*Hymn to St Cecilia* (1942) for unaccompanied five-part chorus and soloists is quintessential Britten, with text (by Auden) and setting that emphasize not just the emotional and aesthetic power of music, but its eroticism as well. Britten’s music, like Auden’s poem, combines a classical tightness of form with a complexity of ideas about the role of the artist in the face of a disintegrating civilization. Each section ends with a unison exaltation to “Blessed Cecilia”, a simple device but one which serves to create a sense of structural unity. https://youtube/watch?v=1P6c7SdHAak
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 15:25:54 +0000