Britten & Brontë

Today, May 20, and tomorrow, May 21, the Händel Society of Darthmouth College presents a concert in the Hopkins Center for the Arts in Dartmouth, UK with the following program:
Mass in C Minor (Beethoven) and The Company of Heaven (Britten).

HANDEL SOCIETY OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
Dr. Robert Duff, conductor
Beethoven & Britten
with special guest vocalists and the Hanover Chamber Orchestra
Saturday, MAY 20 • 8 pm
Sunday, MAY 21 • 2 pm

The company of Heaven is a one of Britten's lesser known pieces but contains an interesting Brontë connection as some of the poetry used in the text is from Emily Brontë. One of the best 19th century poets with music of the arguably best british composer of the 20th century.

This half of BrontëBlog is particularly interested in Britten's music and we would like to add some more information about this particular piece:

Britten composed The Company of Heaven during August and September of 1937, as a result of a BBC commission. The piece was commissioned for the celebration of Michaelmas Day, September 29, on which day the first performance was given via radio broadcast. Robert Ellis Roberts, who collaborated with Britten in compiling the text, wrote in Radio Times prior to the performance "...one composer has written all the music especially for the programme. He and I have discussed the plan together, and he has, by his music, given to it precisely that unity of thought and feeling which is so desirable. The composer is Benjamin Britten, who is known as one of the most brillinat of our young musicians." With the idea of a radio broadcast in mind, Britten and Roberts created a full scale cantata, with spoken texts interpolated. The Company of Heaven was only one of twenty-five commissions on behalf of the BBC for incidental radio music between 1937 and 1947. (A similar commission inspired William Walton to compose Balshazzar's Feast.) After the first performance in 1937, the manuscript of the full score remained with Trevor Harvey, the conductor, and was virtually forgotten until the 1950s, when he rediscovered the score and revived the work in abbreviated form in 1956. The Company of Heaven was not performed again until the 1989 Aldeburgh Festival, where it was given a complete performance, including all of the spoken text.

The work is constructed in three parts. Part I begins with Britten's representation of Chaos followed by the creation of the angel spirits. (...) Part II, entitled "Angels in Scripture,"sets Biblical encounters with angels from both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. (...)Part III, "Angles in Common Life and at Our Death, " offers an entirely new perspective. A dramatic shift from the Biblical myths, the Part III texts are a compilation of modern poetry and folk legend. The atmosphere rises out of the beginning soprano solo "Heaven is Here, " (...) The following solo for tenor is almost certainly the first solo Britten ever composed for Peter Pears, with whom he had just become acquainted. The tenor sings of a dreamlike encounter with "little glittering Spirits."

This piece is known as A Thousand, Thousand Gleaming Fires and if you are familiar with Emily Brontë's poetry you will recognize these verses from A Day Dream:

A thousand thousand gleaming fires
Seemed kindling in the air;
A thousand thousand silvery lyres
Resounded far and near:

Methought, the very breath I breathed
Was full of sparks divine,
And all my heather-couch was wreathed
By that celestial shine!

(read the complete poem)

Categories: Music, Emily_Brontë, Poetry