Benjamin Britten

Les mots de la cantate ' Rejoice dans l'agneau ' sont issus d'un long poème du même nom. L'écrivain a été Christopher Smart, un poète du XVIIIe siècle, profondément religieux, mais d'un esprit étrange et déséquilibrée. 'Se réjouir de l'agneau' a été écrit tout en Smar / Parties Solo (SATB), Choeur Mixte Et Orgue

Regis regum rectissimi-This is a wonderful setting of the English version of words attributed to St. Columba (521-597). It is arranged here for SATB Chorus with Organ accompaniment.

Scored for SATB chorus and orchestra The Building of the House was written for the inaugural concert of the new Maltings concert hall Snape at the 20th Aldeburgh festival.

This work was composed for the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations and requires a large adult chorus of men and women and a smaller children’s choir placed separately with its own conductor and optional organ accompaniment.

A Shepherd’s Carol was written for a BBC feature programme Poet’s Christmas produced by Edward Sackville-West. It was broadcast on Christmas Eve 1944 by the BBC Home Service sung by the BBC Singers and conducted by Leslie Woodgate. The chorus is one of the two portions set by Britten of W.H.Auden’s A Christmas Oratorio the complete text of which was later published as For the Time Being. It was withdrawn by the composer after the first performance not to be heard again until 1961.

Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols is certainly one of the most popular choral works for Christmas time. Originally composed for high voice(s) and harp the pieces have been arranged here for mixed voices (SATB) and piano or harp by Julis Harrison. English and German text.

In preparing for publication the 1935 orchestral version of Britten's Te Deum in C it became clear that there were a number of discrepancies between the manuscript and the original 193 vocal score. Some of these were minor:different articulation and dynamic markings something Britten was later very fussy about but perhaps left unchanged on proof because of his relative inexperience at this stage of his career with the processes of musicpublishing. Others were more important: wrong pedal notes for example which Britten failed to notice on proof and which have been perpetuated in performances and recordings for nearly seventy years. These have been corrected inthe new edition of the vocal score and in the orchestral score (Britten clearly used the published vocal score to prepare his orchestral version). The two versions have been made consistent in other details - rehearsal cues andbar numbers for example - since Britten intended choristers to use the vocal score to perform the orchestral version. This would have been an easy task for these is little discrepancy in essential details between versions (arare departure occurs in bars 53 to 56 where the works 'Lord God of Sabaoth' are unaccompanied in the orchestral version but doubled by Organ in the original). Sustained Organ chords are often filled out with arpeggiated stringwriting while the spacing of chords is frequently much wider in the string version with melodies transposed into different octaves. Although harmony in both versions is identical voice leading is sometimes altered in the latterto make it better suited to the idioms of the instruments concerned.So although in essence the two versions are the same the soundworld explored in each is quite distinct. Britten's orchestral version should neither beviewed as an occasional piece nor considered solely a liturgical work like many of his choral pieces from the 1930s and 1940s it is equally at home in church and concert hall.

Britten's Jubilate is written for SATB choir and Organ accompaniment.Benjamin Britten's birthday (22nd November 1913 Lowestoft) falls on St. Cecilia's Day a happy augury for the career of one of Britain's greatestcomposers. Essentially a vocal composer Britten won international fame for his operas and song-cycles. He never abandoned the principles of tonality and was a 'modern' composer who reached a mass audience and a conservative whoseoriginality no radical would sensibly deny. He shared with his predecessors Parry Vaughan Williams and Holst an intense interest in works for amateurs and children. His brilliant gifts as a pianist and conductor coupled withhis virtuosic inventiveness also led him to compose music for great performers such as the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the singers Galina Vishnevskaya Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Janet Baker.The greatestpersonal influence on his music was the Tenor Peter Pears for whom he composed many operatic and vocal roles. In 1948 Britten Pears and Eric Crozier founded the Aldeburgh Festival now one of the most respected established fornew English music. In 1952 he was made a Companion of Honour in 1965 received the Order of Merit and in 1976 the year of his death he became the first composer to receive a life peerage.Oxford University Press wasBritten's first publisher. In the early 1930s A Boy Was Born and the Simple Symphony brought him great critical acclaim and launched his compositional career. Oxford is delighted to present some previouslyunpublished pieces in collaboration with the Britten Estate. These include the Double Concerto for Violin and Viola premiered at Snape by the Britten-Pears Orchestra under Kent Nagano in June 1997; Two Portraits forString Orchestra premiered on BBC Radio 3 in December 1995 by the Northern Sinfonia under Martyn Brabbins; The World Of The Spirit the full version first performed in 1938 on the BBC Home Service the abridged

Revised edition and Organ accompaniment.The fair copy was completed on 31 May 1933. The first edition included a piano part for rehearsal only. OUP sought an estimate for printing offprints of all theindividual movements in 1933 though only the theme and variations 3-5 were issued separately (see below). However in 1938 230 copies of variation 1 were produced especially for the Cambridge University Music Society. [OUP file251] The work was revised in October 1955 for the performance by the Purcell Singers; [see notes to original Decca recording and BB to OUP 16.07.1957 and date on 1958 edition] the optional organ part (edited by Ralph Downes) wasadded in 1957-58 and replaced the piano part in the score. [It was probably completed in late 1958: see IH to OUP: 13.02.1958 (OUP Archive)]