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During
my solo and chamber music performances I enjoy, where appropriate,
sharing my thoughts about each work by saying a few words before its
performance. In addition, I have written my own programme notes
for many recitals and, for the past five years, have also been regularly
commissioned to provide such notes for orchestral concerts.
A
short example of commissioned work is reproduced on this page.
For a full list of currently-available notes, or to discuss a commission,
please follow this link to my contact details; you can also email
me by clicking here.
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Les Illuminations for soprano and string orchestra op. 18
B.
Britten (1913 - 1976)
In May 1939 Britten began an extended
visit to the USA and Les Illuminations, a setting of poems by Arthur
Rimbaud and written for the Swiss soprano Sophie Wyss, was completed
there in October of that year. It was not Brittens first attempt
at a French language setting: his cycle Quatre Chansons Franηaises he
completed in 1928, just before his fifteenth birthday; but tonights
work marks a major development in his musical expression, indicating
the completion of what had been, in the years immediately preceding,
a growing independence from the tradition of German Romanticism.
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French art is synonymous
with colour. When one thinks of French painting, the names of
Matisse or Monet spring to mind; Debussy and Ravel are, perhaps, the
most immediately famous of French composers. Les Illuminations,
as its title suggests, is strongly associated with light and therefore
also with colour. It displays a wealth of tonal shading that
shows a generalised and profound absorption of French vocal writing
and yet, paradoxically, this absorption enables Britten to achieve
some of his most strongly individualistic composition. It therefore
marks at once an extension of and a departure from his Piano Concerto
of 1938, in which the influence of Ravels Neoclassicism is clearly
tangible.
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The piece
is unified by the juxtaposition of the two chords of B-flat major
and E major. In the same way that colours on opposite sides
of a colour wheel, such as green and red, or blue and orange, are
complementary, so these chords are the most distant from each other
both harmonically and chromatically. However, by placing them
side-by-side at the works very opening the first announced, fanfare-like,
in the violas, the antithetical reply in the first violins Britten
sets out on his palette the entire gamut of tonal harmony for exploration
and combination. Endless pains are taken in order to create
a desired effect: each line and, at times, each word of a poem is
given a different subtlety by the detailed orchestration and, although
characteristic string effects are freely used, they are never superficial:
a pizzicato chord may be as judiciously telling as is a tiny flake
of white paint to indicate a highlight. Also striking is Brittens
sophisticated understanding of the tonal characteristics of stringed
instruments in their different registers: this is particularly notable
in Interlude, where the same phrase is repeated several times on
different instruments, each time taking a slightly altered aspect
whilst never having its identity obscured.
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Technical considerations aside, however, this is
highly visual and evocative music. From the commercial bustle
of Villes and the brilliance and energy of Royautι to the restrained
erotic languor of Antique, Les Illuminations is a musically strongly
stylised and intensely personal response to Rimbauds poetry.
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©2002 Rupert Luck
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