Hymn to St Cecilia

Benjamin Britten was a prodigious composer from an early age. Last evening we heard his op. 2 Phantasy Quartet, which culminated numerous teenage efforts in writing for chamber ensembles of all sorts. Hymn to St Cecilia is the work of a man in musical maturity. It also marks the final collaboration between Britten and poet W. H. Auden. Their friendship began in 1935 and produced several spectacular com-positions, but broke down completely during the 1940s. In general terms, Hymn to St Cecilia presents an unaccompanied five-voice (divided soprano) meditation on three related poems. Britten invokes numerous techniques and styles, creating a more sectional musical work that is suggested by the poetic structure. The first strophe takes its undulating contours both from the text, which speaks of Aphrodite atop an oyster shell, and the context: Britten wrote the Hymn during a perilous wartime crossing of the Atlantic in 1942. As anchor he looks to a “Blessed Cecilia” refrain three times, first in bare liturgical unisons but gradually given greater harmonic “dressing.” A wickedly fast section introduces the voice of the saint herself. The final stanza features numerous solo lines, which apart from the first soprano (Cecilia) are indicated by the composer to be sung imitation of various instruments: violin (alto), timpani (bass), flute (second soprano) and trumpet (tenor).

(c) Jason Stell