Our Hunting Fathers

Last updated

Our Hunting Fathers, Op. 8, is an orchestral song-cycle by Benjamin Britten, first performed in 1936. Its text, assembled and partly written by W. H. Auden, with a pacifist slant, puzzled audiences at the premiere, and the work has never achieved the popularity of the composer's later orchestral song-cycles, Les Illuminations , the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and the Nocturne .

Contents

Background

In the mid-1930s Britten was employed by the GPO Film Unit, composing music for documentary films. Also working for the unit was the poet and critic W. H. Auden, with whom Britten collaborated on the films Coal Face (1935) and Night Mail (1936). Auden was something of a mentor to the young Britten, encouraging him to widen his aesthetic, intellectual and political horizons. [1]

Britten received a commission to compose a work involving orchestra for the 1936 Norfolk and Norwich Triennial Music Festival. Auden assembled the text for an orchestral song cycle, writing some of it and adapting other sections from existing poems. The work, described as a "symphonic cycle for high voice and orchestra", was composed between May and July 1936 and titled Our Hunting Fathers. [2]

On 19 September 1936, less than a week before the premiere, Britten rehearsed the work with the soprano Sophie Wyss and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the loft at Covent Garden. Britten afterwards described the rehearsal as "the most catastrophic evening of my life" which left him "feeling pretty suicidal". [3] According to Sophie Wyss, the "members of the orchestra were not used to that kind of music and played about disgracefully. When the reference to rats came in the score they ran around pretending they were chasing rats on the floor!" [4] Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was present, reproved the orchestra, with the result, Wyss recalls, that the players "pulled themselves together" in time for the next rehearsal held in Norwich on 21 September. [5]

Premiere and reception

The premiere was given at the 34th Norfolk and Norwich Triennial Musical Festival on 25 September 1936, conducted by the composer. [6] The performance went without mishap, [7] leaving "most of the audience", according to Britten, "very interested if bewildered". [6] The press reviews ranged "from flattering & slightly bewildered (D. Tel.) - to reprehension & disapproving (Times)". [8]

Richard Capell in The Daily Telegraph wrote:

It is Puck-like music, fantastically nimble and coruscating, having, like Puck, the advantage, if sheer will-of-the-wispness of movement and effect is the kind of activity wanted, of being without flesh or bones. The general impression is a kind of orchestral prank in which the instruments lead a distracted human voice into one embarrassing position after another. The voice in question belonged to clever Sophie Wyss, a Swiss singer, who before she performs the piece again should be coached in some of the niceties of English, for instance, the difference between the pronunciation of 'Ay' and 'Aye'. [9]

The reviewer in The Observer , comparing the piece unfavourably with Vaughan Williams's Five Tudor Portraits which had been premiered at the festival that same day, wrote:

After Vaughan Williams, struggling in the thicket of his poetic fancies, even in so bluff a work, to come upon Benjamin Britten, lightly unburdening himself of dire nonsense, was a curious experience. Since, however, those parts which W. H. Auden has directly contributed to the text of Our Hunting Fathers remain obscure after a tenth reading, judgment of Mr Britten's composition as a whole would be unfair. But it did seem, all things considered, that what he had done was hardly worth doing, and that, having done it, he would have served his reputation better had he remained like the hunting fathers at the end of Auden's text (or is it the present generation?—or the lion?) anonymous. [10]

The Times was less severe, but its critic made his dislike of the piece discreetly clear.

It was kindly received, either because the composer is the youngest of the products of East Anglia represented here, or because he so evidently knows exactly what sort of sound he wants to make at every moment, or because his singer, Miss Sophie Wyss, showed herself almost as clever as he is, or because his audience shares with him some sense of music or of humour, or both, to which we are strangers. … Though only now 23 he is no newcomer. His earlier works have made their mark, and perhaps this one will; or, if it is just a stage to be got through, we wish him safely and quickly through it. [11]

Although Britten's music had, as a biographer put it, "bizarre new sounds" calculated to discomfit an audience, most of the opprobrium seems to have been directed at Auden's text. [12] Ostensibly about man's relationship with animals it is a not very deeply disguised tract about man's relationship with man, from a left-wing, pacifist viewpoint. [2]

In April 1937 the BBC broadcast a performance of the work with Wyss and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult; [13] the cycle was not performed again until 1950. The analyst Lloyd Moore commented in 2004 that even latterly the work is seldom heard in the concert-hall and "must qualify as one of the most neglected of Britten's major works". [2]

Structure

The work lasts about half an hour in performance. [2] It is in five sections:

  1. Prologue – words by Auden
  2. Rats Away! – anonymous, updated by Auden
  3. Messalina – anonymous
  4. Hawking for the Partridge (Dance of Death) – words by Thomas Ravenscroft
  5. Epilogue – words by Auden.

The Prologue is in a form akin to recitative and introduces the cycle's musical motto, described by Moore as "a descending major triad climbing back to the minor third". "Rats Away!" is an agitated, shrill section, demanding vocal virtuosity from the soloist, who is gradually overwhelmed by the orchestra, its music suggesting the scurrying of rats. [2]

The third section, "Messalina", is a lyrical elegy for a dead monkey, with a succession of solos for flute, oboe, clarinet and saxophone. The fourth section, "Hawking for the Partridge" (subtitled Dance of Death) follows without a break, the soloist reciting the names of the dogs joining in the hunt. In Moore's words, "The catch itself is marked by a fortissimo unison on the muted brass, after which the soprano isolates the two names 'German, Jew', signifying unambiguously who is the hunter and who the hunted." [2]

The work ends with an Epilogue and Funeral March, disrupted by a repetitive motif on the xylophone, bringing the cycle to an equivocal and ambiguous conclusion. [2]

Recordings

The cycle has been recorded with soprano soloists, and also with tenors, as authorised by the score.

Notes

  1. ↑ Matthews, p. 34
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Moore, Lloyd. Liner notes to Naxos CD 8.557206, 2004.
  3. ↑ Britten (1991). Letters from a Life Vol. 1: 1923–39. Diary, 25 September 1936: p. 443
  4. ↑ Britten, Beth (2013). My Brother Benjamin. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN   9780571299959.
  5. ↑ Britten (1991), pp. 443-44
  6. 1 2 Britten (1991). Diary, 25 September 1936: p. 446
  7. ↑ Matthews, p. 37
  8. ↑ Britten (1991). Diary, 26 September 1936: p. 447
  9. ↑ Daily Telegraph, 26 September 1936: quoted in Britten (1991), p. 448
  10. ↑ "The Norwich Festival", The Observer, 27 September 1936, p. 19
  11. ↑ "Norwich Musical Festival", The Times, 26 September 1936, p. 10
  12. ↑ Matthews, pp. 37–38
  13. ↑ "Broadcasting", The Times, 30 April 1937, p. 9

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Britten</span> English composer and pianist (1913–1976)

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Pears</span> English tenor (1910–1986)

Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears was an English tenor. His career was closely associated with the composer Benjamin Britten, his personal and professional partner for nearly forty years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oliver Knussen</span> British composer and conductor

Stuart Oliver Knussen was a British composer and conductor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imogen Holst</span> English composer and conductor (1907–1984)

Imogen Clare Holst was a British composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, musicologist, and festival administrator. The only child of the composer Gustav Holst, she is particularly known for her educational work at Dartington Hall in the 1940s, and for her 20 years as joint artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. In addition to composing music, she wrote composer biographies, much educational material, and several books on the life and works of her father.

Colin Matthews, OBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. Other arrangements include orchestrations of all Debussy's 24 Préludes, both books of Debussy's Images, and two movements—Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches—from Ravel's Miroirs. Having received a doctorate from University of Sussex on the works of Mahler, from 1964–1975 Matthews worked with his brother David Matthews and musicologist Deryck Cooke on completing a performance version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Matthews (composer)</span> English composer

David Matthews is an English composer of mainly orchestral, chamber, vocal and piano works.

Brian Easdale was a British composer of operatic, orchestral, choral and film music, best known for his ballet film score The Red Shoes of 1948.

<i>Noyes Fludde</i> 1958 childrens opera by Benjamin Britten

Noye's Fludde is a one-act opera by the British composer Benjamin Britten, intended primarily for amateur performers, particularly children. First performed on 18 June 1958 at that year's Aldeburgh Festival, it is based on the 15th-century Chester "mystery" or "miracle" play which recounts the Old Testament story of Noah's Ark. Britten specified that the opera should be staged in churches or large halls, not in a theatre.

The Spring Symphony is a choral symphony by Benjamin Britten, his Opus 44. It is dedicated to Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was premiered in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, on Thursday 14 July 1949 as part of the Holland Festival, when the composer was 35. At the premiere the tenor soloist was Peter Pears, the soprano Jo Vincent and the contralto Kathleen Ferrier. The conductor was Eduard van Beinum. A recording of the performance survives and was first issued by Decca in August 1994.

<i>Hymn to St Cecilia</i> Composition by Benjamin Britten

Hymn to St Cecilia, Op. 27 is a choral piece by Benjamin Britten (1913–1976), a setting of a poem by W. H. Auden written between 1940 and 1942. Auden's original title was "Three Songs for St. Cecilia's Day", and he later published the poem as "Anthem for St. Cecilia’s Day ".

<i>Rejoice in the Lamb</i> 1943 cantata by Benjamin Britten

Rejoice in the Lamb is a cantata for four soloists, SATB choir and organ composed by Benjamin Britten in 1943 and uses text from the poem Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart (1722–1771). The poem, written while Smart was in an asylum, depicts idiosyncratic praise and worship of God by different things including animals, letters of the alphabet and musical instruments. Britten was introduced to the poem by W. H. Auden whilst visiting the United States, selecting 48 lines of the poem to set to music with the assistance of Edward Sackville-West. The cantata was commissioned by the Reverend Walter Hussey for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the consecration of St Matthew's Church, Northampton. Critics praised the work for its uniqueness and creative handling of the text. Rejoice in the Lamb has been arranged for chorus, solos and orchestral accompaniment, and for SSAA choir and organ.

<i>The Ascent of F6</i>

The Ascent of F6: A Tragedy in Two Acts, by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, was the second and most successful play in the Auden-Isherwood collaboration, first published in 1936. It was a major contribution to English poetic drama in the 1930s. It has been seen as a parable about will, leadership and the nature of power: matters of increasing concern in Europe as that decade progressed.

Donald Charles Peter Mitchell CBE was a British writer on music, particularly known for his books on Gustav Mahler and Benjamin Britten and for the book The Language of Modern Music, published in 1963.

Les Illuminations, Op. 18, is a song cycle by Benjamin Britten, first performed in 1940. It is composed for soprano or tenor soloist and string orchestra, and sets verse and prose poems written in 1872–1873 by Arthur Rimbaud, part of his collection Les Illuminations.

<i>The Company of Heaven</i>

The Company of Heaven is a composition for soloists, speakers, choir, timpani, organ, and string orchestra by Benjamin Britten. The title refers to angels, the topic of the work, reflected in texts from the Bible and by poets. The music serves as incidental music for a mostly spoken radio feature which was first heard as a broadcast of the BBC in 1937.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophie Wyss</span>

Sophie Adele Wyss was a Swiss soprano who made her career as a concert singer and broadcaster in the UK. She was noted for her performances of French works, many of them new to Britain, for giving the world premieres of Benjamin Britten's orchestral song cycles Our Hunting Fathers (1936) and Les Illuminations (1940), and for encouraging other composers to set English and French texts. Among those who wrote for her were Lennox Berkeley, Arnold Cooke, Roberto Gerhard, Elizabeth Maconchy, Peter Racine Fricker, Alan Rawsthorne and Mátyás Seiber.

This is a summary of 1936 in music in the United Kingdom.

Benjamin Britten's Sinfonietta was composed in 1932, at the age of 18, while he was a student at the Royal College of Music. It was first performed in 1933 at The Ballet Club, London conducted by Iris Lemare. It was published as his Op. 1 and dedicated to his teacher Frank Bridge.

<i>Hymn to St Peter</i> 1955 cantata by Benjamin Britten

Hymn to St Peter is a cantata for treble soloist, SATB choir and organ composed by Benjamin Britten in 1955. The piece was the last Britten composed before he first travelled to Asia. He set the text from the gradual of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul to music which was based on the plainsong of the Alleluia from the hymn. The piece starts with a sombre organ theme in B Flat and when the choir joins in it is initially in unison before breaking into harmonies. After a nimble interlude that recalls children's play, the piece returns to the original theme, ending with a coda played by the organ alone. The piece was first performed at the quincentenary celebrations of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich on 20 November 1955. It was subsequently performed by The Sixteen under Harry Christophers and has frequently been sung with children's voices.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.