Benjamin Britten composed his Canticle I as a love song to Peter Pears at the beginning of their relationship of nearly forty years, and Canticle III as a pacifist’s response to war. We frame these modern masterpieces with gorgeous songs on themes of love and peace by Franz Schubert, plus instrumental works by Felix Mendelssohn and Imogen Holst.

Program

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Franz Schubert:

Four songs for voice and piano

“Der Musensohn” 
“An die Laute”
“Ganymed”
“Du bist die Ruh”

Benjamin Britten:

Canticle I, op. 40, “My beloved is mine and I am his” for tenor and piano

Felix Mendelssohn:

Variations concertantes, op. 17, for cello and piano

Imogen Holst:

“The fall of the leaf” for solo cello

Benjamin Britten:

Canticle III, op. 55, “Still falls the rain” for tenor, horn, and piano

Franz Schubert:

“Auf dem Strom” for tenor, horn, and piano

Franz Schubert and Benjamin Britten were both exceptionally gifted at setting poetry to music, and they each set texts by some of the best poets of their times. They were also both influenced by folk song, composing works which were on the one hand more immediately accessible, and on the other hand more profound, than that of most of their contemporaries. With their music they transcended the inner and outer struggles of their lives.

Schubert spent all of his short life in Vienna during an especially repressive period in the history of that city. There he surrounded himself with poets, actors, and political dissidents. The distinguished musicologist Maynard Solomon has made a convincing if controversial case for a homosexual Schubert with an attraction to male youths. While suffering severe illness, likely from syphilis and the resultant mercury poisoning, he composed some of the most ecstatically beautiful music of all time.

Britten’s Canticle I is a setting of a 17th-century religious poem and was composed for a memorial service for the Anglican priest Dick Shepherd, who like Britten was a Christian pacifist. It also seems to be a love song to the great tenor Peter Pears, who would be his partner for nearly forty years until his death. Canticle III was composed for a memorial to the Australian pianist Noel Mewton-Wood who had committed suicide at the age of 31 following the death of his partner William Fedrick. A stark setting of Edith Sitwell’s response to the raids on London in 1940, it alternates atonal variations for horn and piano with expressive recitative for the tenor. The tenor and horn join together only at the very end to represent the oneness of a forgiving God.