Little Sir William, Sailor Boy, etc

A towering figure among the Twentieth-century English musicians, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) enjoyed a lifelong success as composer, conductor and pianist. His compositional oeuvre consists of 15 operas, vocal music, orchestral and chamber works and film scores. Britten studied with Frank Bridge, but also entered the Royal College of Music in 1930, immersing himself in studying the music of many previous and contemporary masters, including Bach, Beethoven, Mahler and Stravinsky. He also made a careful study of British folksongs, turning them into modern settings that capture the prevailing spirit of the text. “Down by the Salley Gardens,” a text by W. B. Yeats, had been set by many other composers before Britten’s 1948 version. “Little Sir William” (1940) stems from a dark time in world politics, though the initial moody of tripping good cheer seems completely unaware of any tension. “Sailor Boy” (1958) is often heard with its original and effective guitar accompaniment, and it shows how deeply Britten embraced pure melody in working toward his larger song cycles and operas.

(c) Jason Stell