Nocturne

Without doubt, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) must be ranked among the foremost composers of the 20th century. In Britten’s native England, his many works involving the voice—from folksongs to full operas—form the core of a modern repertory in English. The Nocturne, Op. 60, is the last of four orchestral song cycles he composed. It was premiered in 1958 by the BBC Symphony with tenor soloist Peter Pears, Britten’s longtime partner. Britten and Pears had recently set up life together in the "Red House" in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. The psychological probing of both text and music suggests a period of “unsettled” settling-in.
The Nocturne is a continuous musical fabric of eight sections based on poems from Shakespeare to Shelley. All of the texts deal with themes of night, sleep, and darkness (both literal and figurative). Along with string ensemble, Britten calls for six solo instruments. Each of the six contributes its unique voice to capture a mood of one section (nos. 2-7). Section 1 is scored for voice and strings, while the full ensemble joins together for the final section. Like Pierrot, a great deal of the work’s charm derives from the composer’s brilliant use of timbre to depict varying reactions to night. For instance, for the opening poem On a Poet’s Lips I Slept (from Shelley’s Prometheus), a soothing, lulling motive in strings makes obvious reference to sleep. As the section closes, Britten uses bassoon to usher in the next song: a dramatic depiction of Tennyson’s dread Kraken (the mythical giant squid). The bustling bassoon and use of odd words (“polypi” and “sea worms”) add a touch of tongue-in-cheek false gravity, capped off by the falsetto final note on “die.”
Gentle strings transition to the third section, drawn from Coleridge’s Wanderings of Cain, in which the obbligato harp whisks us worlds away. From the Kraken’s lair we emerge into a moonlit orchard where "night is more beloved than day.” Next, in Middleton’s Blurt, Master Constable, solo horn gives voice to onomatopoetic effects from birds to mice and the cats that would feast upon them. Timpani strokes usher in section 5, setting a portion of Wordsworth’s Prelude. Here the drama takes on greater urgency; words anxiously fret over the cycles of history and threats of new violence. Britten builds to a furious climax, ultimately casting the tenor out alone to shout the final phrase “Sleep, no more.”
Pulsating strings restore a sense of repose before the next section. Referencing a princess blissfully unaware of the shadows that surround her, Owen’s The Kind Ghosts features the English horn’s plaintive sound. The next song introduces the final soloists, flute and clarinet, for a very different mood. Here in Keats’ Sleep and Poetry, all is abuzz in a spirit of happiness. Sleep is welcomed as the “soft closer of our eyes.” In final position, Britten places Shakespeare’s Sonnet 43 bolstered by all instruments. Rhetorical antitheses such as antimetabole (“And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed”) and chiasmus dominate the Bard’s poem. The opening line (“When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see”) and final couplet (“All days are nights to see till I see thee, / And nights bright days when dreams do show thee to me”) clearly crystallize the overriding sentiment. Britten places the expressive peak just before this phrase in a moment rich with Mahlerian pathos. This touch is not coincidental for the entire work was dedicated to Mahler’s widow, Alma.

(c) Jason Stell