Britten Thematic Catalogue

Beta Version

BTC1060 THREE SONGS FROM 'THE HEART OF THE MATTER'

For tenor, horn and piano
Composition date: May 1956
Genre: Solo vocal
Text: Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
Duration: 8'

With texts: 28

Notes

These songs were composed to form, with Canticle III 'Still falls the rain - The raids, 1940, night and dawn', op. 55, the musical elements in a programme of settings of and readings from the verse of Edith Sitwell entitled 'The Heart of the Matter' given at the 1956 Aldeburgh Festival.

The songs were not heard again during the composer's life, but were revived, with a revised sequence of readings arranged by Peter Pears, in 1983.

Numbers

  • 1 ''Prologue: 'Where are the seeds of the Universal Fire' (Ten, hn, pf)
  • 2 Song: 'We are the darkness in the heat of the day' (Ten, pf) >>
    notes:

    Completed 17 May 1956.

  • 3 Epilogue: 'So, out of the dark' (Ten, hn, pf)

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