Britten: Four Sea Interludes from PETER GRIMES, Op. 33

Four Sea Interludes from PETER GRIMES, Op. 33

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

The England of Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe was also the England of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd: a rich musical heritage stretching back to the beginnings of the Renaissance, and one which would survive the disruption of the Cromwellian period to extend into the age of Henry Purcell. Then something quite odd happened: English music slipped into a position of subservience to Continental influences, and by the 19^th century the Germans, whose own musical culture hardly existed during the age of the Tudor composers, were wont to speak of England as “das Land ohne Musik” [“the land without Music”] !

No one is quite certain why the early death of Henry Purcell in 1695 marked the beginning of a period of eclipse of English music. But there is no doubt who led the way in restoring English music to its proper place in the world, as was acknowledged by Richard Strauss himself, who a hundred years ago lifted his glass to toast “the success of the first English progressivist, Meister Edward Elgar, and of the young progressivist school of English composers.” More than anyone Elgar indeed led the way, especially with his “Enigma” Variations of 1899. It is not surprising that Strauss would admire Elgar, whose music, despite its underlying English character, is stylistically closely related to late 19^th century German music. This points to an awkward situation faced by English composers in Elgar’s time: to form a strong bond with the mainstream of contemporary continental music, or to renew the roots of musical “Englishry” which go back to the Elizabethan age, and to traditional folk music as well. Elgar chose the former route, while younger English composers (especially Vaughan Williams and Holst) chose the latter, in a manner somewhat parallel to that followed by eastern European composers such as Bela Bartok in forging a distinctly “national music.” (Ralph Vaughan Williams was himself a warm admirer of Bartok, and even wrote a book outlining his point of view, significantly entitled “National Music.” ) The next generation of English composers followed these divergent paths of English music in a varying ways, and even at the end of the 20^th century there still can be detected a split between the “cosmopolitan” and more “nationalist” composers. William Walton, for example, was very much a “cosmopolitan,” more influenced by his long residence in Italy than anything redolent of the English landscape. Benjamin Britten occupies a unique position as a composer of strong continental sympathies balanced by an equal bond with the distinctly English traditions of the past. Britten grew up with a profound love of the work of Henry Purcell, as well as an openness to contemporary music far beyond most young English musicians of his day. He helped to arrange for a performance of Schoenberg’s PIERROT LUNAIRE while a student at the decidedly conservative Royal College of Music, and unsuccessfully sought to use a travelling grant to study with Alban Berg, who would be a powerful influence upon the young composer.

Britten almost became an American composer, when he moved to the United States in 1939 in company with his partner, the tenor Peter Pears, and the poet W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood. The two writers remained in America, becoming citizens, and significantly were very much “European” artists as much as Anglo-American ones. At first intending to become a citizen, Britten initially found American life fascinating and stimulating, as can be heard in his sparkling opera PAUL BUNYAN, with a libretto by Auden, first performed at Columbia University in 1940. This was during a lively period at the end of the Great Depression, when Gershwin’s PORGY AND BESS, Virgil Thomson’s FOUR SAINTS IN THREE ACTS, and the work of Marc Blitzstein and newly-arrived Kurt Weill were raising expectations for a great things in the field of American contemporary music theatre. While PAUL BUNYAN delighted its audiences, the critics (as Britten put it) “spat at it,” and the composer turned to writing orchestral and chamber music. Britten gradually realised that his roots remained in England, and received a powerful jolt when he read an appreciation by E. M. Forster of the work of George Crabbe, an early 19^th century English poet who lived in Britten’s own native East Anglia. Serge Koussevitsky, deeply impressed by Britten’s work, had commissioned him to compose an opera to be presented at the Boston Symphony’s summer school at Tanglewood, Massachusetts. Britten searched out the work of Crabbe, and in the poem “The Borough” found his subject: Peter Grimes. This also sealed his decision to return to England. He was only 28 years of age. In the March of 1942 Britten and Pears made a perilous crossing through submarine-infested Atlantic waters go home. Work on the opera began at once, and was completed in time for a sensational premiere on 7 June, 1945 at Sadlers Wells Theatre. The war in Europe had ended less than a month before; England was battered and exhausted, everyone was hungry for the renewal of life and spirit. For many the appearance of Peter Grimes symbolised that renewal. Interestingly, 1945 was the 250^th anniversary of the death of England’s last great composer before the period of eclipse, Henry Purcell---whose DIDO AND AENEAS had remained the one great English opera. Now there was another. (The promised Tanglewood performance took place in 1946, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.)

The impact of the first performance of PETER GRIMES was vividly described by the American literary critic, Edmund Wilson, who was present: “An unmistakable new talent of this kind is an astonishing, even an electrifying experience…. You do not feel you are watching an experiment; you are living a work of art. The opera seizes upon you, possesses you, keeps you riveted to your seat during the action and keyed up during the intermissions, and drops you, purged and exhausted, at the end.”

The opera is set in a fishing village on the North Sea coast of eastern England---a village very much like Aldeburgh, the birthplace of George Crabbe, and eventually the lifelong home of Britten himself.

Grimes is a fisherman, a grim and solitary figure, disliked, feared and eventually destroyed by his community. The opera opens with scene of an inquest in which an inconclusive verdict is handed down regarding the mysterious death of Grimes’ apprentice, due to a lack of evidence. Nevertheless, most of the inhabitants of the village are convinced that the fisherman is a murderer. Shown kindness and understanding by only a handful of his neighbors, Grimes takes on another apprentice, hoping to become a successful fisherman, determined to win respect in the community. However, Grimes is abusive to the new boy, and when he is accidentally killed, the fury of the town is aroused. With a lynch mob intent upon revenge, Grimes, who has lost his reason, is persuaded to put an end to his hopeless situation by sailing out to open waters, to end his life by sinking his boat. At the end, life in the village goes on as before.

Following the example of Alban Berg’s WOZZECK (itself influenced by Debussy’s PELLEAS ET MELISANDE), there are extended orchestral interludes linking a number of the scenes in PETER GRIMES, of which the “Four Sea Interludes,” are the most widely-known orchestral music by Britten (along with his popular “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”). These are a vivid example of Britten’s rich musical imagination, being brilliantly-colored “tone poems” which create an unforgettable musical atmosphere. One can all but smell the sea air, and look up to behold the clouds scudding past.

1. Dawn. The opera opens with a prologue in which the inquest into the death of Grimes’ first apprentice takes place. Following this the orchestra paints a tonal picture of the North Sea, the rhythm of the waves, the wheeling of the gulls, the vast, often menacing skies.

2. Sunday Morning. This interlude serves as an introduction to Act II, which opens with Ellen Orford, a schoolteacher sympathetic to Grimes, sitting near the waterfront with the new apprentice, while from the distance are heard the sound of church bells and hymn-singing.

3. Moonlight. This introduction to Act III, outwardly poetic and peaceful, has also been described as revealing a “steely, menacing tranquillity.” Moving haltingly forward, the music is punctuated withripples of color in the flutes and harps. With these simple means we can imagine the welling of the seawater…the reflection of the moonlight..

4. Storm. At the end of the first scene of Act I Peter Grimes has made an unexpected (and unwelcome) appearance in a pub crowded with townspeople taking shelter from the storm outside. As if lost in his own world he sings the visionary words, “What harbour shelters peace, away from tidal waves, away from storms…a harbour evermore where night is turned to day…” Following the momentary stillness of that vision the curtain falls and the the astonishing Storm Interlude is heard, forming an introduction to the second scene. Growing up on the coast of the North Sea Britten had experienced such storms, and drew upon those terrifying memories in creating this powerfully atmospheric music.