifield, ed., The Letters and Diaries of Kathleen Ferrier (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2003), 128.
In this source, a letter from Ferrier to John Newmark sent on September 28, 1950 reads of Ferrier’s account of the
recital. “Did a concert for the United Nations the other evening with Ben and Peter. Did Bad Mess [properly Mad
Bess] and several of his folksongs – Bess rather quicker, especially in the dance rhythm parts, than I remembered –
and oh he is a superb pianist. I didn’t have enough rehearsal with him, and found him a little bit disconcerting,
whilst still loving what he did – forgot my words several times as a result, but put in some rude German ones and the
Churchills and Attlees, who were there, would be no wiser than I am sure!!”
340
Thorpe, 16.
341
John Francis, flute; Joy Boughton, oboe; Hans Geiger, violin; Peter Mountain, violin; Bernard Davis, viola; and
Ambrose Gauntlet, cello.
342
Peter Mountain, who joined the London Harpsichord Ensemble in early 1950, became the leader of the group in
1952 and left in 1955 when he was appointed leader of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, to the author,
letter, April 25, 2003.
343
Jennifer Doctor, “Intersecting Circles: The Early Careers of Elizabeth Maconchy, Elisabeth Lutyens, and Grace
Williams,” Women & Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture 2 (1998), 90.
344
Malcolm Boyd, Grace Williams (Cardiff: University of Wales, 1980), 11.
89
Gordon Jacobs. “It happened that her contemporaries [at the college] included several of the
same age and sex as herself, and together they made a formidable circle of young women
composers, or would-be composers: Dorothy Gow, Imogen Holst, Elizabeth Maconchy, and
Elisabeth Lutyens.”345
In 1929 Williams won a scholarship for traveling and went to Vienna where she studied
during the summer of 1930 with Egon Wellesz (1885-1974). Wellesz later composed a piece for
Pears as well.346 Williams’s choice to study with Wellesz was perhaps unexpected, considering
that the style of music she would later compose was so different from his. Wellesz, a pupil of
Arnold Schoenberg, was an avid supporter of his teacher’s music, composed in a similar style,
and published a book on his teacher. Williams never claimed to be a supporter of Schoenberg or
his musical style.
After returning to London in late 1930, Williams lived in the southwest part of the city
near to where Britten lived, at which time they became friends. Britten aided Williams in finding
commissions for film scores and in getting some of her folksong arrangements published. It was
through Britten that Boosey & Hawkes published Williams’s folksong settings Six Welsh Oxen
Songs in 1937, which Britten said were “by far the best arrangements of any folk-songs I
know.”347 Britten and Williams grew to be very close friends and often critiqued each other’s
music. They had their compositions played at the Macnaghten-Lemare Concerts, a series of
concerts in London that featured new works by young composers. Williams had four of her
compositions performed at these concerts.348
Williams’s health caused her in 1946 to retire from the teaching position that she held.
She worked for a very short time “writing radio scripts, arranging music, and visiting schools”
for the BBC, but eventually quit that job as well. 349 She moved home to Wales in February 1947
and lived there for the rest of her life. In 1949, thinking that her condition had improved, and
finding it difficult to support herself as a composer in Wales, she went to London “in search of
another full time job (which will really mean the end of composing this time).”350 She returned
home having “had a lovely time in London but had no luck over jobs – except for some editing
345
346
347
348
349
350
Boyd, Grace Williams, 12-13.
Alleluia dic nobis for unaccompanied tenor, premiered by Pears in June 1958.
Mitchell, vol. 1, 345.
Doctor, “Insecting Circles,”101.
Boyd, 29.
Boyd, 30.
90
and arranging of school choruses for OUP [Oxford University Press]…. From now until
Christmas I’m having my last fling at composing… I’ve started on a Violin Concerto.”351
This was by no means the last of her compositions. Just over a year later came the
premiere of Three Traditional Welsh Ballads, which Pears commissioned and premiered. Pears
knew Williams through Britten, but there are no surviving letters between her and Pears until
November 18, 1950, four days after the performance. In the letter she apologizes for not being at
the concert. “I was really mad at not being able to come up to the concert…. The cheque you
enclosed is far too generous – (really meant what I said about not wanting anything) – so I’m
returning it with thanks.”352 One can only guess that the commission took place while Williams
was in London in late 1949. Pears and Britten left for America in a recital tour around this same
time, but it is possible that the three of them met before their departure. The score is dated
autumn 1950.
The Three Traditional Ballads exist in two forms at the Britten-Pears Library. In the first,
which has the title “Folksongs from the Gower Peninsula, sung by Phil Tanner, noted by Grace
Williams,” only the vocal lines have been written out. There are five songs in this set: “Sweet
Primroses,” “The Lass of Swansea Town,” “Fair Phoebe (The Dark-eyed Sailor),” “Fair Lisa,”
and “Crystal Spring.” The Gower Peninsula, a small land-mass on the southern coast of Wales, is
only about forty miles from where Williams grew up. Phillip Tanner (b. 1862, died after 1937)
was a Welsh traditional singer, though primarily a mill worker. His singing was recorded in
London in 1936 and he made a few appearances in the city the following year. He was “the only
Welsh traditional singer to have been of interest to the members of the Folksong Revival.”353
Williams’s melodies are likely to be based upon the recordings made by Tanner. The second set
of the songs at the Britten-Pears Library is Williams’s arrangement of three of the songs for
tenor, flute, oboe, and string quartet: “Sweet Primroses,” “The Lass from Swansea Town,” and
“Fair Lisa.”
The songs range from D3 to G4 and the melodies do not vary from verse to verse, but the
accompaniment varies significantly between verses. The meters continually change and are often
in 5/8 or 7/8. Williams explains this in the third song in particular: “No. 3 is a Welsh folksong –
351
Boyd, 31.
Grace Williams to Peter Pears, 18 November 1950, Britten-Pears Library Archive.
353
Reg Hall, “Tanner, Phillip,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online, ed. L Macy (Accessed December
30, 2003), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
352
91
The traditional Welsh words have been translated into English, and that rather necessitated the
changing of the original time sequence, 3/4 to 5/8.” There are no unaccompanied or melismatic
passages in this song set.
This was the only premiere of a work by Williams that Pears ever sang, but she may have
composed one other piece for Pears. On May 7, 1951 Williams wrote to Pears asking him if he
would mind if she sent him a song called “Flight” that she had composed.354 The song is not in
the collection of scores and manuscripts at the Britten-Pears library and therefore it appears that
she did not send it. Pears performed at least one other song by Williams, in a recital with pianist
Noel Mewton-Wood on February 20, 1953 in Milngavie, Glasgow. The song was “Watching the
Wheat,” a setting of a Welsh folksong.355 This song, as well as six others, is held at the BrittenPears Library and came from Pears’s personal collection.356
On December 9, 1950, Britten wrote a letter of encouragement to Pears, who may have
been feeling exhausted at the end of a long year, “Don’t be depressed about your singing my
darling. You are potentially the greatest singer alive, & in this rather difficult stage, you remain a
lovely artist & I’m not prejudice – madly critical. Take Jomelli as a singing exercise – but try &
enjoy Pylades.”357 Headington points out that “Pylades” is a character from Iphigenia en Tauride
by Gluck, and that Pears was to sing an aria from this opera in a concert on December 11.358
Headington also points out that Niccolo Jomelli (1714-1774) “was a Neapolitan composer who
wrote useful singing exercises.”359 Pears however sang the broadcast premiere of La Passione di
nostro signore Gesu Cristo by Jomelli on December 10.360 Pears sang this performance with
Margaret Ritchie, George Pizzey, and Bernard Steel. The conductor was Trevor Harvey.
Britten’s comment in his letter was probably not about Pears working through a method book, as
Headington implies, but rather was helpful advise for how Pears should approach the
performance.
354
BPL Archive.
BPL Archive.
356
Other songs by Williams present at the Britten-Pears Library: “Bonny at the Morn” (1951), Two French
Folksongs: “Chevalier du Guet,” and “Margoton va-t-à-l’eau” (1949); “Il était une bergere” (1951); “O Rare
Turpin” (1951); and “Song of the Flax” (1951).
357
Headington, 164.
358
Pears sang this concert of operatic arias and duets at the Friend’s House in London, performing with Joan Cross
and pianist Peter Gellhorn.
359
Headington, 164.
360
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
355
92
CHAPTER 12
1951
Britten: “Ca’ the Yowes”
1951 was a very performance-heavy year. In addition to the usual recital performances,
English Opera Group performances, and commitments to the Aldeburgh Festival, Pears
performed in two operas by Stravinsky and gave premiere performances of three major works.
He began the year with a run of performances of Die Zauberflöte at Covent Garden under Erich
Kleiber,361 and in the midst of these performances Pears sang the role of “Eumolpus” in
Stravinsky’s Perséphone in a BBC broadcast on January 19.362
Britten spent the beginning of the year working on his next opera, Billy Budd, completing
all except for the epilogue by late March.363 He was then more available for recitals with Pears.
They went to Vienna in early April where they performed several concerts. On April 9 at the
Mozart-Saal, they gave the first performance of Britten’s folksong setting “Ca’ the Yowes.”
They gave a further performance of the song in a recital on April 22, which they recorded for the
premiere broadcast on May 31 over the BBC Light Programme.364
Monteverdi: Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (new English translation)
Beginning on May 1, the EOG presented a run of performances at the Lyric Theater in
Hammersmith. Their production was a double-bill of Britten’s new edition of Henry Purcell’s
361
Headington, 160-1. Pears sang four performances of the opera and cancelled two more The performances were
on January 6, 17, 26, and February 19. He cancelled performances on February 7 and 17.
362
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
363
Carpenter, 295.
364
Banks, 166.
93
Dido and Aeneas and Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. Pears sang the
roles of Aeneas in Dido and the narrator in Tancredi. He was double-cast and sang the first
performance in the Monteverdi but not the Purcell.365 A review of the first performance stated
that Tancredi was “an equally felicitous realization also by Britten.”366 The critic, however, was
mistaken. Britten, with Imogen Holst, edited and realized the score of Dido for these EOG
performances, but there are no corroborating sources saying that Britten ever realized any work
by Monteverdi. Although it was not a premiere of a realization by Britten, Tancredi was a
performance and probably a premiere of a work by Pears, who prepared the English translation.
J. W. Chester Limited published Pears’s translation in 1954.
Tippett: The Heart’s Assurance
Pears and Britten gave a recital on May 7 at Wigmore Hall in which they gave the first
performance of Michael Tippett’s song cycle The Heart’s Assurance, his second piece written
specifically for Britten and Pears to perform and a work commissioned by Pears.367 Tippett
composed the cycle in 1950, taking a break from work on his opera Midsummer’s Marriage,
which he had begun in 1946.368 He completed the first two acts of the opera in early 1950, and
by May of that year he had composed four of the five songs of the cycle.369
Pears wrote in an essay in 1965 about this song cycle, comparing it to the earlier cantata
composed for Pears.
Boyhood’s End remains a work full of imaginative and suggestive imagery, and its
elaboration of voice and piano is part of its success. It is this elaborate figuration applied
to the song-form in Heart’s Assurance, which damages it by expanding essentially simple
shapes. The ur-forms of the three slower songs are simple lyrical utterances which do not
need the pianistic figures which expand and blur. The fourth song is an effective toccata
(Scarlatti-like) with vocal obbligato; the second is a very original two-mooded piece
where the vocal ornaments balanced by the plain cadences. The cycle is coloured with a
365
Banks, 174. The first performance of Dido and Aeneas featured baritone Bruce Boyce singing the role of
Aeneas. Pears sang in the broadcast premiere of this work on July 10, 1951 from the Cheltanham Opera House.
366
Cecil Smith, “Dido and Aeneas, first performance,” Musical America 71 (June 1951): 19. This review stated
that, “Peter Pears handled the recitatives of the narrator, in his own excellent translation for Tasso, with moving
simplicity.”
367
Theil, 26.
368
Theil, 7.
369
White, “A Biographical Sketch,” 23.
94
deep warmth; it is perhaps a too strong feeling for the situation of the three big songs,
which has driven the music to destroy the poem – by inflation.370
Pears’s statement that Tippett’s music has ‘destroyed’ the poetry is interesting in light of
an essay that Tippett wrote a few years earlier in 1960. Tippett claimed that it was the
composer’s job to “destroy” the “verbal music” of the already existing poetry with the “music of
music.” He went so far as to say that this was not only a composer’s job but his “gift” to do so.371
Pears might have been correct in his analysis, but in Tippett’s view it is not a criticism.
Heart’s Assurance possesses many traits associated with Pears’s voice. The final line of
the first song, “Song,” is monotone on E4 (ex. 51). The second and fourth songs, “The Heart’s
Assurance,” and “The Dancer,” both employ extensive coloratura at very quick tempos (ex. 52,
53). There is unaccompanied writing in the final song, “Remember your Lovers,” in the first line
of each stanza. Each of these three a cappella lines begin at the top of the staff and descend
(ex. 54).
Example 51: Michael Tippett, The Heart’s Assurance, “Song,” mm. 53-63.
Example 52: Michael Tippett, The Heart’s Assurance, “The Heart’s Assurance,” mm. 51-53.
370
371
Pears, “Song and Text,” 49.
Michael Tippett, “Conclusion,” in A History of Song, 461.
95
Example 53: Michael Tippett, The Heart’s Assurance, “The Dancer,” 56-63.
Example 54: Michael Tippett, The Heart’s Assurance, “Remember your lovers,” mm. 1-2.
The vocal range of the cycle reaches higher than many pieces written for Pears. Despite
the fact that Pears and Britten commissioned this song cycle, Tippett “did not think of… Pears as
‘the exact [person] I was writing for. Pears didn’t have a top B natural of the kind I wanted,’ …
The Heart’s Assurance was soon dropped from the Britten-Pears repertoire.”372 The high B4
appears at the climax of the third song, “Compassion,” (ex. 55).
Example 55: Michael Tippett, The Heart’s Assurance, “Compassion,” mm. 33-34.
Pears and Britten repeated the cycle a few times in the coming years, most immediately at
their 1951 Aldeburgh Festival recital. Pears recorded the cycle, as well as Boyhood’s End, with
Noel Mewton-Wood in 1952. Both recordings were released in 1953, “but were subsequently
372
Carpenter, 295-6.
96
withdrawn due to poor recording quality. New masters were later made from the original tapes
and the recording was re-released in 1962.”373 A page of the manuscript of the fifth song appears
in Tribute to Peter Pears on his 75th Birthday with the inscription from Tippett, “This is to rededicate the piece to Ben and Peter.”374
Purcell/Britten: “I Take no Pleasure”
Oldham: The Commandment of Love
At the 1951 Aldeburgh Festival, Pears gave several performances, covering a wide range
of musical styles. He sang Monteverdi’s Il combattimento, the title role in Handel’s Jephtha,
Britten’s St. Nicolas and Albert Herring, and participated in a concert dedicated to Verdi
operas.375 He also sang in a concert of madrigals with four other singers of the EOG.376 He and
Britten gave their annual recital in Jubilee Hall on June 13, at which time they performed, in
addition to Tippett’s new song cycle, the premiere of Britten’s realization of Purcell’s “I Take
No Pleasure”377 and the premiere of a new song cycle by Arthur Oldham.378 Oldham wrote,
In 1951 a second cycle of songs followed [the Five Chinese Lyrics], which I entitled The
Commandment of Love. This comprised settings of six poems by the 14th-century
mystical poet Richard Rolle of Hampole. Apart from the fourth item, My Sang is in
Sighing, which Ben greatly admired (he described it as ‘a real contribution’) when he
played the cycle through with me… these were unmemorable. Ben and Peter duly gave
them a hearing at the Festival and they were then published. In spite of a few subsequent
performances, however, they never achieved the success or popularity of the Chinese
Lyrics.379
There is no unaccompanied writing in this cycle, but there is a heavy reliance upon E4.
This is seen in the climactic line of the fourth song, which is set as a monotone on the note
(ex. 56). The note appears repeatedly in the fifth song, “Lo, Leman Sweet, Now May Thou See”
as well (ex. 57).
373
BPL, “On-line Catalogue”
Thorpe, 95.
375
This concert involved soprano Joan Cross, soprano Tatiana Preston, contralto Catherine Lawson, Pears, baritone
Bruce Boyce, and bass Norman Lumdsen. Britten accompanied the singers. They performed excerpts from Un
giorno di regno, Giovanna d’arco, I masnadieri, I due foscari, Luisa Miller, MacBeth, La traviata, Un ballo in
mascera, Otello, and Falstaff.
376
BPL Archive.
377
Banks, 181.
378
BPL Archive.
379
Oldham, 26.
374
97
Example 56: Arthur Oldham, The Commandment of Love. “My Sang is in Sighing,” mm. 62-69.
Example 57: Arthur Oldham, The Commandment of Love, “Lo, Leman Sweet, Now May Thou See,” mm. 31-40.
After the first performance, Pears and Britten performed the cycle on June 30, 1951 at the
Holland Festival and May 22, 1953, at the Royal Festival House. Shortly after this recital,
Oldham wrote to Pears thanking him for continuing to perform the songs.380 On August 5, 1954,
Pears and Britten performed two songs of the cycle, “My Sang is Sighing” and “O Lord Right
Dear,” at the Holy Trinity Church in Ilfacombe, Devon. The last recorded date of Pears
performing this cycle was December 15, 1965, in a recital given with Arthur Oldham
accompanying at the National Gallery of Scotland.381 Oldham wrote that after an almost ten year
separation from Pears and Britten “There was even a ‘reconciliation’ between myself and Peter
Pears when in 1965, I accompanied him in a recital, at the National Gallery of Scotland, which
included six of my songs from Love in a Village together with my song-cycle The
Commandment of Love.”382
380
381
382
BPL Archive. Oldham to Pears, letter, August 12, 1953.
BPL Archive.
Oldham, Living with Voices, 30.
98
Britten: Billy Budd
Before his next premiere, Pears sang the Bach B Minor Mass on July 17, 1951,383 the title
role in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, under the composer’s direction in Cologne on October 5 and
then recorded two days later,384 and two performances of Britten’s Les illuminations in
Amsterdam.385 On December 1, Pears sang in the premiere of Britten’s sixth opera at Covent
Garden under the direction of the composer.386 The third performance of the opera, on December
11, was broadcast on BBC Third Programme. 387 Pears’s role in the opera was Captain Vere,
about which Eric Crozier said, “Most composers, I am certain would have allocated the tenor
role to the innocent young hero Billy: Britten took it for granted that it must go to Melville’s
wise and thoughtful naval commander, Vere.”388 Headington took this thought a step further,
In a sense, Pears did more than is usually understood by the term ‘create a role’ for it
seems certain that it was because of his personality that Britten and his librettists…
together made Vere more of a thinking and self-questioning man than the original figure
drawn in Herman Melville’s story, just as had happened in Crabbe’s original Peter
Grimes. 389
This fact is emphasized in the Billy Budd’s Prologue and Epilogue, two monologues in which the
aged Captain Vere looks back upon the traumatic events upon his ship.
383
Fifield, 290. This performance was at Concert Hall, Broadcasting House. Pears sang with soprano Suzanne
Danco, contralto Kathleen Ferrier, and bass Bruce Boyce. Georges Enesco conducted the Boyd Neel Orchestra.
384
Headington, 162. Pears sang with Martha Modl as Jocasta, Heinz Rehfuss as Creon, Helmut Krebs as the
Shepherd, and Jean Cocteau as the narrator.
385
Headington, 163.
386
Banks, 96.
387
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
388
Carpenter, 281.
389
Headington, 165.
99
There are many unaccompanied lines throughout the opera and several are specifically
for Vere, especially in the Prologue and Epilogue. The role possesses a high tessitura, and vocal
lines frequently accentuate E4, as is seen in the Act II, Scene 2 aria, “I Accept Their Verdict,”
(ex. 58). This same aria also has examples of coloratura and monotone writing (ex. 59).
Example 58: Benjamin Britten, Billy Budd, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 97, mm. 7-20.
Example 59: Benjamin Britten, Billy Budd, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 99, mm. 21-30.
100
CHAPTER 13
1952
Britten: Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac
In the wake of the premiere of Billy Budd, Pears, Britten and Kathleen Ferrier gave the
premiere of Britten’s Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, op. 51, on January 21, 1952 at Albert Hall
in Nottingham.390 The trio gave another performance of the work, which they recorded for
broadcast on the BBC. The BBC postponed the broadcast until February 18 due to the death of
King George VI.391 Ferrier wrote on January 28, 1952, “I have just started work again – with a
heavy programme – 9 recitals in two weeks…. Some with Ben and Peter P. – Ben wrote a new
Canticle for the two of us on the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac – the ink was still wet for
the 1st performance! But it’s a sweet piece – simple and very moving.”392
Christopher Fifield described Ferrier’s voice saying, “The voice might be held by some
an acquired taste, but in the music she sang… it was ideally suited. It remained unique.”393 One
could describe Pears’s voice in similar terms. Perhaps then, it was an ideal for Britten to pair
these two voices. The singers had performed together several times already, most notably for
Britten in the premiere of his Spring Symphony.
Britten wrote exposed and unaccompanied passages for both voices throughout the
second Canticle. It opens with the two voices singing together, unaccompanied save some
flourishes in the piano. The voices sing in unison or at close intervals, never more than a perfect
fourth apart from each other (ex. 60).
390
Banks, 98.
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
392
Fifield, 294. This source incorrectly gives the premiere of the work as February 3, 1952 at Victoria and Albert
Museum in London. Ferrier’s diary for January 21, the actual premiere date, reads, “Nottingham. Reh 2.30.”
393
Fifield, ix.
391
101
Example 60: Benjamin Britten, Canticle II, mm. 1-3.
The piece has a high tessitura for the tenor, and the most prominent note is E-flat 4, a half
step lower than many other previous works. Several times throughout the piece the singers must
sing the pitch in unison, in order to create the effect that the voices are coming from the same
source. At the end of the first section, the mezzo-soprano sings a sustained E-flat 4 and
decrescendos. The tenor’s entrance on the same note, beginning at pianissimo, overlaps with the
mezzo-soprano, creates the effect that the two voices are one (ex. 61). The importance of the
tenor’s E-flat 4 in this piece could have been due to the timbre of Kathleen Ferrier’s voice, which
Pears would have to match. However, several later works by Britten, including the opera The
Turn of the Screw and Canticle III also emphasize this pitch in the tenor voice.
102
Example 61: Benjamin Britten, Canticle II, mm. 7-13.
Like the Canticle I (1947), the second is a setting of text based upon Biblical scriptures
and is written with a Purcellian character. The second Canticle bears likeness in some ways to
Purcell’s Saul and the Witch at Endor, which Britten realized in 1945. Both are dramatic works
for more than one singer in which each singer represents a character. In both works, the drama
between the characters is preceded and followed by the voices singing together. In Saul and the
Witch at Endor, the voices singing together create the single voice of a narrator. In Canticle II,
the voices singing together represent the voice of God.
Oldham: Love in a Village
Pears’s next premiere performance was May 9, 1952, singing the leading role of
Hawthorne in Love in a Village, an opera by Arthur Oldham. The EOG gave this performance on
a BBC radio broadcast,394 and the stage premiere was on June 16, 1952 at the fifth Aldeburgh
Festival with the same cast.395 Oldham explained Pears’s role in the creation of the opera.
394
395
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
Headington, 170.
103
Ben asked me to contribute an opera to the [1952] Aldeburgh Festival…. It was in this
spirit [of The Beggar’s Opera by Britten] that he proposed to me to compose Love in a
Village for his English Opera Group. Peter Pears, one of whose hobbies was browsing in
second-hand book shops, had discovered an 18th-century volume which contained Dr.
[Thomas] Arne’s original version of this so-called ‘ballad opera.’396
The twenty-six year old Oldham, who up until now had been an extremely productive
composer, had come to a breaking point.
I had not wished to accept the proposed commission from the BBC to write Love in a
Village. But rather than turn it down… I decided to ask for what I considered an
exorbitant fee, half of which was to be paid in advance, hoping that my conditions would
be considered sufficiently outrageous to annihilate the project. To my consternation a
contract arrived… together with a cheque for 50 per cent of my asking fee. I was
committed. But it meant that I had somehow, within the span of three short months, to
write my song-cycle for Britten and Pears [The Commandment of Love], my opera Love
in a Village, and a ballet for Covent Garden.397
Oldham completed the opera as well as his other commitments, but it left him severely burned
out.
After a particularly onerous three months striving (and only just succeeding) to meet
deadlines, the inevitable happened: the machine collapsed. The result was a major
nervous breakdown, which had the curious effect of leaving me totally incapable of
listening to music, even to the extent of being unable to distinguish the pitch of one note
in relation to another. For a while I refused to accept what had happened to me and
continued to try to force myself to compose by turning day into night with the help of
stimulant drugs. This, of course, only made matters worse, and my mental health
deteriorated rapidly.398
This was followed by “a five year gap when he composed no music at all.”399 During this period,
however, Pears continued to sing and record Oldham’s music.
Love in a Village was the last piece that Oldham wrote for Pears, but there is reference to
two others that were at least in the stages of planning. On June 3, 1954 Oldham wrote a letter to
Pears saying that he was still thinking about composing some songs for unaccompanied tenor,
about which Pears had asked Oldham.400 He did not compose the songs and may not have started
them. Further, in a biographical article on Oldham published in 1968, the author referes to a
396
397
398
399
400
Oldham, 26-7.
Oldham, 26-7.
Oldham, 39-40.
Wilson, 946.
BPL Archive.
104
song-cycle of Scottish love poems of Alexander Montgomery, “commissioned by Peter Pears for
performance this month at the 600th lunchtime-hour concert at the National Gallery,
Edinburgh.”401 Neither of these works appear in Oldham’s oeuvre nor is there evidence of them
at the Britten-Pears Library.
Berkeley: Variations on a Hymn of Orlando Gibbons
Pears sang in two other premiere performances at the 1952 Aldeburgh Festival. On June
20 at the Parish Church, Imogen Holst conducted the premiere of her orchestrated version of
Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb. The soloists for the performance were trebles Graham Bush and
Roger Cooper, countertenor Alfred Deller, bass Trevor Anthony, and Peter Pears.402
On June 21, Pears sang the premiere performance of Lennox Berkeley’s Variations on a
Hymn of Orlando Gibbons, op.35 for tenor, chorus, strings, and organ. The English Opera Group
commissioned this piece for the Aldeburgh Festival.403 In response to an apparent poor
performance of the work “[Britten] consoled [Berkeley] by saying that nevertheless ‘a great deal
came across - & a great deal of enjoyment was felt by many people I have talked to. Thank you
so much for writing such a lovely piece for us.”404
401
402
403
404
Conrad, 948.
Banks, 67.
Craggs, Berkeley: A Source Book, 83.
Dickinson, 148.
105
CHAPTER 14
1953
Berkeley: Nelson
1953 was a particularly busy year with respect to premiere performances. The first to
speak of, though the actual date is unknown, is Nelson, op. 41, a grand opera by Lennox
Berkeley. This three-act opera, which Berkeley began in 1949, was his first venture into the
genre. Pears probably sang the title role in the opera, though Berkeley did not compose the role
especially for Pears. The performance in which Pears sang was not the official stage premiere but
was a “concert reading” given at Wigmore Hall.405 The stage premiere occurred at the Sadler’s
Wells on September 22, 1954, though Pears did not sing in this performance. Sadler’s Wells
expressed interest in Berkeley’s opera prior to 1953, but Basil Douglas, manager of the English
Opera Company, was concerned that the Wells was not moving fast enough to set a date for a
performance. Douglas arranged a concert performance of the opera with the EOG accompanied
by a piano that he hoped would generate interest in the opera. Because of the success of this
concert that Sadler’s Wells included the opera in their 1954 season.406
Berkeley: Four Ronsard Sonnets (set 1)
On March 8, 1953, Pears premiered a work that Berkeley wrote for him, Four Ronsard
Sonnets (set 1), op. 40, four settings of sonnets by the French poet Pierre de Ronsard (15241585) for two tenors and piano. There are very few works for such an ensemble beyond the vocal
405
406
Dickinson, 100.
Dickinson, 128.
106
works of the Baroque era. In 1947, Pears sang Britten’s realization of Purcell’s “When Myra
Sings,” for two tenors (see page 70). Perhaps that piece caused Pears to commission an original
work for two tenors. Berkeley composed the sonnets to be sung by Pears and French tenor
Hughes Cuenod (b. 1902) with pianist George Malcolm (1917-1997).407 The performance, which
took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, was broadcast live over BBC Third
Programme.408 Berkeley returned to the sonnets of Ronsard in 1963, when he composed a second
set of four for Pears, premiered August 9, 1963,409 and then revised and arranged the first set for
Pears and tenor Ian Partridge, premiered June 14, 1978.410
Bush: The Voices of the Prophets
Seiber: To Poetry
Pears and pianist Noel Mewton-Wood gave a recital on May 22, 1953 in which they
performed Oldham’s The Commandment of Love411 and premieres of two works, Voice of the
Prophets by Alan Bush (1900-1995), and To Poetry by Mátyás Seiber (1905-1960).412 Voices of
the Prophets, a cantata for tenor and piano, is
something of a sonata in four movements for piano and voice (one may deliberately
choose that order of mention)…. Bush’s music, closely interwoven and predominantly
diatonic, follows a somewhat austere style entirely his own. In this work the voice
delivers its utterance in a somewhat impersonal and uninteresting way, rather as a vehicle
for a kind of ‘pure music’: were it not for this, one might tolerate even the banal neoWhitmannesque political verse with which Bush chose to follow up his selections from
Isaiah, Milton, and Blake.413
When Pears recorded this piece in 1964 with the composer at the piano, a reviewer called it a
“novelty,” which he “didn’t much like” because of the “too elaborate, even fussy accompaniment
to prose texts (unless the long last piece can be called a poem) [which] takes them out of the
realm of lyrical song.”414
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
Craggs, Berkeley: A Source Book, 84.
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
Dickinson, 101.
Dickinson, 84.
BPL Archive.
Thorpe, 123-4.
Jacobs, 177.
T. Harvey, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song,” Gramophone 35 (Jan 1978): 1283.
107
There are several coloratura passages throughout the cantata, as seen in the second and
fourth songs (ex. 62, 63).
Example 62: Alan Bush, Voices of the Prophets, II, mm. 124-30.
Example 63: Alan Bush, Voices of the Prophets, IV, mm.92-96.
Mátyás Seiber was “not a leading composer, but he was a master…. Seiber was too
genuine to write an enormous amount of music. His light music and his film music, to be sure, he
wrote with almost uncanny fluency. But in his serious music, where he was up against the
idiomatic crisis of our time, he was often assailed by doubts.”415 Seiber was Hungarian by birth
and came to England in 1935. “A large portion of Seiber’s compositional output in London was
devoted to film scores and incidental works.”416 He was interested in American jazz music and
wrote many serious works, many of which are folksong settings.
In 1942, Seiber joined the faculty at Morley College. Michael Tippett said, “I
persuaded… Seiber to give classes there in composition. For it was clear that Mátyás was a
superb teacher. He seemed to me to have an encyclopedic knowledge of compositional
techniques, old and new, without dogmatic prejudices.”417 It was at Morley that Pears came to
know Seiber and his music. In 1943 Pears sang in a performance of Seiber’s Yugoslav
415
Hans Keller, “Mátyás Seiber: 1905-1960,” in Hans Keller: Essays on Music, ed. Christopher Wintle
(Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1994), 86-88.
416
Michael Franklin Varro Jr., “The Music of Mátyás Seiber,” (DMA diss., University of Washington, 1975), 14.
417
Milton Babbitt and others, “In Memorium: Mátyás Seiber,” Musical Times 111 (1970): 886.
108
Folksongs, his “first work for chorus to be composed in England,” in 1943.418 Ten years later,
Seiber composed To Poetry for Peter Pears.
The song cycle consists of five songs, texts by Goethe (translated by Louis MacNeice),
Shakespeare, Dunbar, and an anonymous Elizabethan poet. “Clearly the most challenging of
Seiber’s available solo vocal works…. Seiber concerns himself in this work primarily with such
classical elements as traditional key relationships and symmetry of form. The most obvious
factor of symmetry is of course Seiber’s framing the work with identical first and last
movements.”419 Arthur Jacobs sees in this symmetry, as well as other factors, a likeness to
Britten’s Serenade. “[To Poetry] begins with an Invocation and ends identically with it, as
Britten’s begins and ends with parellel… horn calls, and Seiber’s setting of William Dunbar’s
Timor mortis [the fourth movement] recalls the atmosphere of the Dirge in Britten’s.”420 Seiber’s
Timor mortis and Britten’s Dirge are also similar in that they both begins with the first full
phrase sung a cappella. Identical melismas appear in the first and last songs (ex. 64) and in the
song “Tears” (ex. 65).
Example 64: Matyas Seiber, To Poetry, “Invocation,” mm. 21-26.
Example 65: Matyas Seiber, To Poetry, “Tears,” mm. 42-44.
418
419
420
Varro, “The Music of Matyas Seiber,” 24.
Varro, 74.
Jacobs, 177.
109
Britten: Gloriana
On June 8, 1953, Pears sang in the premiere of Britten’s seventh opera Gloriana, op. 53.
The conception of this opera dates back only just over a year, when in May 1952 Britten received
royal approval to compose a work to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.421 Britten first
met with his librettist William Plomer in June 1952 and began composing in August. He
completed the opera on March 13, 1953,422 after which Britten and Pears took a long vacation to
Ireland before beginning rehearsals.423 The Queen’s coronation was on June 2, and the first
performance of the opera took place on June 8 at Covent Garden under the musical direction of
John Pritchard.424
Britten had scarce time for performances with Pears while composing the opera, and it is
perhaps this fact that caused him to have negative feelings about Gloriana. One of the few
recitals given by them during this time was early during the composition of the opera on July 24,
1952 in Aix-en-Provence, France.
The Harewoods were with Britten and Pears in France, and noticed that Pears was ‘glum’
about the new opera. He resented being deprived of his accompanist while it was being
written – Noel Mewton-Wood was to deputize for Britten at the recitals in the coming
months – and [Pears] was wary of the ‘official’ nature of the project. He also felt he was
unsuited to playing Essex, which Britten had assigned to him. Harewood suspected that
he was not keen on acting the ‘young, ardent lover’ of Joan Cross who was to sing
Elizabeth. Pears suggested he could be cast in the minor role of Cecil instead. Harewood
felt that Essex could perfectly well be a bass. But [as Harewood said] ‘Ben…wanted
Peter for Essex, and he was accustomed to getting his own way.’425
Pears later said, “I think somebody else should have [played Essex] rather than me.”426 W. H.
Auden, who attended one of the first performances enjoyed the opera but had a much harsher
opinion of Pears. “Some of the best operatic music in it, I think that Ben has done yet… Didn’t
care for the libretto and neither Joan Cross nor Peter should sing anymore on the stage.”427 Ten
years later, Pears sang the opera in a concert performance at the Royal Festival Hall opposite
Sylvia Fischer. A review stated, “Essex is a role for the vigorous young tenor who has at once
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
Carpenter, 305.
Banks, 99.
Carpenter, 316.
Banks, 100.
Carpenter, 307.
Carpenter, 317.
Carpenter, 325.
110
fire and delicacy and imagination. Peter Pears has the last two, not the first: there was beautiful
singing from him, as at the premiere, but the part could be more strongly presented.”428
Several parts of the opera were arranged for separate performances. Three of these were
for performances that included Pears. The first is Essex’s aria, “Happy were he,” known as “The
Second Lute Song,” found in Act II. Pears extracted this aria for performance in recitals, with
either guitar or piano accompaniment, which Imogen Holst arranged. Pears first sang this aria
with Britten playing Holst’s arrangement at Jubilee Hall on June 28, 1953 during the Aldeburgh
Festival.429 Britten composed the aria, which uses text written by the original Earl of Essex, in a
style that is a “bow in the direction of the Elizabethans.”430 The text setting and melismatic
figures also bring to mind the many Purcell realizations sung by Pears (ex. 66).
Example 66: Benjamin Britten, Gloriana, Act II, no. 6, “Second Lute Song,” mm. 1-4.
Another melismatic line in Essex’s role appears in the quartet of Act II, Scene 2 (ex. 67).
Example 67: Benjamin Britten, Gloriana, Act II, Scene 2, fig. 77, mm. 12-15.
428
Andrew Porter, “Concert Performances,” Opera 15 (January 1964): 66-7.
Banks, 101.
430
Antonia Malloy-Chirgwin, “Gloriana: Britten’s ‘slighted child’,” in Cambridge Companion to Benjmain Britten,
125.
429
111
The other two extracted pieces from Gloriana are an orchestral piece and a choral piece. On
September 23, 1954, Pears sang a concert performance at the Birmingham Town Hall with the
CBS Orchestra under Rudolf Schwarz, in which he gave the first performance of the Symphonic
Suite from Gloriana, an arrangement by Britten of pieces from the opera for tenor and orchestra.
On March 1, 1967, Pears, Ossian Ellis, and the Ambrosian Singers sang Courtly Dances from
Gloriana for tenor, chorus, and harp.431
Rainier: Cycle for Declamation
Eight days after the premiere of Gloriana, Pears gave a first performance of another
major work, though one much smaller in scale, Cycle for Declamation for unaccompanied tenor
by South African-English composer Priaulx Rainier (1903-1986). The premiere took place on a
live broadcast on June 16 over the BBC third programme. Several artists took part in this
broadcast, performing works that they would perform at the 1953 Aldeburgh Festival. 432 Pears
sang the cycle again at the festival on June 25.433
Rainier, who spent her youth in Zululand and then Cape Town, drew “little from other
20th century [musical] styles. Rather, the most important influences were the language and music
of the Zulus, and the natural sounds of their country.”434 The Cycle for Declamation, three poems
by John Donne “is a tour de force in exploiting the different registers in the voice.”435 As stated
in the cycle’s title, Rainier composed this work in a declamatory style: there are few melismatic
passages. In the first song, “Wee cannot bid the fruits,” there are melismas on only three words,
and each is brief. The second song, “In the Wombe of the Earth,” the tempo is slower and the
style is far more lyrical and the composer uses longer melismas (ex. 68).
431
Banks, 101.
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
433
Thorpe, 124. The source refers to this performance as a premiere.
434
Ian Kemp and Hubert van der Spuy, “Rainier, (Ivy) Priaulx,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online, ed.
L. Macy (Accessed 6 November 2003), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
435
Harvey, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song,” 1283.
432
112
Example 68: Cycle for Declamation, “In the Wombe of the Earth,” mm. 10-16.
The final song, “Nunc, lento sonito,” is in the declamatory style of the first song, and there are
only two brief melismas.
Rainier’s “handling of the solo voice, whose part is notated in exact rhythm, is
remarkably assured and varied: whether the work can be called a success appears to depend
solely on the acceptability of the medium.”436 Though this is a genre of song rarely discussed or
heard in modern day, it dates back, as part of the art song tradition, as opposed to unaccompanied
sacred monodies of the Renaissance or unaccompanied folksongs, to the early twentieth-century
England. “In many songs of this period… the accompaniment is little more than comfortable
patterns, supplying harmony… and providing a routine overture…. An attempt to bypass this
was made by Herbert Bedford (1867-1945), in writing songs which dispensed with
accompaniment altogether. The first were issued in 1922.”437 Bedford, who lived and worked in
London, wished to adhere “to the original poetic idea and it’s natural declamation by preserving
and artistically balancing the metrical line, a succession of figures designed and varied in such a
way as to replace the missing elements of an accompaniment by something equally complete and
satisfying, and the creation of a sense of ‘horizontal harmony’.”438
Rainier’s piece is the first example of unaccompanied song, as set forth by Bedford’s
example just eight years after his death, written for Pears. It is not, however, the last. In coming
years, he would premiere unaccompanied songs by Wilfrid Mellers (b. 1914), Robin Orr, Arnold
Cooke (b. 1906), Egon Wellesz (1885-1974), Richard Rodney Bennett (b. 1936), and Richard
436
Jacobs, 178.
Jacobs, 164.
438
Eric Blom, “Bedford, Herbert,” in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., vol. 1, ed. Eric Blom
(New York: Macmillan, 1968), 526.
437
113
Drakeford. It is possible that Pears’s commissions for unaccompanied songs came from his
knowledge as a young man of Bedford’s work. Mitchell said, “The tradition of unaccompanied
song was quite strong in the 1920s and 1930s in the United Kingdom…. and Herbert Bedford
was prominent among [the composers]…. That was part of the musical culture.”439
Rosamund Strode attributes Pears’s interest in unaccompanied music to the fact that
Britten was increasingly busy with composition and so Pears had to look for other performing
outlets. As well, Britten suffered from bursitis in one arm in the 1950s, which further limited his
playing. “This is [the] reason why Peter wanted to have a small choir available, and this is
why… you get quite a lot of unaccompanied works…. Those were… almost certainly written…
for the concerts he gave with the Purcell Singers where he would do groups of unaccompanied
pieces.”440
Britten: Winter Words
Just after Britten completed the score of Gloriana, he began composing his next major
work, Winter Words, op. 52, a song cycle with poems by Thomas Hardy. Britten completed the
cycle in mid-September 1953, and he and Pears premiered it during the Leeds Festival on
October 8, 1953. They recorded the cycle on October 22 for a later broadcast on November
28.441 They also made a commercial recording in March 1954. Pears said that he felt closest to
Winter Words of all of the song cycles composed for him by Britten, “I think in a way that they
are my favorite.”442 A review of the recording of the cycle stated,. “Peter Pears has perhaps never
done anything finer than his performance of Winter Words. Each year his voice has been
growing a fuller, more flexible instrument, and he uses it here with consummate art.”443
Peter Evans repeatedly described this cycle using the word “spare.” He writes that the
significance of it, in relation to Britten’s “earlier tenor cycles,” is the “tendency [for the
composer] to prune back musical ideas almost to their stocks, discouraging the proliferation of
florid textural detail.” In doing so, Britten “ward[s] off the sentimentality that can lurk behind
439
440
441
442
443
Mitchell, interview by author.
Strode, interview by author.
Banks, 104
Gells, “The Voice that Inspired Britten,” 158.
Andrew Porter, “Choral and Song,” Gramophone 32 (March 1956): 391-2.
114
[Hardy’s verses].”444 This applies to the vocal lines as well. One does not hear the broad lyricism
present in the Michelangelo Sonnets, nor the impassioned cries of the Holy Sonnets of John
Donne. Rather, in Winter Words, Britten writes lines that depict the mood set forth by Hardy
without bowing to word painting. There is simplicity to be found in the vocal lines of these eight
songs. However the composer is still able to write melodic features that are found in the other
works written for Pears.
Vocal lines that begin at the top of the staff and descend appear frequently throughout the
cycle (ex. 69, 70, and 71).
Example 69: Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “At day-close in November,” mm. 10-18.
Example 70: Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “Midnight on the Great Western,” mm. 23-28.
Example 71: Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “Before Life and After,” mm. 22-25.
444
Evans, 356-7.
115
Despite Evans’s claim that Britten discouraged “proliferation of florid textural details” in
this cycle, there are melismas present in almost every song (ex. 72, 73, and 74). The tessitura of
this cycle is between E-flat 4 and G4, although there is a concentration on lower part of the
tenor’s range as well.
Example 72: Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “Midnight on the Great Western,” mm. 9-15.
Example 73: Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “The little old table,” mm. 37-41.
Example 74: Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “The Choirmaster’s Burial,” mm. 17-19.
Britten also makes great use of writing exposed and unaccompanied vocal lines for Pears in this
cycle. The first song features long, winding lines over sustained chords. The fifth song employs a
kind of recitative, most of which is unaccompanied. The vocal line in the seventh song, “At the
Railway Station, Upway,” is set against a single meandering line, meant to imitate a child
playing the violin.
116
CHAPTER 15
1954
Britten: “The Brisk Young Widow”
Britten: The Turn of the Screw
Pears and Britten began a tour of recitals in October, which started in England and went
into Scotland. In late October 1953, “just as [Britten] should have been starting work on the [next
opera commission, The Turn of the Screw], Britten was ordered to stop using his right arm.”
Because of an attack of bursitis, an inflammation of a sac in the right shoulder, he had to stop
using his right arm “for at least three months.”445 Not only could he not compose, but he would
have to put an end to the recitals as well. Pears and Britten did not perform together until early
January 1954, when Britten’s arm was “definitely improving.”446
Pears’s many performances up until then, of course, did not involve Britten. In November
he sang in a production of Peter Grimes at Covent Garden and in a concert over BBC. On this
broadcast he gave the UK premiere of Stravinsky’s Cantata (1952) for soprano, tenor, female
chorus, and chamber orchestra.447 A few weeks before this performance, on October 23, 1953,
Stravinsky wrote to Ernst Roth, “I am very glad to know that my Cantata will be performed with
Peter Pears.”448 Pears was very familiar with the text used in Stravinsky’s Cantata, as it is the
same text used by Britten in the “Dirge” of his Serenade.
When Britten was finally back to playing the piano, he and Pears gave a recital, on
January 24, 1954 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, at which they gave the premiere
445
Carpenter, 331
Carpenter, 332. Carpenter quotes Britten’s words in a letter to William Plomer.
447
Surfling, “Premiere List.”
448
Igor Stravinsky, Stravinsky: Selected Correspondence, 1st American ed., vol. 3, trans. and ed. with commentaries
by Robert Craft, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), 378.
446
117
performance of the folksong setting “The Brisk Young Widow.”449 They gave a series of recitals
around England over the next several weeks into the beginning of April.450
The next premiere in which Pears would sing was Britten’s eighth opera The Turn of the
Screw, op. 54, based on the novel by Henry James. The planning for the opera began as early as
September 1952,451 but Britten did not begin composing until March 1954. Britten received a
commission for this opera before the commission for Gloriana. Basil Douglas, the English Opera
Group manager, went to Venice to obtain a commission for the Venice Biennale, as the Festival
committee wanted a new Britten opera. However, by the time Douglas returned to England with
the commission, Britten had already committed himself to composing Gloriana. Because of his
bursitis, Britten was not able to begin composing when he had planned, and he decided to
postpone the Venice commission for a year.
Turn of the Screw is different from all other opera in which Pears sang because in it he
created two roles: a narrator and a ghost named Peter Quint. Quint, the apparition of the dead
servant, is a major role in the opera, but the role of the narrator, an after-thought suggested by the
librettist Myfanwy Piper because Britten feared that the opera was going to be too short, appears
only in the opening scene.452 There is nothing that links the Prologue with Peter Quint
dramatically except for the fact that in the original production and recording Pears sang both
parts. This has set a standard for later productions for the opera that the two roles should be sung
by the same tenor. There may be a danger in assuming that Britten’s intention was to make the
two characters somehow related, although there is no evidence to support this assertion.
Musically, Pears’s voice and musical tastes were a great inspiration for Britten in this
opera. The nearly unaccompanied, melismatic passages sung by Peter Quint as he calls Miles in
the final scene of Act I (ex. 75), were inspired by Pears’s performances of a monody for solo
tenor by the Notre-Dame composer Perotin (c. 1200) called “Beata viscera Mariae virginis.”
Pears performed this piece on occasion when he sang with the Purcell Singers. In these concerts
Pears would sometimes sing “the Evangelist in one of the Schütz Passions, or the Spirit of the
Masque [in the]… Choral Dances from Gloriana…. But then the concert would also include
unaccompanied songs for solo tenor; new works written for him at Peter’s own request… and
449
450
451
452
Banks, 166
BPL Archive.
Carpenter, 307.
Carpenter, 334.
118
monodic medieval settings of liturgical texts, to which Imo[gen Holst] had introduced him.”453
Strode goes on to say that the monody by Perotin was the “one that always seemed to suit him
the best” and that he sang it at a concert during the 1954 Aldeburgh Festival, during which time
Britten was composing Turn of the Screw. Pears sang the monody “with extraordinary flexibilty,
passion and concentration…. Peter’s beautifully controlled singing of its rapid melismatic
phrases suggested to Ben exactly what he wanted for Quint’s unearthly and alluring calls.”454
Example 75: Benjamin Britten, The Turn of the Screw, Act I, Scene 8, mm. 4-11.
Beyond the melismatic and unaccompanied passages found in this opera for the tenor,
one sees Pears’s identity in the high tessitura. Although the range of the opera never extend
beyond A-flat 4, most of the vocal lines lie between E-flat 4 and G4, with a special concentration
on E-flat 4, as was seen in Abraham and Isaac a few years earlier. It is on this note that Quint
makes his first vocal appearance, and each of his subsequent lines in that scene either begins or
ends on that note. This continues to be so throughout the rest of the opera, until the final scene,
after Quint has been defeated, when he repeats his opening melisma one half step higher: now
focusing back on Pears’s “best note,” E-natural 4.
There are interesting similarities between Turn of the Screw and Britten’s two most
recent vocal works. A melisma in Turn of the Screw (ex. 76) looks like an evolved version of one
453
454
Thorpe, 90.
Thorpe, 90.
119
of Essex’s lines in Gloriana (ex. 77). Another appears in the final scene of Screw, in which
Quint’s line resembles the final melody in the song, “Before Life and After” (ex. 78, 79).
Example 76: Benjamin Britten, The Turn of the Screw, Act II, Scene 8, mm.13-19.
Example 77: Benjamin Britten, Gloriana, Act III, Scene 1, no. 3 “The Second Duet of the Queen and Essex,”
mm. 137-141.
Example 78: Benjamin Britten, The Turn of the Screw, Act II, Scene 8, fig. 133.
Example 79: Benjamin Britten, Winter Words, “Before Life and After,” mm. 31-32.
120
The opera’s premiere took place on September 14, 1954 in Venice.455 There, the English
Opera Group gave two performances, the first of which was broadcast over BBC radio by way of
Radio Italiana. Immediately after, the EOG went on a short tour to Holland and Sweden then to
England. Pears sang the opera many times during his life. His last stage performance, which took
place in 1979 at the Edinborough Festival, was singing the “Prologue” of Turn of the Screw.
Bernard: Shepherd’s Warning
Once home from the EOG tour to Holland and Sweden, Britten was composing again and
perhaps because of this Pears’s next several performances were without Britten. On November
12, Pears gave a recital at Wigmore Hall with guitarist Julian Bream (b. 1933). At this recital
they premiered Shepherd’s Warning, a song cycle for tenor and guitar by James Bernard (19252001).456
Bernard met Britten and Pears when he was seventeen, when in 1942 they came to
Bernard’s school to visit the schoolmaster Kenneth Greene, the designer of the original
production of Peter Grimes. Britten took an interest in Bernard and his student compositions.
After serving in the military, Bernard studied composition at the Royal College of Music with
Herbert Howells and later Imogen Holst. In 1950, Britten, who had been supporting and
encouraging Bernard’s musical efforts, asked him to assist in copying the vocal score of Billy
Budd.457 While working on this project, Bernard lived with Britten and Pears in Aldeburgh. Also
in 1950, Bernard started receiving commissions for radio plays on BBC radio, and soon after he
became involved in the motion picture industry with writer Paul Dehn. 458 They received an
Academy Award in 1952. “Occasionally Bernard attempted to break out of his typecast role. He
tried his hand at concert music, his output including a song-cycle for Peter Pears…. The Times
gave an enthusiastic review, The Daily Telegraph was withering.”459 James Bernard is best
remembered today for his scores for the Gothic horror films made by Hammer Film Productions
Limited.
455
456
457
458
459
Banks, 106.
Thorpe, 122.
Alexander Gleason, “James Bernard,” The Guardian, 20 August 2001, p. 18.
Paul Dehn later wrote librettos for William Walton and Lennox Berkeley.
“James Bernard, Composer and Screenwriter,” The Times (London), 17 July 2001, p. 21.
121
The recital at Wigmore Hall marks the first performance given by Pears and Bream.
Bream made his London debut in 1950 and performed at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1952. Soon
after, Pears and Bream struck up a friendship, which lead to a twenty-year professional
partnership.460 Bernard’s song cycle, although it is not published and only exists in manuscript
form at the Britten-Pears Library, is the first example of music written to be performed by Pears
and Bream. Many composers, such as Britten, Berkeley, Tippett, and Walton wrote for this duet
during their time together.
Walton: Troilus and Cressida
Referring to Walton’s opera, Headington wrote, “Whether music was created for Pears,
as in Britten’s case, or whether it already existed, like Oedipus Rex, living composers were now
ready to draw on his skills. William Walton was one such composer, and it was at his request
that Pears created the character role of Pandarus in … Troilus and Cressida.”461 William Walton
(1902-1983) created a role for Pears that, dramatically, could not have been further away from
Pears’s most recent operatic role. Although Troilus is by no means a comic piece, the role of
Pandarus is marked as “tenor buffo,”462 and he is “a volatile and rather camp character.”463
Musically, the part is written very specifically to Pears’s voice. On May 21, 1954, Walton
wrote to Pears, hoping that the tenor would take part in the new opera. “I am hoping that you
may find the part [of Pandarus] worthy of you. If you do I shall be delighted, as I can think of no
one who could do it well, also the relief that this tricky part would be in your safe hands.”464 The
vocal lines are often florid and call for a wide variety of vocal colors, even making use of the
falsetto voice.
Headington reports that “Pears did not like his role, later describing Troilus as ‘a hell of
an opera’.” Reviews of Pears’s performance were extremely positive, but after the premiere
performance at Covent Garden on December 3, 1954,465 Pears was stricken with a “heavy cold
460
461
462
463
464
465
Headington, 173.
Headington, 168.
Earl of Harewood, ed., The Definitve Kobbé’s Opera Book (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1987), 1131.
Headington 168.
Headington 168.
Craggs, comp., William Walton: A Source Book (Aldershot, England: Scolar, 1993), 61.
122
and laryngitis and could barely speak.” 466 He cancelled the next four performances, though he
did sing performances of Troilus in January 1955.
When Walton revised the opera in 1963, “making a number of cuts and other alterations,”
Pears did not sing the role first written for him, rather John Lanigan gave the performance.467
When Walton revised the opera for a second time in 1972-6, Pears,again did not sing Pandarus,
but Gerald English sang it instead.468 This is not to say however that Walton had become tired of
Pears’s voice or Pears of Walton’s music. Pears recorded “a brief extract from Act II” with
soprano Marie Collier in February and July of 1968 under the baton of the composer.469
Walton also wrote several other works that Pears premiered. On April 21, 1956 Walton
wrote to Pears from Milan, “I like the idea of the ‘one-man’ opera & I’ll see what Christopher
[Hassell, Walton’s librettist] thinks… I’m all for writing little songs with guitar.”470 These were
both ideas from Pears. The “one-man” opera never came to be, however he did later composer
The Bear: an Extravaganza in One Act for three singers, based on a play by Anton Chekhov.471
Several copies of this score are at the Britten-Pears Library, one of them is inscribed by the
composer, “for Peter with many thanks for having suggested my writing this piece, love from
William, 9.9.68.”472 The other work mentioned in the letter from Walton to Pears later would
become a song cycle for tenor and guitar called Anon in Love, premiered by Pears and Julian
Bream on June 21, 1960.473 Walton also composed two pieces for which Pears gave the premiere
performances as a speaker. On July 28, 1972, Pears premiered Ballet in One Act: based on the
Entertainment and on June 19, 1979, Pears premiered Façade II: A Further Entertainment.474
466
Headington, 168.
Craggs, Willam Walton: A Thematic Catalogue of His Works, (London: Oxford University, 1977), 179.
468
Craggs, WW: Thematic Catalogue, 179.
469
Michael Kennedy, Portrait of Walton (Oxford: Oxford University, 1990), 183.
470
Headington, 169.
471
The libretto of this opera was adapted from Chekhov by Paul Dehn, the author of the text used in Bernard’s song
cycle Shepherd’s Warning.
472
BPL , “On-line Catalogue.”
473
Craggs, WW: A Source Book, 71.
474
Craggs, WW: Thematic Catalogue, 27.
467
123
CONCLUSION
This treatise has discussed, in some detail, the first 106 premiere performances of Peter
Pears. Britten composed, arranged, or realized seventy-eight of the works, while the remaining
twenty-eight were by other composers. Over the next thirty years, Pears premiered 109 more
works, fifty by Britten and fifty-nine by other composers (see the appendix for details). These
numbers are, of course, low estimates, as some performance dates are unknown. In any case, the
number of Pears’s first performances is impressive and speaks to his dedication to the promotion
of new music, especially to his generation of composers in England.
The discussion has accomplished the second and third goals described in the introduction.
It has explained Pears’s role in the creation of the music and identified some unifying musical
characteristics. The discussion has shown that, not only are there melodic patterns to be found
within this music, but in many cases Pears’s performance of one work influences the
composition of another. There is a development, then, of melodic elements that travels between
composers over an extended amount of time, all originating with Pears’s voice. This
development continues into the works written for Pears after 1954, and further study is necessary
that will include the premieres of the next thirty years.
There is no question that Pears had a significant impact upon composers and music of the
twentieth-century. Through Peter Pears’s voice, musicality, sensitivity, and passion for his art, he
has brought to the world a great amount of music. One must notice the wide range that this music
covers: a variety of genres, styles, and languages. One must also notice that while some of the
composers who wrote for Pears are at the top of the list of twentieth-century composers, many
are less notable. This does not mean necessarily that their compositions are any less important or
any less worth learning and performing. Rather, it means that Pears’s criteria for choosing a
composer to promote did not rely upon popularity. It also shows that Pears was not necessarily
looking for masterpieces in his commissions. In commissioning, premiering and promoting new
works Pears was thoroughly dedicated to the advancement of contemporary music on the whole.
124
APPENDIX A
The Premiere Performances of Peter Pears
The following is a chronological list of all of the premiere performances given by Sir
Peter Pears for which the dates are known. As well as world premieres, the list includes other
special premieres, such as broadcast premieres, premieres within the United Kingdom, premieres
of revised works, etc. The numbering in the far-left column refers only to world premieres.
1932
1.
World Premiere
?/?/1932, location unknown
Alexander Brent Smith: “My Eyes for Beauty Pine”
1936
English Language Premiere
March 18, 1936, Queen’s Hall, London
Dmitri Shostakovich: Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk
Pears as the ‘Second Foreman’
Conductor Albert Coates.
1937
2.
World Premiere
September 29, 1937, BBC broadcast
Benjamin Britten: The Company of Heaven
Soprano and tenor soloists, chorus, and orchestra
Soprano Sophie Wyss and conductor Benjamin Britten
3.
World Premiere
Between October 16 and 23, 1937, Cambridge
Benjamin Britten: On this Island
I.
Let the Florid Music Praise
II.
Now the Leaves are Falling Fast
III. Seascape
IV. Nocturne
V.
As it is, Plenty
Pianist Benjamin Britten
125
1939
4.
World Premiere
Between 1939 and 1941, United States
Benjamin Britten: A. M. D. G.
I.
Prayer I
II.
Rosa Mystica
III. O Deus, ego amo te
IV. Heaven-Haven
Performed by Pears with a group of American singers
5.
World Premiere
November 19, 1939, Hotel Henry Perkins, Rivershead, NY
Purcell/Britten: “Hark, the Ech’ing Air”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
6.
World Premiere
November 19, 1939, Hotel Henry Perkins, Rivershead, NY
Purcell/Britten: “Knotting Song”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
1941
US Premiere
May 18, 1941, Chicago, CBS radio
Britten: Les illuminations
Conductor Benjamin Britten
7.
World Premiere
November 26, 1941, 1st Park Congregational Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Britten: “The Salley Gardens”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
8.
World Premiere
November 26, 1941, 1st Park Congregational Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Britten: “Little Sir William”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
9.
World Premiere
November 26, 1941, 1st Park Congregational Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Britten: “The Bonny Earl o’Moray”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
10.
World Premiere
November 26, 1941, 1st Park Congregational Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Britten: “Oliver Cromwell”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
11.
World Premiere
December 14, 1941, Southold High School, Long Island, NY
Britten: “Calypso”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
126
12.
World Premiere
December 14, 1941, Southold High School, Long Island, NY
Britten: “The Crocodile”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
13.
World Premiere
December 14, 1941, Southold High School, Long Island, NY
Britten: “The Ash Grove”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
1942
14.
World Premiere
September 11, 1942, Ipswich, St. Mary-le-Tower Church
Britten: “I Wonder as I Wander”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
15.
World Premiere
September 11, 1942, Ipswich, St. Mary-le-Tower Church
Britten: “The Seven Blessings of Mary”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
16.
World Premiere
September 11, 1942, Ipswich, St. Mary-le-Tower Church
Britten: “Hymn”
Cellist Florence Hooten and pianist Benjamin Britten
17.
World Premiere
September 23, 1942, Wigmore Hall, London
Britten: Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo
I.
Sonetto XVI
II.
Sonetto XXXI
III. Sonetto XXX
IV. Sonetto LV
V.
Sonetto XXXVIII
VI. Sonetto XXXII
VII. Sonetto XXIV
Pianist Benjamin Britten
18.
World Premiere
November 18, 1942, Hockerill Training College Hall
Britten: “The Foggy, Foggy Dew”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
World Premiere of an Arrangement
December 13, 1942, Odeon Theater, Southgate
Britten: 4 Folksong arrangements for voice and orchestra
I.
Salley Gardens
II.
Bonny Earl o’ Moray
III. Little Sir William
IV. Oliver Cromwell
New London Orchestra and conductor Alex Sherman.
127
1943
19.
World Premiere
February 28, 1943, Friend’s House, London
Britten: “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
20.
World Premiere
February 28, 1943, Friend’s House, London
Britten: “La belle est au jardin d’amour”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
21.
World Premiere
February 28, 1943, Friend’s House, London
Britten: “Quand j’étais chez mon père”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
22.
World Premiere
April 25, 1943, Cambridge Arts Theater
Schubert/Britten (completed): “Ach, neige du Schmerzenreiche (Gretchens Bitte)” D564
Pianist Benjamin Britten
23.
World Premiere
May 3, 1943, Crane Theater, Liverpool
Purcell/Britten: “Not All My Torments”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
24.
World Premiere
June 5, 1943, Holst Room, Morley College, London
Michael Tippett: Boyhood’s End
Pianist Benjamin Britten
25.
World Premiere
July 17, 1943, Holst Room, Morley College, London
Antony Hopkins: Songs of Cyprus
I.
Con brio
II.
Quasi Lento
III. Lento, tempo rubato
Soprano Alison Purves, mezzo Rita Harris, bass Donald Lumsden, and conductor Antony Hopkins.
26.
World Premiere
July 19, 1943, Jordan, Buckinghamshire
Purcell/Britten: “There’s Not a Swain”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
27.
World Premiere
July 20, 1943, BBC Home Service
Purcell/Britten: “I’ll Sail Upon the Dogstar”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
28.
World Premiere
July 20, 1943, BBC Home Service
Purcell/Britten: “On the Brow of Richmond Hill”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
128
Broadcast Premiere
July 20, 1943, BBC Home Service
Britten: Michelangelo Sonnets
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
July 20, 1943, BBC Home Service
Purcell/Britten: “There’s Not a Swain”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
July 20, 1943, BBC Home Service
Purcell/Britten: “Not All My Torments”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
29.
World Premiere
October 14, 1943, St Margaret’s Church
Britten: “O Can Ye Sew Cushions?”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
30.
World Premiere
October 15, 1943, Wigmore Hall
Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings
I.
Prologue
II.
Pastoral
III. Nocturne
IV. Elegy
V.
Dirge
VI. Hymn
VII. Sonnet
VIII. Epilogue
Hornist Dennis Brain and conductor Walter Goehr
1944
31.
World Premiere
January 4, 1944, Fyvie Hall, London Polytechnic
William Wordsworth: “The Snowflake”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
32.
World Premiere
January 4, 1944, Fyvie Hall, London Polytechnic
R. W. Wood: Three Songs (1936)
I.
Sonnet No. 64 (Shakespeare)
II.
Sonnet d’Automne (Baudelaire)
III. Epitaph (Elizabeth Barnett Browning)
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
February 11, 1944, BBC North Region Home Service
Britten: “Little Sir William” (voice and orchestra)
BBC Northern Orchestra and conductor Richard Austin
129
Broadcast Premiere
February 11, 1944, BBC North Region Home Service
Britten: “Oliver Cromwell” (voice and orchestra)
BBC Northern Orchestra and conductor Richard Austin
UK Premiere
February 13, 1944, BBC
Leos Janacek: Diary of a Young Man who Vanished
Soprano Emilie Hooke and pianist Walter Susskind
33.
World Premiere
March 19, 1944, Royal Adelphi Theater, London
Michael Tippett: A Child of our Time
Oratorio for SATB solos, chorus and orchestra
Soprano Joan Cross, mezzo Margaret McArthur, bass Norman Walker, the London Region Civil Defence
and Morley College Choirs, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and conductor Walter Goehr.
Broadcast Premiere
April 20, 1944, BBC Home Service
Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings
Hornist Dennis Brain
34.
World Premiere
September 21, 1943, St. Matthews, Northhampton
Maurice Greene/Britten: Two Solo Anthems for Tenor
Accompaniment arranged for cello and piano by Britten.
I.
Blessed are They That Dwell
II.
O Praise the Lord
Cellist Norina Semino and pianist Benjamin Britten
35.
World Premiere
October 8, 1944, Morley College, London
Purcell/Britten: The Queen’s Epicedium
Pianist Benjamin Britten
36.
World Premiere
October 8, 1944, Morley College, London
Purcell/Britten: “Pious Celinda”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
37.
World Premiere
October 19, 1944, Northampton, St. Matthew’s Church
Purcell/Britten: “Evening Hymn”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
38.
World Premiere
December 1, 1944, Museum Lecture Theater, Bristol
Purcell/Britten: “Sound the Trumpet”
Soprano Margaret Ritchie and pianist Benjamin Britten
1945
Broadcast Premiere
January 17, 1945, BBC Home
Michael Tippett: A Child of Our Time
130
39.
World Premiere
March 13, 1945, Salle de l’ancien conservatoire, Paris, France
Purcell/Britten: “Turn Then Thine Eyes”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
40.
World Premiere
June 7, 1945, Sadler’s Wells, London
Britten: Peter Grimes, op 33
Conductor Reginald Goodall
Broadcast Premiere
June 28, 1945, BBC Home Service, Leeds
Purcell/Britten: “Turn Then Thine Eyes”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
June 28, 1945, BBC Home Service, Leeds
Purcell/Britten: “Pious Celinda”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
July 15, 1945, BBC Home Service
Britten: Peter Grimes (excerpts)
Broadcast Premiere
July 17, 1945, BBC Home Service
Britten: Peter Grimes (complete)
41.
World Premiere
September 26, 1945, Bristol Grammar School
Britten: “Sweet Polly Oliver”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
42.
World Premiere
September 27, 1945, Melksham Music Club
Britten: “The Plough Boy”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
43.
World Premiere
September 27, 1945, Melksham Music Club
Britten: “There’s None to Soothe”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
44.
World Premiere
November 7, 1945, location unknown
Britten: “Birthday Song for Erwin”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
45.
World Premiere
November 17, 1945, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
Purcell/Britten: “Music for a While”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
131
46.
World Premiere
November 17, 1945, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
Purcell/Britten: “Mad Bess”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
47.
World Premiere
November 21, 1945, Wigmore Hall
Purcell/Britten: “Lord, What is Man?”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
48.
World Premiere
November 21, 1945, Wigmore Hall
Purcell/Britten: “I Spy Celia”
Baritone Richard Wood and pianist Benjamin Britten
49.
World Premiere
November 21, 1945, Wigmore Hall
Purcell/Britten: “Lost is my Quiet”
Baritone Richard Wood and pianist Benjamin Britten
50.
World Premiere
November 21, 1945, Wigmore Hall
Purcell/Britten: “What Can We Poor Females Do?”
Baritone Richard Wood and pianist Benjamin Britten
51.
World Premiere
November 21, 1945, Wigmore Hall
Purcell/Britten: Saul and the Witch at Endor
Soprano Margaret Ritchie, baritone Richard Wood, and pianist Benjamin Britten
52.
World Premiere
November 21, 1945, Wigmore Hall
Purcell/Britten: “Fairest Isle”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
53.
World Premiere
November 21, 1945, Wigmore Hall
Purcell/Britten: “If Music be the Food of Love” (third version)
Pianist Benjamin Britten
54.
World Premiere
November 21, 1945, Wigmore Hall
Purcell/Britten: “Man is for the Woman Made”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
132
55.
World Premiere
November 22, 1945, Wigmore Hall
Britten: Holy Sonnets of John Donne
I.
Oh my black soule!
II.
Batter my heart
III. Oh might those sighes and teares
IV. Oh, to vex me
V.
What if this present
VI. Since she whom I loved
VII. At the round earth’s imagined corners
VIII. Thou hast made me
IX. Death, be not proud
Pianist Benjamin Britten
56.
World Premiere
November 23, 1945, National Gallery, London
Purcell/Britten: “If Music be the Food of Love” (1st version)
Pianist Benjamin Britten
57.
World Premiere
November 23, 1945, National Gallery, London
Purcell/Britten: “Sweeter then Roses”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
1946
58.
World Premiere
January 11, 1946, Amsterdam, Concertgebouw
Purcell/Britten: “We Sing to Him”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
59.
World Premiere
January 20, 1946, Wigmore Hall
Gerard Schurmann: Five Facets (Vijf facetten)
I.
O leven wordt zijn helder lied
II.
Laat mij luist’ren
III. In groen en zwart
IV. Een hoge stem doorbreekt de wind
V.
Vergeten van bevreemde mijmering
Pianist Benjamin Britten
60.
World Premiere
February 10, 1946, Cambridge Arts Theater
Purcell/Britten: “Celemene, Pray Tell Me”
Soprano Joan Cross and pianist Benjamin Britten
61.
World Premiere
March 11, 1946, National Gallery, London
Britten: “The Miller of Dee”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
62.
World Premiere
July 12, 1946, Glyndebourne
Britten: Rape of Lucretia
Pears as Male Chorus; conductor Ernst Anserme
133
Broadcast Premiere
August 7, 1946, BBC West of England Home Service
Britten: “The Salley Gardens”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
August 7, 1946, BBC West of England Home Service
Britten: “Little Sir William”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
September 1, 1946, BBC Third Programme
Britten: Holy Sonnets of John Donne
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
October 11, 1946, BBC Third Programme
Britten: Rape of Lucretia
63.
World Premiere
October 30, 1946, Maastricht, Netherlands
Purcell/Britten: “A Morning Hymn”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
64.
World Premiere
October 31, 1946, Amsterdam
Britten: “O Waly Waly”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
65.
World Premiere
November 7, 1946, Harmonie, Leeuwarden
Purcell/Britten: Henry Purcell: Suite of Songs from Orpheus Brittanicus
I. Let Sullen Discord Smile
II. Why Should Men Quarrel
III. So When the Glittering Queen of Night
IV. Thou Tun’st this World
V. Tis Holiday
VI. Sound Fame Thy Brazon Trumpet
Groninger Orkestervereeniging [orchestra], conductor Jan van Epenhuysen.
World Premiere of an Arrangement
November 21, 1946, BBC Light Programme
Britten: “The Plough Boy”
Flutist John Francis and the Zorian String Quartet
66.
World Premiere
November 21, 1946, BBC Light Programme
Britten: “The Stream in the Valley”
Cellist Maurice Gendron and pianist Benjamin Britten
134
1947
67.
World Premiere
April 26, 1947, Teatro Comunale, Florence
Purcell/Britten: “I Attempt from Love’s Sickness to Fly”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
68.
World Premiere and Broadcast premiere
June 20, 1947, Glyndebourne/BBC Third Programme
Britten: Albert Herring
Pears as Albert, conductor Benjamin Britten
69.
World Premiere
August 19, 1947, Zurich, Tonhalle
Lennox Berkeley: Stabat Mater
Six solo voices and chamber orchestra
Sopranos Margaret Ritchie and Lesly Duff, contralto Nancy Evans, baritone Frederick Sharp, bass Norman
Lumsden, and conductor Benjamin Britten.
Broadcast Premiere
September 18, 1947, BBC Light Programme
Britten: “The Miller of Dee”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
September 18, 1947, BBC Light Programme
Britten: “The Foggy Foggy Dew”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
70.
World Premiere
November 1, 1947, Central Hall, Westminster
Britten: Canticle: My Beloved is Mine
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
November 24, 1947, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: The Queen’s Epicedium
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
November 24, 1947, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: “If Music be the Food of Love” (third version)
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
November 26, 1947, BBC Third Programme
Britten: Canticle: My Beloved is Mine
Pianist Benjamin Britten
71.
World Premiere
November 29, 1947, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: “When Myra Sings”
Tenor Max Malli and pianist Benjamin Britten
135
Broadcast Premiere
November 29, 1947, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: “Sound the Trumpet”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
December 11, 1947, BBC Light Programme
Purcell/Britten: “Sweeter than Roses”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
December 28, 1947, BBC Home Service
Britten: “The Plough Boy”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
72.
World Premiere
?/?/1947, location unkown
Humphrey Searle: Put Away the Flutes
For tenor, flute, oboe, string quartet
Ensemble unknown
1948
73.
World Premiere
April 4, 1948, Amsterdam, Concertgebouw
Purcell/Britten: Job’s Curse
Pianist Benjamin Britten
UK premiere:
April 9, 1948, BBC Third Programme
Frank Martin: Six Monologues from Jedermann (Hofmannsthal)
I. Ist alls zu End das Freudenmahl
II. Ist als wenn eins gerufen haett’
III. Ja! Ich glaube
IV. Ach Gott, wie graust mir vr dem Tod
V. O ewiger Gott!
VI. O goettliches Gesicht
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
April 15, 1948, BBC Light Programme
Purcell/Britten: “If Music be the Food of Love” (third version)
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
April 15, 1948, BBC Light Programme
Purcell/Britten: “Man is for the Woman Made”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
UK Premiere
April 24, 1948, Wigmore Hall, London
Purcell/Britten: Job’s Curse
Pianist Benjamin Britten
136
74.
World Premiere
?/?/1948, Chelsea Town Hall
Arthur Oldham: Summer’s Lease
For tenor and string orchestra
Conductor Arthur Oldham
75.
World Premiere
April 24, 1948, Wigmore Hall, London
Arthur Oldham: The Sunne Rising
Pianist Benjamin Britten
76.
World Premiere
May 24, 1948, Arts Theater, Cambridge
Britten: The Beggar’s Opera (realization of an opera by John Gay, 1728)
Pears as Macheath; conductor Britten and director Tyrone Guthrie.
77.
World Premiere
June 5, 1948, Parish Church, Aldeburgh
Britten: Saint Nicolas
Cantata for tenor solo, chorus, semi-chorus, four boy singers and orchestra.
Broadcast Premiere
September 21, 1948, BBC Third Programme
Britten: Beggar’s Opera
Broadcast Premiere
December 9, 1948, Amsterdam Lutheran Church
Britten: Saint Nicolas
Broadcast Premiere
December 29, 1948, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: “Celemene, Pray Tell Me”
Soprano Joan Cross and pianist Boris Ord
Broadcast Premiere
December 29, 1948, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: Job’s Curse
Pianist Boris Ord
Broadcast Premiere
December 29, 1948, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: Saul and the Witch at Endor
Soprano Joan Cross, bass George James, and pianist Boris Ord
Broadcast Premiere
December 29, 1948, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: “Alleluia”
Pianist Boris Ord
Broadcast Premiere
December 29, 1948, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: “I Spy Celia”
Bass George James and pianist Boris Ord
137
Broadcast Premiere
December 29, 1948, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: “Lost is My Quiet”
Bass George James and pianist Boris Ord
Broadcast Premiere
December 29, 1948, BBC Third Programme
Purcell/Britten: “What Can We Poor Females do?”
Bass George James and pianist Boris Ord
1949
78.
World Premiere
January 5, 1949, BBC Third Programme
Gustav Holst: The Wandering Scholar
Edited by Britten and Imogen Holst
English Opera Group: baritone Frederick Sharp, soprano Margaret Ritchie, bass George James, and
conductor Ivan Clayton.
79.
World Premiere
June 19, 1949, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Arthur Oldham: Five Chinese Lyrics
I.
Under the Pondweed
II.
The Herd Boy’s Song
III. Fishing
IV. The Pedlar of Spells
V.
A Gentle Wind
Pianist Benjamin Britten
80.
World Premiere
July 12, 1949, Oude Kerk, Amsterdam
Bertus van Lier: The Song of Songs
Soprano Dors van Doorn-Linderman, bass Hermann Schey and the Amsterdam Chamber Music Society,
conductor Bertus Van Lier.
81.
World Premiere
July 14, 1949, Holland Festival, Amsterdam
Britten: The Spring Symphony
Soprano Jo Vinccent, contralto Kathleen Ferrier, the Dutch Radio Chorus, Concertgebouw Orchestra and
conductor Eduard van Beinum
82.
World Premiere
September 29, 1949, St. Mark’s Church, London
Britten: A Wedding Anthem (Amo Ergo Sum)
Soprano Joan Cross and conductor Britten
Broadcast Premiere
October 10, 1949, BBC Third Programme
Arthur Oldham: Five Chinese Lyrics
Pianist Benjamin Britten
138
1950
UK Premiere
March 9, 1950, BBC Third Programme
Britten: Spring Symphony
Soprano Joan Cross, contralto Anne Wood, and conductor Eduard van Beinum
83.
World Premiere
May 10, 1950, BBC Third Programme
Robin Orr: Three Romantic Songs
I.
Winter
II.
Spring
III. Summer
For tenor, oboe, a string quartet
Oboist Terrance MacDonagh and the Aeolin String Quartet
84.
World Premiere
June 18, 1950, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Aaron Copland: Old American Songs: First Set
I. The Boatman’s Song
II. Long Time Ago
III. The Dodger
IV. Simple Gifts
V. I Bought Me a Cat
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
August 8, 1950, BBC Third Programme
Aaron Copland: Old American Songs: First Set
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast of first performance
85.
World Premiere
September 25, 1950, Central Hall, Westminster, London
Purcell/Britten: “Dialogue of Corydon and Mopsa”
Contralto Kathleen Ferrier and pianist Benjamin Britten
Premiere of a Revised Version
November 14, 1950, The Friend’s House, London
Robin Orr: Four Romantic Songs
I.
Down from the Branches
II.
Comes Now the Spring
III. Now the Fields are Laughing
IV. While Summer on is Stealing
For tenor, oboe and string quartet
(See premiere entry 83)
Members of the London Harpsichord Ensemble: oboist Joy Boughton, violinists Hans Geiger and Peter
Mountain, violist Bernard Davis, and cellist Ambrose Gauntlet
139
86.
World Premiere
November 14, 1950, The Friend’s House, London
Grace Williams: Three Traditional Welsh Ballads
I.
Sweet Primroses
II.
The Lass from Swansea Town
III. Fair Lisa
For tenor, flute, oboe, string quartet
Members of the London Harpsichord Ensemble: flutist John Francis, oboist Joy Boughton, violinists Hans
Geiger and Peter Mountain, violist Bernard Davis, and cellist Ambrose Gauntlet
Broadcast Premiere
December 10, 1950, BBC Third Programme
Nicole Jomelli: La Passione di nostro signore Gesu Cristo
With soprano Margaret Ritchie, baritone George Pizzey, baritone Bernard Steel, and conductor Trevor
Harvey cond.
1951
87.
World Premiere
April 9, 1951, Vienna, Mozart-Saal
Britten: “Ca’ the Yowes”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
88.
World Premiere
May 1, 1951, New Lyric Theater, Hammersmith
Claudio Monteverdi: Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
In a new English translation by Peter Pears
English Opera Group
89.
World Premiere
May 7, 1951, Wigmore Hall, London
Michael Tippett: The Heart’s Assurance
I.
Song
II.
The Heart’s Assurance
III. Compassion
IV. The Dancer
V.
Remember your Lovers
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
May 31, 1951, BBC Light Programme
Britten: “Ca’ the Yowes”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
90.
World Premiere
June 13, 1951, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Purcell/Britten: “I Take No Pleasure”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
140
91.
World Premiere
June 13, 1951, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Arthur Oldham: The Commandment of Love
I.
Ihesu God’s Son
II.
Unkind Man Give Keep Til Me
III. O Lord Right Dear
IV. My Sang is in Sighing
V.
Lo, Leman Sweet, Now May Thou See
VI. All Vanities Forsake
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
July 10, 1951, Opera House, Cheltenham
Purcell/Britten: Dido and Aeneas (original version).
92.
World Premiere
December 1, 1951, Covent Garden
Britten: Billy Budd
Pears as Captain Vere, conductor Benjamin Britten and director Eric Crozier
1952
93.
World Premiere
January 21, 1952, Nottingham
Britten: Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac
Contralto Kathleen Ferrier and pianist Britten
Broadcast Premiere
February 18, 1952, BBC Midland
Purcell/Britten: “Dialogue of Corydon & Mopsa”
Contralto Kathleen Ferrier and pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
February 18, 1952, BBC Midland
Britten: Canticle II
Contralto Kathleen Ferrier and pianist Benjamin Britten
94.
World Premiere and Broadcast Premiere
May 9, 1952, BBC Third Programme
Arthur Oldham: Love in a Village
Conductor Norman Del Mar
Stage Premiere
June 16, 1952, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Arthur Oldham: Love in a Village
Conductor Norman Del Mar
Premiere of an Arrangement
June 20, 1952, Parish Church, Aldeburgh
Britten: Rejoice in the Lamb (revised version)
For SATB choir, soloists and orchestra.
Trebles Graham Bush and Roger Cooper, countertenor Alfred Deller, bass Trevor Anthony, organ Ralph
Downes and conductor Imogen Holst.
141
95.
World Premiere
June 21, 1952, Parish Church, Aldeburgh
Lennox Berkeley: Variations on a Hymn of Orlando Gibbons
For tenor, chorus, strings, organ
Aldeburgh Festival Choir and Orchestra, organ Ralph Downes and conductor Lennox Berkeley
1953
96.
World Premiere
?/?/1953, Wigmore Hall
Lennox Berkeley: Nelson: A Grand Opera in Three Acts
English Opera Group
This was a concert performance of the opera
97.
World Premiere
March 8, 1953, Victoria and Albert Museum
Lennox Berkeley: Four Ronsard Sonnets (set 1)
For two tenors and piano
Tenor Hughes Cuenod and pianist George Malcolm
98.
World Premiere
May 22, 1953, Royal Festival House
Alan Bush: Voices of the Prophets: Cantata for Tenor Voice and Pianoforte
I.
From the Sixty-fifth Chapter of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah
II.
From the Oration ‘Against the Scholastic Philosophy’ by John Milton
III. From ‘Selections from Milton’ by William Blake
IV. From ‘My Song is for All Men’ by Peter Blackman
Pianist Noel Mewton-Woods
99.
World Premiere
May 22, 1953, Royal Festival House
Mátyás Seiber: To Poetry
I.
Invocation
II.
Sonnet
III. Tears
IV. Timor Mortis
V.
Epilogue
Pianist Noel Mewton-Wood
100.
World Premiere and broadcast premiere
June 8, 1953, Covent Garden/BBC Third Programme
Britten: Gloriana, op 53.
Pears as Essex; conductor John Prichard
101.
World Premiere
June 16, 1953, BBC Third Programme
Priaulx Rainier: Cycle for Declamation
I.
Wee cannot bid the fruits
II.
In the Wombe of he Earth
III. Nunc, lento sonitu
Unaccompanied tenor
142
UK Premiere
June 22, 1953, Jubilee Hall
Lennox Berkeley: Stabat Mater
English Opera Group, conductor Benjamin Britten
Premiere of an Arrangement
June 28, 1953, Jubilee Hall
Britten/arr. I. Holst: “The Second Lute Song of the Earl of Essex” from Gloriana
Pianist Benjamin Britten
102.
World Premiere
October 8, 1953, Leeds Festival, Harewood House
Britten: Winter Words
I.
At Day-close in November
II.
Midnight on the Great Western (or The Journeying Boy)
III. Wagtail and Baby (a Satire)
IV. The Little Old Table
V.
The Choirmaster’s Burial (or The Tenor Man’s Story)
VI. Proud Songsters (Thrushes, Finches and Nightengales)
VII. At the Railway Station, Upway (or The Convict and the Boy)
VIII. Before Life and After
Pianist Benjamin Britten
UK Premiere
November 17, 1953, BBC Third Programme
Igor Stravinsky: Cantata (1952) for soprano, tenor, female chorus and chamber ensemble.
Soprano Arda Mandikain and conductor Paul Sacher
Broadcast Premiere
November 28, 1953, BBC Third Programme
Britten: Winter Words
(pre-recorded on Oct 22, 1953)
Pianist Benjamin Britten
1954
103.
World Premiere
January 24, 1954, Victoria and Albert Musuem, London
Britten: “The Brisk Young Widow”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
104.
World Premiere
September 14, 1954, Venice, Teatro la Felice
Britten: The Turn of the Screw, op 54.
Pears as Prologue/Peter Quint; conductor Benjamin Britten
Premiere of an Arrangement
September 23, 1954, Birmingham, Town Hall
Britten: Symphonic Suite from Gloriana
for tenor and orchestra
CBS Orchestra, conductor Rudolf Schwarz
UK Premiere
October 6, 1954, Sadler’s Wells, London
Britten: The Turn of the Screw
143
105.
World Premiere
November 12, 1954, Wigmore Hall, London
James Bernard: Shepherd’s Warning
Pastoral song cycle for voice and guitar
Guitarist Julian Bream
106.
World Premiere
December 3, 1954, Covent Garden
William Walton: Troilus and Cressida
Pears as Panderus; conductor Malcolm Sargent
107.
World Premiere
December 22, 1954, Morley College, London
Arnolde Cooke: “This Worldes Joie”
Unaccompanied tenor
108.
World Premiere
December 22, 1954, Morley College, London
Wilfred Mellers: “Merry Margaret”
Unaccompanied tenor
109.
World Premiere
December 22, 1954, Morley College, London
Robin Orr: “Cupid Enchained”
Unaccompanied tenor
110.
World Premiere
December 22, 1954, Morley College, London
Malcolm Williamson: “Ay Flattering Fortune”
Unaccompanied tenor
1955
UK Premiere
January 20, 1955, BBC Third Programme
Igor Stravinsky: In Memorium: Dylan Thomas
New London Quartet and organist Charles Spinks.
111.
World Premiere
January 28, 1955, Wigmore Hall
Arthur Bliss: Elegaic Sonnet
Tenor, string Quartet and piano
Zorian Quartetand and pianist Benjamin Britten
112.
World Premiere
January 28, 1955, Wigmore Hall
Britten: Canticle III: Still Falls the Rain
For tenor, horn and piano
Hornist Dennis Brain and pianist Benjamin Britten
113.
World Premiere
March 6, 1955, Victoria and Albert Museum
Lennox Berkeley: Crux fidelis
Motet for solo tenor and chorus
Purcell Singers, conductor Imogen Holst
144
114.
World Premiere
March 11, 1955, Wigmore Hall
Purcell/Britten: “O Solitude”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
May 8, 1955, BBC Home Service
Britten: “The Brisk Young Widow”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
May 23, 1955, BBC Third Programme
Lennox Berkeley: Crux fidelis
Broadcast Premiere
June 22, 1955, Parish Church, Aldeburgh, BBC Third Programme
Britten: Canticle III: Still Falls the Rain
Hornist Dennis Brain and pianist Benjamin Britten
115.
World Premiere
September 8, 1955, Decca recording studio, London
Lennox Berkeley: “How Love Came In” (Robert Herrick).
Pianist Benjamin Britten
1956
116.
World Premiere
April 15, 1956, Victoria and Albert Museum
Priaulx Rainier: Requiem
Tenor solo and chorus
Purcell Singers, conductor Imogen Holst
117.
World Premiere
May 6, 1956, Wigmore Hall
Britten: “I Will Give my Love an Apple”
Guitarist Julian Bream
118.
World Premiere
May 6, 1956, Wigmore Hall
Britten: “The Soldier and the Sailor”
Guitarist Julian Bream
119.
World Premiere
May 6, 1956, Wigmore Hall
Britten: “The Shooting of his Deer”
Guitarist Julian Bream
UK Premiere
May 13, 1956, Festival Hall, London
Gustav Mahler: Das klagende Lied
Violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan, soprano Joan Sutherland, contralto Norma Procter, tenor Wilfred Brown
and conductor Walter Goehr
145
Broadcast Premiere
May 19, 1956, BBC Third Programme
Priaulx Rainier: Requiem
Purcell Singers, conductor Imogen Holst
120.
World Premiere
June 21, 1956, Aldeburgh Parish Church
Britten: The Heart of the Matter
Speaker Edith Sitwell, hornist Dennis Brain, and pianist Britten
121.
World Premiere
October 2, 1956, Scala Theater, London
Lennox Berkeley: Ruth
Pears as Boaz
Broadcast Premiere
October 6, 1956, BBC Third Programme
Lennox Berkeley: Ruth.
English Opera Group: Una Hale, Anna Pollak, April Cantelo, Thomas Hemsley, conductor Charles
Mackerras
1957
UK Premiere
February 1, 1957, BBC Third Programme
Karl Birger-Blomdahl: In the Hall of Mirrors, 9 Sonnets from The Man Without a Way
For solo voices, chorus, and orchestra.
Soprano Elisabeth Söderström, contralto Pamela Bowden, baritone Frederick Harvey, baritone Alvar
Lidell, bass George James, and conductor Norman del Mar
122.
World Premiere
April 23, 1957, Vienna, Mozart-Saal
Britten: “Early One Morning”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
123.
World Premiere
April 23, 1957, Vienna, Mozart-Saal
Britten: “How Sweet the Answer”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
124.
World Premiere
April 23, 1957, Vienna, Mozart-Saal
Britten: “The Minstrel Boy”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
May 28, 1957, BBC Midland Home Service
Britten: “The Soldier and the Sailor”
Guitarist Julian Bream
Broadcast Premiere
May 28, 1957, BBC Midland Home Service
Britten: “The Shooting of his Deer”
Guitarist Julian Bream
146
1958
125.
World Premiere
January 26, 1958, Victoria and Albert Museum
Britten: “Avenging the Bright”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
126.
World Premiere
January 26, 1958, Victoria and Albert Museum
Britten: “Oft in the Stilly Night”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
127.
World Premiere
January 26, 1958, Victoria and Albert Museum
Britten: “The Last Rose of Summer”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
128.
World Premiere
March 1, 1958, Stuttgart
Purcell/Britten: “How Blest are Shepherds”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
129.
World Premiere
March 15, 1958, Dusseldorf
Britten: “Soldier, Won’t You Marry Me?”
Contralto Norma Prochter and pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
March 27, 1958, BBC Third Programme
Britten: “Avenging and Bright”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
March 27, 1958, BBC Third Programme
Britten: “The Minstrel Boy”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
March 27, 1958, BBC Third Programme
Britten: “The Last Rose of Summer”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
UK Premiere
June 13, 1958, Aldeburgh Festival
Francis Poulenc: Les mamelles de Tirésias
An arrangement for two pianos made for this performance
Pears as the Husband
130.
World Premiere
June ? 1958, location unknown
Egon Wellesz: Alleluia Dic Nobis
Unaccompanied tenor
147
131.
World Premiere
June 17, 1958, Great Glemham House
Britten: Songs from the Chinese
I.
The Big Chariot
II.
The Old Lute
III. The Autumn Wind
IV. The Herd-Boy
V.
Depression
VI. Dance Song
Guitarist Julian Bream
132.
World Premiere
June 17, 1958, Great Glemham House
Britten: “Sailor Boy”
Guitarist Julian Bream
133.
World Premiere
June 17, 1958, Great Glemham House
Britten: “Master Kilby”
Guitarist Julian Bream
Broadcast Premiere
July 1, 1958, BBC Home Service
Britten: “How Sweet the Answer”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Pre-recorded May 20, 1958
Broadcast Premiere
July 1, 1958, BBC Home Service
Britten: “Oft in the Stilly Night”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Pre-recorded May 20, 1958
Broadcast Premiere
July 15, 1958, BBC Home Service
Britten: Songs from the Chinese
Guitarist Julian Bream
Prerecorded June 17, 1958
134.
World Premiere and Broadcast Premiere
October 16, 1958, Leeds Town Hall/BBC Third Programme
Britten: Nocturne
I.
On a poet’s lips I slept
II.
Below the thunders of the upper deep
III. Encinctured with a twine of leaves
IV. Midnight’s bell goes ting, ting, ting, ting, ting
V.
But that night
VI. She sleeps on soft, last breaths
VII. What is more gentle than a wind in summer?
VIII. When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see
For tenor, seven obbligato instruments and string orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Rudolph Schwartz
148
135.
World Premiere
October 20, 1958, BBC Studio
Britten: Sechs Holderin-Fragmente
I.
Menschenbeifall
II.
Die Heimat
III. Sokrates und Alcibiades
IV. Die Jugend
V.
Hälfte des Lebens
VI. Die Linien des Lebens
Pianist Benjamin Britten
This was a recording session that would be broadcast on Nov 14, 1958
136.
World Premiere
November 26, 1958, Hamburg
Hans Werner Henze: Chamber Music 1958
For tenor, guitar, clarinet, horn, string quartet
Guitarist Julian Bream and others
Broadcast Premiere
November 14, 1958, BBC Third Programme
Britten: Sechs Holderin-Fragmente
Recording of a previous performance, October 20, 1958
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Concert Premiere (to a private audience)
November 20, 1958, Schloss Wolfsgarten, Germany
Britten: Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente
Pianist Benjamin Britten
1959
Broadcast Premiere
June 18, 1959, BBC Third Programme
Hans Henze: Chamber Music 1958
Guitarist Julian Bream, the Dorian Singers, and the Melos Ensemble
137.
World Premiere
June 22, 1959, Jubilee Hall
Charles Dibdin/Britten: “Tom Bowling”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
138.
World Premiere
June 22, 1959, Jubilee Hall
Britten: “Sally in our Alley”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
139.
World Premiere
June 22, 1959, Jubilee Hall
Britten: “The Lincolnshire Poacher”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
149
UK Premiere
June 25, 1959, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Mátyás Seiber: Three Fragments from ‘A Portrait of a Young Man as an Artist’
A chamber cantata for speaker, chorus and eight instruments
Dorian Singers, Melos Ensemble, conductor Seiber
140.
World Premiere and broadcast premiere
September 21, 1959, BBC Third programme
R. W. Wood: Five German Songs
I.
An die Guenstigen
II.
Brief an Edith
III. Liebste, sollst mir Heute sagen
IV. Oktoberlied
V.
Wahrhaftig
Pianist John Willis
141.
World Premiere
September 21, 1959, BBC Third programme
Richard Rodney Bennett: Three Songs
I.
Sir, there’s a Tower on Fire in me
II.
And if the Fire Cannot Love
III. My Most – My Most – O my Lost
Unaccompanied tenor
(from a recording made previously at the BBC Studio)
Broadcast Premiere
September 21, 1959, BBC Third Programme
Arnolde Cooke: “This Worlde’s Joie”
Unaccompanied tenor
(from a recording made previously at the BBC Studio)
Broadcast Premiere
September 21, 1959, BBC Third programme
Egon Wellesz: “Alleluia dic nobis”
Unaccompanied tenor
(from a recording made previously at the BBC Studio)
Broadcast Premiere
September 21, 1959, BBC Third programme
Wilfred Mellers: “Merry Margaret”
Unaccompanied tenor
(from a recording made previously at the BBC Studio)
Broadcast Premiere
September 21, 1959, BBC Third programme
Robin Orr: “Cupid Enchained”
Unaccompanied tenor
(from a recording made previously at the BBC Studio)
1960
142.
World Premiere
June 11, 1960, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Britten: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Pears as Flute, conductor Benjamin Britten
150
143.
World Premiere
June 21, 1960, Shrubland Park, Clatdon, Suffolk
William Walton: Anon in Love
Six Anonymous Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Lyrics Set for Tenor and Guitar
I.
Fain Would I Change that Note
II.
O Stay, Sweet Love
III. Lady, When I Behold the Roses
IV. My Love in her Attire
V.
I Gave her Cake and I gave her Ale
VI. To Couple is a Custom
Guitarist Julian Bream
144.
World Premiere
June 21, 1960, Shrubland Park, Clatdon, Suffolk
Richard Rodney Bennett: Lament
For tenor and guitar
Guitarist Julian Bream
Broadcast Premiere
June 24, 1960, BBC Home Service
Britten: Midsummer Night’s Dream
Pears as Flute, conductor Benjamin Britten
(This was broadcast of the recorded dress rehearsal on June 10, 1960 at Jubilee Hall before an
invited audience)
145.
World Premiere
July 1, 1960, Basle University
Britten: Cantata Academica
SATB solos, chorus and orchestra
Soprano Agnes Giebel, alto Elsa Cavelti, bass Heinz Rehfuss, and conductor Paul Basler
Premiere of a revised work
November 8, 1960, BBC Third Programme
Britten: Billy Budd (revised version)
Broadcast on November 13, 1960
UK Premiere
November 29, 1960, Guildhall, Cambridge/BBC Third Programme
Britten: Cantata Academica
Soprano Jennifer Vyvyan, contralto Helen Watts, bass Owen Brannigan, and conductor Benjamin Britten
(The performance was broadcast on BBC Third Programme
146.
World Premiere
December 16, 1960, Wigmore Hall
Alan Rideout: On Heliodora,
Three songs for unaccompanied tenor
1961
147.
World Premiere
July 7, 1961, Great Glemham House, Suffolk
Thea Musgrave: Ballad: Sir Patrick Spens
With guitarist Julian Bream
151
148.
World Premiere
July 7, 1961, Great Glemham House, Suffolk
Michael Tippett: Songs for Achilles
I.
In the Tent
II.
On the Battlefield
III. By the Sea
Guitarist Julian Bream
149.
World Premiere
November 22, 1961, National Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
Richard Rodnay Bennett: Tom O’Bedlam’s Song
Cellist Joan Dickson.
1962
Broadcast Premiere
January 26, 1962, BBC Third Programme
Michael Tippett: Songs for Achilles
Guitarist Julian Bream
Broadcast Premiere
January 26, 1962, BBC Third Programme
Thea Musgrave: “Ballad: Sir Patrick Spens”
Guitarist Julian Bream
150.
World Premiere
May 30, 1962, St. Michael’s Cathedral, Coventry
Britten: War Requiem
STB solos, chorus, orchestra, chamber orchestra, boys’ chorus and organ
Soprano Heather Harper, baritone Dietrich Fischer Diskau, Coventry Festival Chorus, City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra and the Melos Ensemble, conductors Meredith Davies and Benjamin Britten
151.
World Premiere
June 16, 1962, Aldeburgh Parish Church
Britten: The Twelve Apostles
For tenor, unison chorus and piano.
London Boy Singers and pianist Benjamin Britten
152.
World Premiere
June 21, 1962, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Peter Racine Fricker: Cantata op 37
For tenor and chamber ensemble
English Chamber Orchestra
153.
World Premiere
July 31, 1962, Dartington Hall
Peter Racine Fricker: O Mistress Mine
Guitarist Julian Bream
152
1963
154.
World Premiere
March 6, 1963, Moscow
Purcell/Britten: Three Songs for high voice and orchestra
I.
Hark the Ech’ing Air!
II.
Not All My Torments
III. Take Not a Woman’s Anger Ill
USSR State Symphony Orchestra and conductor Norman del Mar cond.
Broadcast Premiere
March 25, 1963, BBC Midland Services
Britten: “Sally in our Alley”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
March 25, 1963, BBC Midland Services
Britten: “The Lincolnshire Poacher”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
155.
World Premiere
April 24, 1963, Venice
Hans Werner Henze: Novae de infinito laudes
SATB soloists, chorus and orchestra of West German Radio
Soprano Elisabeth Soderstrom, mezzo Kerstin Meyer, baritone Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, Chorus and
Orchestra of West German Radio, and conductor Hans Henze
156.
World Premiere
August 9, 1963, Royal Albert Hall
Lennox Berkeley: Four Ronsard Sonnets (set 2)
I.
Ce premier jour de mai
II.
Je sens une douceur
III. Ma fiévre croist toujours
IV. Yeux, qui versez en l’ame
For tenor and orchestra
BBC symphony orchestra and conductor Lennox Berkeley
157.
World Premiere and broadcast premiere
September 1, 1963, Geneva/BBC Home Service
Britten: Cantata Misericordium
For tenor and baritone solos, small chorus and orchestra
Baritone Dietrich Fischer Diskau, le Motet de Geneva, l’Orchestre da la Suisse Romande, and conductor
Ernst Ansermet
UK Premiere
September 12, 1963, Royal Albert Hall
Britten: Cantata Misericordium
1964
158.
World Premiere
June 12, 1964, Village Church of Oxford
Britten: Curlew River
Pears as Mad woman.
Broadcast Premiere
153
June 21, 1964, BBC Third Programme
Britten: Curlew River
(relay of June 12, first performance)
Broadcast Premiere
June 21, 1964, BBC2 TV
Charles Dibdin/Britten: “Tom Bowling”
Pianist Benjamin Britten
1965
159.
World Premiere
June 20, 1965, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Witold Lutoslawski: Paroles Tissées: Quatre tapisseries pour la Chatelaine de Vergi
For tenor, string orchestra, piano, and percussion
Philharmonic of London, conductor Lutoslawski
160.
World Premiere
June 22, 1965, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Berkeley: Songs of the Half-Light, op 65
I.
Rachel (Allegro moderato)
II.
Full Moon (Lento)
III. All that’s Past (Allegretto)
IV. The Moth (Lento)
V.
The Fleeting (Andante)
Guitarist Julian Bream
World Premiere
June 22, 1965, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Elizabeth Maconchy: Hymn to God the Father
Pianist Viola Tunnard
161.
1966
Broadcast Premiere
June 1966, BBC Music Programme
(from RCA recording)
Britten: “I Will Give my Love an Apple”
Guitarist Julian Bream
Broadcast Premiere
June 1966, BBC Music Programme
Britten: “Sailor boy”
Guitarist Julian Bream
162.
World Premiere
June 9, 1966, Orford Parish Church, Aldeburgh
Britten: The Burning Fiery Furnace
Pears as Nebuchadnezzar
Broadcast Premiere
July 13, 1966, BBC
Robin Stephenson: Six Elizabethan Poems
Pianist Viola Tunnard
154
Broadcast Premiere
December 16, 1966, BBC Music Program
(from RCA recording)
Britten: “Master Kilby”
Guitarist Julian Bream
163.
World Premiere
December ?, 1966, Cologne
Francis Burt: The Skull
1967
Premiere of an Arrangement
March 1, 1967, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Britten: “Choral Dances” from Gloriana
For tenor, harp and chorus
Harpist Osian Ellis and the Ambrosian Singers
Broadcast Premiere
March 2, 1967, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Britten: “Choral Dances” from Gloriana
For tenor, harp and chorus
Harpist Osian Ellis and the Ambrosian Singers
Broadcast Premiere
April 6, 1967, Jubilee Hall
Raymond Warren: The Pity of Love: Six Songs for Tenor and Guitar
Guitarist Julian Bream
Broadcast Premiere
May 29, 1967, BBC Music Programme
Purcell/Britten: “Morning Hymn”
Pianist Viola Tunnard
164.
World Premiere and broadcast premiere
June 25, 1967, Maltings, Snape/BBC Music Programme
Purcell/Britten: The Fairy Queen
“A new version for concert performance devised by Peter Pears, edited by Benjamin Britten and Imogen
Holst.”
Sopranos Jennifer Vyvyan and Mary Wells, mezzo Alfreda Hodgson, countertenors James Bowman and
Martin Lane, tenor Robert Tear, basses Owen Brannigan and Stafford Dean, and conductor Benjamin
Britten
165.
World Premiere
Summer (?) 1967, Queen’s University, Belfast
Raymond Warren: A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day
For tenor, flute, viola, and guitar
Flutist Richard Adeney, violist Cecil Aronowitz, and guitarist Julian Bream
(The concert was recorded in Sir William Whitle Hall during the 1967 festival and then broadcast
on BBC Thirde Programme on Dec 4, 1967)
155
1968
166.
World Premiere
June 10, 1968, Orford Parish Church, Aldeburgh
Britten: Prodigal Son
Pears as Tempter
167.
World Premiere
June 14, 1968, Snape Maltings
Purcell/Britten: “In These Delightful, Pleasant Groves”
For soprano, contralto, tenor, bass and piano
Soprano Heather Harper, contralto Janet Baker, baritone Thomas Hemsley, and pianist Britten
Broadcast Premiere
June 28, 1968, Orford Parish Church, Aldeburgh
(relay of sixth performance):
Britten: Prodigal Son
168.
World Premiere
October 3, 1968, BBC broadcast, London
Malcolm Williamson: A Vision of Beasts and gods
Pianist Viola Tunnard
1969
169.
World Premiere
June 18, 1969, Blythburgh Church
J. S. Bach/Britten: Five Spiritual Songs (English translations by Pears)
I.
Gedenke doch, mein Geist, zurücke BWV 509
II.
Kommt, Seelen, dieser Tag BWV 479
III. Liebster Herr Jesu BWV 484
IV. Komm, süsser BWV 478
V.
Bist du bei mir BWV 508
Pianist Benjamin Britten
170.
World Premiere
September 22, 1969, Queen Elizabeth Hall
David Bedford: The Tentacles of the Dark Nebula
London Sinfonietta, and conductor David Atherton
1970
Broadcast Premiere
February 27, 1970, BBC radio
David Bedford: The Tentacles of the Dark Nebula
London Sinfonietta, and conductor David Atherton
171.
World Premiere
June 17, 1970, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Priaulx Rainier: The Bee Oracles
For tenor, flute, oboe, violin, cello and harpsichord
Flutist Patricia Lynden, oboist Janet Craxton, violinist Perry Hart, harpsichordist Alan Harverson, and
cellist Olga Hegedus
156
Broadcast Premiere
November 1, 1970, BBC Radio 3
Priaulx Rainier: The Bee Oracles
Flutist Patricia Lynden, oboist Janet Craxton, violinist Perry Hart, harpsichordist Alan Harverson, and
cellist Olga Hegedus
1971
172.
World Premiere
March 7, 1971, University College, Cardiff
Britten: Who are these Children?
(nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 12 only)
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Official Premiere
May 4, 1971, National Gallery of Scotland
Britten: Who are these Children?
(no. 5 omitted)
Pianist Benjamin Britten
173.
World Premiere
May 16, 1971, BBC television
Britten: Owen Wingrave: An Opera for Television
Pears as General Sir Philip Wingrave, conductor Britten
(pre-recorded Nov 23-30, 1970)
Broadcast Premiere
May 23, 1971, BBC radio 3
(from Decca recording)
Britten: Owen Wingrave
174.
World Premiere
June 16, 1971, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Ronald Stevenson: Border Boyhood
Pianist Ronald Stevenson
175.
World Premiere
June 16, 1971, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Sebastian Forbes: Death’s Dominion
song cycle for tenor, flute, clarinet, string trio and piano
English Chamber Orchestra
176.
World Premiere
June 26, 1971, Maltings, Snape
Purcell/Britten: “When Myra Sings”
For tenor, bass and piano
Baritone John Shirley-Quirk and pianist Britten
(This is a different version than the realization for two tenors by Britten from 1947)
177.
World Premiere
June 26, 1971, Maltings, Snape
Britten: Canticle IV: Journey of the Magi
Countertenor John Bowman, baritone John Shirley-Quirk, and pianist Benjamin Britten
157
Premiere of Complete Work
September 26, 1971, Snape Maltings
Britten: Who are these Children?
I.
A Riddle (The Earth)
II.
A Laddie’s Sang
III. Nightmare
IV. Black day
V.
Bed-time
VI. Slaughter
VII. A Riddle (The Child You Were)
VIII. The Larky Lad
IX. Who are these Children?
X.
Supper
XI. The Children
XII. The Auld Aik
Pianist Benjamin Britten
Broadcast Premiere
December 12, 1971, BBC2 TV
(pre recorded Nov 13-14, 1971) :
Britten: Canticle IV
Countertenor John Bowman, baritone John Shirley-Quirk, and pianist Benjamin Britten
1972
Broadcast Premiere
January 30, 1972, BBC Radio 3
Purcell/Britten: “When Myra Sings.”
Baritone John Shirley Quirk, and pianist Britten
(recording of first performance: June 26, 1971)
Broadcast Premiere
May 21, 1972, Maltings, Snape (Broadcast on BBC radio 3)
(pre-recorded, Sept 26, 1971)
Britten: Who are these Children?
Pianist Benjamin Britten
178.
World Premiere
June 9, 1972, Maltings, Snape
Vagn Holmboe: Ballad
English Chamber Orchestra, conductor David Atherton
179.
World Premiere
July 28, 1972, Snape Maltings
William Walton: Ballet in One Act (Based on the Entertainment).
Pears as speaker
180.
World Premiere
December 17, 1972, Wigmore Hall
Douglas Young: Landscapes and Absences
For tenor, cor anglais and string trio
London Oboe Quartet
158
1973
Stage Premiere
May 10, 1973, Covent Gardens
Britten: Owen Wingrave
181.
World Premiere
June 16, 1973, Maltings, Snape
Britten: Death in Venice
Pears as von Achenbach, conductor Steuart Bedford
Broadcast Premiere
June 22, 1973, Maltings, Snape (Broadcast on BBC radio 3)
Britten: Death in Venice
1974
182.
World Premiere
?/?/1974, Ipswich
Tony Hewitt-Jones: Edmund, King and Martyr, a cantata
Ipswich Bach Choir
183.
World Premiere
June 19, 1974, Maltings, Snape
David Bedford: Because He Liked to be at Home
Harpist Osian Ellis
184.
World Premiere
June 19, 1974, Maltings, Snape
Lennox Berkeley: Five Herrick Songs
I.
Now is your turne, my dearest (Andante)
II.
Dearest of Thousands (Lento)
III. These Springs were Maidens that Once Lov’d (Allegretto)
IV. My God! Look on Me with Eyes of Pitie (Slow but freely)
V.
If Nine Times You Your Bridegroom Kisse (allegro)
Harpist Osian Ellis
185.
World Premiere
June 19, 1974, Maltings, Snape
Elizabeth Maconchy: Three Songs
Harpist Osian Ellis
Broadcast Premiere
December 24, 1974, BBC Radio 3
Britten: Paul Bunyan excerpts (revised)
1975
186.
World Premiere
January 15, 1975, Schloss Elmau
Britten: Cantlice V: The Death of Saint Narcissus
Harpist Osian Ellis
159
UK Premiere
January 23, 1975, Fairfield Halls, Croydon
Britten: Canticle V
Harpist Osian Ellis
187.
World Premiere
June 16, 1975, Maltings, Snape
Gordon Crosse: The Cool Web
Pianist Clifford Benson
188.
World Premiere
October 1975, Parish Church, Little Missenden, Bucks
Richard Drakeford: Songs of Thomas Wyatt
Unaccompanied tenor
189.
World Premiere
October 1975, West Linton, Peeblesshire
Ronald Stevenson: Nine Haiku
Harpist Osian Ellis
1976
190.
World Premiere
January 11, 1976, Schloss Elmau, Upper Bavaria
Britten: A Birthday Hansel
I.
Birthday Song
II.
My Early Walk
III. Wee Willie Grey
IV. My Hoggie
V.
Afton Water
VI. The Winter
VII. Leezie Lindsay
Harpist Osian Ellis
191.
World Premiere
January 14, 1976, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Priaulx Rainier: Prayers for the Ark
Harpist Osian Ellis
UK Premiere
March 19, 1976, New Hall, University College, Cardiff
Britten: A Birthday Hansel
Harpist Osian Ellis
192.
World Premiere
March 19, 1976, New Hall, University College, Cardiff
John Blow/Britten: “Oh! That Mine Eyes Would Melt”
Harpist Osian Ellis
193.
World Premiere
March 19, 1976, New Hall, University College, Cardiff
William Croft/Britten: “A Hymn on Divine Musicke”
Harpist Osian Ellis
160
194.
World Premiere
May 20, 1976, Britten-Pears Library, Aldeburgh
Britten: “O That I Had Ne’er Been Married”
(from Beware! [1922-6])
Pianist Roger Vignoles
UK Premiere
June 16, 1976, Maltings, Snape
Arne Nordheim: Doria
With the English Chamber Orchestra, conductor Steuart Bedford
(The performance was broadcast later that evening by BBC radio 3)
195.
World Premiere
June 17, 1976, Maltings, Snape
Jørgan Jersild: Puzzle from Wonderland
Harpist Osian Ellis
196.
World Premiere
June 17, 1976, Maltings, Snape
Arne Nordheim: To One Singing
Harpist Osian Ellis
197.
World Premiere
June 17, 1976, Maltings, Snape
Stig Schonberg: O sag
Harpist Osian Ellis
198.
World Premiere
June 17, 1976, Maltings, Snape
Britten: “She’s Like the Swallow”
Harpist Osian Ellis
199.
World Premiere
June 17, 1976, Maltings, Snape
Britten: “Bird Scarer’s Song”
Harpist Osian Ellis
Broadcast Premiere
July 19, 1976, BBC Radio 3
(from Decca recording):
Britten: A Birthday Hansel
200.
World Premiere
August 20, 1976, Helsinki Festival
Pelham Humfrey/Britten: “Hymn to God the Father”
Harpist Osian Ellis
1977
201.
World Premiere
June 1, 1977, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Colin Matthews: Five Sonnets: To Orpheus
Harpist Osian Ellis
161
202.
World Premiere
June 16, 1977, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Robin Holloway: This is just to say
Song cycle for tenor and piano
Pianist Stephen Ralls
203.
World Premiere
November 10, 1977, Mandel Hall, Univ of Chicago
Britten: “Lemady”
Harpist Osian Ellis
204.
World Premiere
November 10, 1977, Mandel Hall, University of Chicago
Britten: “The False Knight upon the Road”
Harpist Osian Ellis
1978
Premiere of an Revised Work
June 14, 1978, Maltings, Snape
Lennox Berkeley: Four Ronsard Sonnets seet 1), revised
Two tenors and piano
Tenor Ian Partridge and pianist Steuart Bedford
205.
World Premiere
June 14, 1978, Maltings, Snape
David Bedford: On the Beach at Night
Two tenors, piano (2 and 4 hands) and chamber organ
Tenor Ian Partridge, pianist Stuart Bedford and organist Graham Barber
206.
World Premiere
June 22, 1978, Maltings, Snape
Krzysztof Meyer: Lyric Triptych
Contrapunti Chamber Orchestra and conductor Michael Lankester
207.
World Premiere
June 23, 1978, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Robin Holloway: Willow Cycle
Harpist Osian Ellis
1979
208.
World Premiere
June 9, 1979, Maltings, Snape
Robin Holloway: La figlia che piange
Harpist Osian Elias
209.
World Premiere
June 19, 1979, Maltings, Snape
William Walton: Façade II: A Further Entertainment
Pears as Speaker, English Chamber Orchestra and conductor Steuart Bedford
162
1980
210.
World Premiere
March 4, 1980, University of East Anglia
Britten: “Beware!”
(from Beware! [1922-6])
Pianist John Blakely
Performed at a lecture given by Arthur Batchelor
211.
World Premiere
May 28, 1980, Zürich
Rolf Urs Ringger: Shelley Songs
Collegium Musicum Chamber Orchestra and conductor Paul Sacher
212.
World Premiere
June 11, 1980, Maltings, Snape
Colin Matthews: Shadows in the Water
Pianist Steuart Bedford
213.
World Premiere
June 18, 1980, Maltings, Snape
Jon Tavener: Six Abbassid Songs (texts from 6th – 8th centuries)
For tenor, 3 flutes and percussion
Flutists Jonathon Snowden, Julian Coward, and Graham Nash and percussionist Ann Collis
1982
214.
World Premiere
?/?/1982, location unknown
Lennox Berkeley: Sonnet
High voice and piano.
This was a private performance of the song, which was dedicated to Hugues Ceunod with ‘love and
admiration.’ Soprano Jane Watson later gave the official premiere at Wigmore Hall.
1983
Premiere of an Arrangement
November 22, 1983
Britten: The Heart of the Matter
Pears as speaker, tenor Neil Mackie
This is a revision of the original 1956 work, in which Pears revised the original sequence of texts for this
performance and for publication.
1984
215.
World Premiere
June 22, 1984, Maltings, Snape
Robin Holloway: Moments of Vision
For speaker and 4 players
Hartley Trio and percussionist John Evans
163
APPENDIX B
Other Premieres Performances Without Dates
In alphabetical order by composer:
Benjamin Britten: “At the Mid-hour of Night”
No. 5 from Folksong arrangements vol. 4 for high voice and piano.
Benjamin Britten: “Bonny at Morn”
No. 4 from Eight Folksongs Arrangements for high voice and harp.
Benjamin Britten: “Bonny at Morn”
No. 5 from Folksong Arrangements vol. 6 for high voice and guitar
Benjamin Britten: “Bugeilo’r Gwenith Gwyn (I was lonely and forlorn)”
No. 5 from Eight Folksongs Arrangements for high voice and harp.
Benjamin Britten: “David of the White Rock (Dafydd y Garreg Wen)”
No. 6 of Eight Folksongs Arrangements for high voice and harp.
Benjamin Britten: “The Deaf Woman’s Courtship”
Britten arranged this song most likely in the 1950s for joint recitals by Peter Pears and
Norma Procter, though no specific performances have been found.
Benjamin Britten: “Dear Harp of my Country”
No. 7 from Folksong Arrangements vol. 4 for high voice and piano.
Benjamin Britten: “Dink’s Song”
BenjaminBritten: “Greensleeves”
For high voice and piano (1941?)
Benjamin Britten: “The Holly and the Ivy”
Benjamin Britten: “Lord! I Married me a Wife.”
No. 1 from Eight Folksongs Arrangements for high voice and harp.
164
Benjamin Britten: “O the sight entrancing”
No. 10 from Folksong Arrangements vol. 4 for high voice and piano.
Benjamin Britten: “Pray Goody”
For high voice and piano (1945-6?)
Benjamin Britten: “Rich and rare”
No. 6 from Folksong Arrangements vol. 4 for high voice and piano.
Benjamin Britten: “Sail on, sail on”
No. 2 from Folksong Arrangements vol. 4 for high voice and piano.
Jeremiah Clarke/Britten: “A Divine Hymn (Blest be those sweet regions)”
For high voice and harp or piano
This was realized sometime in 1975 or 1976, most certainly for Pears and Osian
Ellis.
Christopher Headington: The Healing Fountain
Headington (1930-1996) mentions in his biography on Peter Pears that the tenor
premiered one of his compositions. He fails, however, to name the work. It may have
been The Healing Fountain (1978) for medium voice and orchestra, “an eloquent
memorial tribute to Britten which Headington ranked as his finest acheivement.”1
Pelham Humfrey/Britten: “Lord! I have Sinned”
For high voice and harp or piano.
This was realized sometime in 1975 or 1976, most certainly for Pears and Osian.
Henry Purcell/Britten: “In the Black Dungeon of Dispair”
No. 3 from Henry Purcell: Two Divine Hymns and Alleluia for high voice and
piano.
Henry Purcell/Britten: “No, Resistance is but Vain”
No. 5 from Henry Purcell: Six Duets for high and low voices and piano.
Henry Purcell/Britten: “Shepherd Leave Decoying”
No. 6 from Henry Purcell: Six Duets for high and low voices and piano.
Tippett, Michael: For Your Tomorrows, unknown instrumentation.
In the 1968 edition of Grove’s, the author of the article of Pears states, “He sang in the
first performance of… ‘For your Tomorrows’ by Michael Tippett.”2 There is, however,
no mention of this title in any of Tippett’s lists of works.
1
Barry Peter Ould, “Christopher Headington,” Bardic Edition Music Publishers (accessed 8 November 2003),
<http://www.bardicmusic.com/headington.htm>
2
Martha Kingdom Ward, “Pears, Peter (Neville Luard),” in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 6, 5th
ed., ed. Eric Blom (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 603.
165
APPENDIX C
Human Subjects Approval
166
Sample Letter
167
APPENDIX D
Letters of Consent
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
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189
INDEX
Anderson, Hedli, 20
Ansermet, Ernest, 63
Anthony, Trevor, 105
Arne, Thomas, 104
Auden, Wystan, 17, 20, 28, 110
Austin, Richard, 41
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 7, 79; St. Matthew Passion,
65, 80, 86
Baudelaire, Charles, 39
Bax, Arnold, 1
Bedford, Herbert, 113-114;
Behr, Teresa, 6-7
Beinum, Eduard van, 81
Bennett, Richard Rodney, 113
Berg, Wozzeck, 47
Berkeley, Lennox Randal, 15, 122; Four Ronsard
Sonnets (set 1), 106 Nelson, 106; Stabat Mater, op. 28,
67-68; Variations on a Hymn of Orlando Gibbons, 105
Bernard, James, 121-122; Shepherd’s Warning, 121
122, 123n.
Berriman, Gwen, 40
Bijlsma, Sybrand, 61
Bing, Rudolf, 62
Blyth, Mary, 29
Bonavia, Ferruccio, 24
Borgese, Guiseppe Antonio, 17
Boughton, Joy, 89n.
Boyce, Bruce, 97n., 99n.
Brahms, Johannes, 7
Brain, Dennis, 33
Bream, Julian, 121, 122, 123
Brent Smith, Alexander, 10-11; “My Eyes for Beauty
Pine,” 10-11
Bridge, Frank, 79
Britten, Benjamin, 1-6, 8, 73, 78, 114, 122; “Ach,
neige du Schmerzenreiche,” 29; Albert Herring, 65
67, 79, 83, 97; “Alleluia,” 77; A.M.G.D., 16-17; “Ash
Grove, The,” 19-20, 38; Beggar’s Opera, The, 72, 74,
75, 104; Billy Budd, 78, 93, 99, 101, 121; “Birthday
Song for Erwin,” 50-51; “Bonny Earl o’Moray, The,”
19-20; “Brisk Young Widow, The,” 117-118; Burning
Fiery Furnace, The, 24; “Ca’ te Yowes,” 93; “Calypso,”
19-20; Canticle: My Beloved is Mine, 68-70, 72, 73, 103;
Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, 101-103, 119; Canticle
III, 102; “Celemene, Pray Tell Me,” 61, 77; Ceremony of
Carols, A, 21; Company of Heaven, 13-14, 36; The,
Courtly Dances from Gloriana, 112, 118; “Crocodile,
The,” 19-20; “Dialogue of Corydon and Mopsa, The,”
88; Dido and Aeneas, 94; “Evening Hymn,” 43-44;
“Fairest Isle,” 52-53; Fairy Queen,
The, 88; “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes,” 28, 70; “Foggy,
Foggy Dew, The,” 26-27, 69; Gloriana, 109-112, 114,
118, 120; “Hark, the Ech’ing Air, 18, 35; Holy Sonnets
of John Donne, 55-59, 66, 69, 115; “Hymn,” 23; Hymn
to St. Cecelia, 21; “I Attempt from Love’s Sickness to
Fly,” 65; “If Music Be the Food of Love,” (first version)
73, 89; “If Music Be the Food of Love,” (third version)
52-53, 70n.; “I’ll Sail upon the Dogstar,” 32-33, 35;
Illuminations, les, 19, 99; “I Spy Celia,” 52-53, 77; “I
Take no Pleasure,” 97; “I Wonder as I Wander,” 23, 25;
Job’s Curse, 72, 73, 77; “Knotting Song, The,” 18; Let’s
Make an Opera!, 78, 79; “Little Sir William,” 19, 33-34,
38, 41; “Lord, What is Man?” 52-55, 68; “Lost in My
Quiet,” 52-53, 77; “Mad Bess,”52; “Man is for a Woman
Made,” 52-53, 73; “Miller of Dee, The,” 61-62, 69;
“Morning Prayer,” 61-62; “Music for a While, 52; “Not
all my Torments,” 29-30, 35; “O Can ye Sew Cushions,”
33; “Oliver Cromwell,” 19-20, 27, 38, 41; “On the Brow
of Richmond Hill,” 32-33; On This Island, 14-15, 43;
Our Hunting Fathers, op. 8, 58; “O Waly Waly,” 61-62;
Peter Grimes, 21-22, 24, 29, 36, 38, 41-42, 45-50, 55-58,
62, 99, 117, 121; “Plough Boy, The, “ 50-51, 62;
“Quand j’étais che mon père,” 28; Queen’s Epicedium,
The, 43-44, 55, 70n.; Rape of Lucretia, The, 61-64, 79,
83; Rejoice in the Lamb, 105; “Salley Gardens, The,” 19,
38; Saint Nicolas, 74-77, 79, 97; Saul and the Witch at
Endor, 52-55, 77, 103; Serenade, 33-37, 56, 58, 109,
117; “Seven Blessings of Mary, The,” 23; Seven Sonnets
of Michelangelo, 21, 23-27, 30, 32-35, 42, 73, 115;
“Sound the Alarm,” 70n.; “Sound the Trumpet,” 43-44;
Spring Symphony, The, 78, 81-83, 101; “Stream in the
Valley, The,” 61-62; Suite of Six Songs from Orpheus
Brittanicus, 61-62; “Sweeter than Roses,” 59, 70; “Sweet
Polly Oliver,” 50; Symphonic Suite from Gloriana, 112;
“There’s None to Soothe,” 50-51; “There’s not a Swain
on the Plain,” 32-33; This Way to the Tomb (incidental
Music), 79; Turn of the Screw, The, 102, 117-121; “Turn
Then Thine Eyes,” 45; Two Solo Anthems for Tenor, 43;
Wandering Scholar, The, 78; “We Sing to Him,” 60;
Wedding Anthem (Amo Sum Ergo), 83-84, 86; “What
Can We Poor Females Do,” 52-53, 77; “When Myra
Sings,” 70; Winter Words, 114-116, 120
Brown, Lucy, 25
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 39
Burra, Nell, 11
Burra, Peter, 13
Bush, Alan, Voices of the Prophets, 107-108
Bush, Graham, 105
Campion, Thomas, 39
Carey, Clive, 11
Cavelti, Elsa, 72
Chaliapin, Fyodor, 42, 47
Christie, John, 62-63
Clark, Kenneth, 64
Coates, Albert, 13
Cocteau, Jean, 99n.
Collier, Marie, 123
Cooke, Arnold, 113
Cooper, Roger, 105
Copland, Aaron, 16; “Dirge in the Woods,” 88; Old
190
American Songs (first set), 86-89; Old American Songs
(second set), 88; On Tragic Ground, 87; Twelve Poems
of Emily Dickinson, 88;
Cross, Joan, 42, 45, 47, 52, 61-62, 77, 83, 86, 92n.,
97n., 110
Crozier, Eric, 46, 62, 64, 99
Cuenod, Hughes, 107
Curzon, Clifford, 1
Danco, Suzanne, 99n.
Davis, Bernard, 89n.
Dehn, Paul, 121, 123n.
Deller, Alfred, 105
Dickinson, Peter, 67-68
Donne, John, 55
Doorn-Linderman, Dors van, 81
Douglas, Basil, 12-13, 17, 106, 118
Dowland, John, 79
Drakeford, Richard, 114
Duncan, Ronald, 51, This Way to the Tomb, 79
Einstein, Albert, 17
Ellis, Ossian, 112
Enesco, Georges, 99n.
English, Gerald, 123
Evans, Peter, 36
Ferrier, Kathleen, 81, 88-89, 99n., 101, 102
Fischer, Sylvia, 110
Ford, Thomas, 79
Francis, John, 62, 89n.
Franklin, Norman, 23
Freer, Dawson, 5, 11
Garcia II, Manuel, 7
Gauntlet, Ambrose, 89n.
Gay, John, Beggar’s Opera, 72, 74, 75
Geiger, Hans, 89n.
Gellhorn, Peter, 92n.
Gendron, Maurice, 62
Gerhardt, Elena, 6
Gerster, Etelka, 7
Gluck, Christoph Willibald, Iphigenia en Tauride, 92
Goddard, Scott, 47
Goehr, Walter, 41-42
Goodall, Reginald, 47
Gow, Dorothy, 90
Greene, Kenneth, 121
Greene, Maurice, Two Solo Anthems for Tenor, 43
Guthrie, Tyrone, 64, 74
Handel, Georg Frideric, 28, 38, 62, 75, 89, 97 Jephtha, 89,
97; Messiah, 38; Samson, 38
Harewood, Lord, 83
Harris, Rita, 32
Harvey, Trevor, 12-13, 92
Hawkes, Ralph, 19, 64
Herbage, Julian, 21, 47
Holst, Gustav, 1, 79; Wandering Scholar, The, 78;
Savitri, 49-50
Holst, Imogen, 1, 78, 90, 105, 119, 121
Hooke, Emily, 41
Hopkins, Antony, 47-48; Songs of Cyprus, 32
Hopkins, Gerald Manley, 17
Howells, Herbert, 39, 121
Howes, Frank, 47
Hudson, W.H., 31
Hussey, Reverend Walter
Ireland, John, 86
Isherwood, Christopher, 15
Jacob, Gordon, 39, 90
James, George, 77, 78
Janacek, Leos, Diary of a Young Man who Vanished,
41
Johnson, Graham, 24
Jomelli, Niccolo, La passione di nostro Signore Gesu
Cristo, 92
Jones, Robert, 79
Kelly, Cuthbert, 12, 54
Kleiber, Erich, 93
Klemperer, Otto, 7
Krebs, Helmut, 99n.
Lawson, Catherine, 97n.
Lanigan, John, 123
Lier, Bertus van, 80-81; The Song of Songs (Het
hooglied), 80-81
Luard, Jessie, 10, 66
Lumdsen, Donald, 32, 97n.
Lutoslawski, Witold, 2
Lutyens, Elisabeth, 90
MacDonagh, Terrance, 85
Maconchy, Elizabeth, 90
Mahler, Gustav, Das Lied von der Erde, 69;
Malcolm, George, 107
Malli, Max, 70
Mann, Thomas, 17
Mansfield, Katherine, 41
Marchesi, Mathilde, 7
Mare, Walter de la, 39
Martin, Frank, Six Monologues from Jedermann, 72
Mayer, Elizabeth, 17-18, 22-23, 42
Mayer, William, 29
McArthur, Margaret, 42
McInnes, Campbell, 6
McNaught, William, 53
Mellers, Wilfrid, 113
Menges, Herbert, 29
Menuhin, Yehudi, 55
Mewton-Wood, Noel, 92, 97, 107, 110
Mitchell, Dr. Donald, CBE, 2, 4, 24, 29, 50, 114
Modl, Martha, 99n.
Monteverdi, Claudio, 32, Il combattimento di Tancredi e
Clorinda, 93-94, 97
Mozart, Wolfgang, Così fan tutte, 27, 45, 46; Zauberflöte,
Die, 27, 93
Mountain, Peter, 89n.
Mullimar, Michael, 40
Mundy, Clytie Hine, 7-8
Niles, John Jacob, 23
Oldham, Arthur, 73, 79-80; Commandment of Love,
The, 97-99, 104, 107; Love in a Village, 99, 103-104;
Summer’s Lease, 73; Rising
Sunne, The, 73; Five Chinese Lyrics, 79-80, 97;
Ord, Boris, 77
Orr, Robin, 113; Four Romantic Songs, 85, 89;Three
Romantic Songs, 85
Partridge, Ian, 67, 107
Partridge, Jennifer, 67
Pears, Arthur, 10
Pears, Peter, “When Within My Arms I Hold You,” 13
Perotin, “Beata viscera Mariae virginis,” 118, 119
Piper, Myfanwy, 118
Pitfield, Thomas, “Winter Song,” 40-41
191
Pizzey, George, 92
Polacco, Giorgio, 8
Preston, Tatiana, 97n.
Pritchard, John, 110
Puccini, Giacomo, bohème, La, 27, 55
Purcell, Henry, 3, 32, 79; “Alleluia,” 77; “Celemene,
Pray Tell Me,” 61, 77; “Dialogue of Corydon and
Mopsa, The,” 88; Dido and Aeneas, 94; “Evening
Hymn,” 43-44; “Fairest Isle,” 52-53; “Hark, the Ech’ing
Air, 18, 35; Harmonia Sacra, 55; “I Attempt from
Love’s Sickness to Fly,” 65; “If Music Be the Food of
Love,” (first version) 73,89; “If Music Be the Food of
Love,” (third version) 52-53, 70n.; “I’ll Sail upon the
Dogstar,” 32-33; “I Spy Celia,” 52-53, 77; “I Take no
Pleasure,” 97; Job’s Curse, 72, 73, 77; “Lord, What is
Man?” 52-55; “Lost in My Quiet,” 52-53, 77; “Man is
for a Woman Made,” 52-53, 73; “Morning Prayer,” 6162; “Music for a While, 52; “Not all my Torments,” 2930, 35; “On the Brow of Richmond Hill,” 32-33; “Pious
Celinda,” 43-44; Queen’s Epicedium, The, 43-44, 55,
70n.; Saul and the Witch at Endor, 52-55, 77, 103;
“Sound the Alarm,” 70n.;“Sound the Trumpet,” 43-44;
Suite of Six Songs from Orpheus Brittanicus, 61-62;
“Sweeter than Roses,” 59, 70; “There’s not a Swain on
the Plain,” 32-33; “Turn Then Thine Eyes,” 45; “We
Sing to Him,” 60; “What Can We Poor Females Do,” 5253, 77; “When Myra Sings,” 70
Purves, Alison, 32
Rainier, Priaulx, 112-113; Cycle for Declamation,
112-113;
Rawsthorne, Alan, 60
Rehfuss, Heinz, 99n.
Ringger, Rolf Urs
Ritchie, Margaret, 44, 52-53, 78, 92
Rogers, Iris Holland, 41
Rosseter, Philip, 79
Roth, Ernst, 117
Sackville-West, Edward, 24, 46-47
Scharl, Josef, 17
Schey, Hermann, 81
Schnabel, Artur, 6
Schoenberg, Arnold, 51, 90
Schubert, Franz, 23; “Ach, neige du Schmerzenreiche,” 29
Schumann, Robert, Dichterliebe, 25, 28, 32, 86;
Myrthen, 24;
Schurmann, Gerard, 60, 76; Five Facets, 60-61; Six
Songs of William Blake, 61
Schütz, Heinrich, 118
Schwartz, Rudolf, 112
Searle, Humphrey, Put Away the Flutes, 70-71
Seiber, Mátyás, 108-109; To Poetry, 107, 108-109
Semino, Norina, 43
Sharpe, Frederick, 78
Shaw, Martin, God’s Grandeur, 75
Sheppard, Reverend Dick, 69
Shostakovich, Dmitri, Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk, 12
Sitwell, Osbert, 75
Slater, Montagu, 22
Smetana, Biedrich, Bartered Bride, The, 55, 66
Steel, Bernard, 92
Stein, Erwin, 33, 51
Stein, Marion, 83
Stockhausen, Julius, 7
Stravinsky, Igor, 117; Cantata (1952), 117; Oedipus
Rex, 99, 122; Persephone, 93
Strode, Rosamund, 18, 114
Susskind, Walter, 41
Tanner, Phil, 91
Tavener, Jon
Tippet, Michael, 1-2, 122; Boyhood’s End, 30-32, 35,
41, 94, 97, 108; Child of our Time, A, 41-42; Heart’s
Assurance, The, 94-97; Midsummer’s Marriage, 94
Tovey, Sir Donald, 38
Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 90
Verdi, Giusseppe, 97; Ballo in mascera, un, 97n.; Due
foscari, i, 97n.; Falstaff, 97n.; Giorno di regno, un, 97n.;
Giovanna d’arco, 97n.; Luisa Miller, 97n.; Macbeth,
97n.; Masnadieri, i, 97n.; Otello, 97n.; Traviata, la, 27,
97n.
Vincent, Jo, 81
Wagner, Richard, 5
Walker, Norman, 42
Walton, William, 122-123; Anon in Love, 123; Ballet
in One Act: Based on the Entertainment, 123; Bear:
An Extravaganza in One Act, The, 123; Façade II:
A Further Entertainment, 123; Troilus and
Cressida, 122-123
Warfield, William, 88
Warlock, Peter, Corpus Christi Carol, 12
Webern, Anton, Four Songs, op. 12, 71; Wellesz, Egon, 90,
113; Alleluia dic nobis, 90
Wheeler, Pam, 15
White, Eric Walter, 46
Williams, Grace, 89-92; “Bonny at the Morn,” 92n.;
“Flight,” 92; “Il etait une bergere,” 92n..; “O Rare
Turpin,” 92n.; Six Welsh Oxen Songs, 90; “Song of the
Flax,” 92n.; Three Traditional Welsh Ballads, 89-92;
Two French Folksongs, 92n.; Violin Concerto, 91;
“Watching the Wheat,” 92
Wood, Anne, 12-13
Wood, Ralph Walter, Three Songs, 38-40
Wood, Richard, 52;
Woodgate, Leslie, 73
Woodward, Ralph, 24
Wordsworth, William B., “Full Moon,” 39; “Image,
The,” 39; “Serenade,” 39; “Snowflake, The,” 3839; “Song of Shadows,” 39;
Wyss, Sophie, 15-16, 28, 35, 86
192
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Tenor Christopher Swanson was born in Michigan on October 22, 1975. He holds
degrees in voice performance from Michigan State University (1997), University of Tennessee,
Knoxville (1999), and Florida State University (2004). He has studied with Paul Hartfield,
Geogre Bitzas, and Stanford Olsen.
Mr. Swanson has performed leading roles in such operas as The Turn of the Screw, The
Rake’s Progress, Die Zauberflöte, Così fan tutte, The Crucible. He has also performed leading
roles in numerous Bach Cantatas, Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s The Creation, and Handel’s Saul
and Messiah. Christopher is featured on the 2000 Newport Classics release of Gilbert and
Sullivan’s Princess Ida as well as a 2002 recording of John Eccles’s opera Semele.
Mr. Swanson has taught music at Pellissippi State Technical Community College and
Roane State Community College in Tennessee and is currently on the Music Faculty of
Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia where he teaches private voice lessons, sightsinging, and is the director of the Opera Workshop.
Christopher and his wife Jennifer have three children: Ellie Catherine, Abigail Grace, and
Charles Christopher.
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