While not an actively religious man, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) did make substantial contributions to sacred and quasi-sacred repertories. His five Canticles convey deep spirituality, but they also touch on secular topics and emotions. Canticle V: The Death of St. Narcissus (1974) sets a richly symbolic poem by T. S. Eliot. It has been interpreted to hold abundant homoerotic underpinnings (which, if correct, may partly explain Britten’s interest in the text), but it is also dark, mystical, and bordering at times on violence.  Eliot brings together sexual implications with the older, mythic traditions of Narcissus and the arrow-riddled St. Sebastian.  Britten claimed that he did not fully understand Eliot’s meaning, though he managed to produce a work of unambiguous power and drama. It was dedicated to William Plomer, the South African poet who provided several librettos for Britten’s operas. It was premiered by tenor Peter Pears, Britten’s longtime romantic partner, and harpist Osian Ellis. The composer would normally have set such a piece for voice and piano, taking the keyboard part himself. But recent heart surgery left him partially paralyzed in his hands. He would live just two more years, and this Canticle represents one of the final and most evocative instances of how influenced Britten was by Pears as both a man and a musician.

Over two decades before writing Canticle V, Britten managed to carve time out of his rapidly growing schedule for other intimate, small-scale compositions. In 1951, even in the midst of preparing his opera Billy Budd for its premiere at the Festival of Britain, he penned the solo oboe work Six Metamorphoses after Ovid. Dedicated to the English oboist Joy Boughton, the daughter of composer Rutland Boughton and member of Britten’s own English Opera Group during the 1940s and 50s, Metamorphoses is a six-part work that takes inspiration from the stories of fantastical transformations fleshed out in Ovid’s ancient epic.

Today’s concert features three of the six short movements, focusing on Pan (movement 1), Niobe (3), and Arethusa (6). The first movement, with its lilting lines and spritely energy, gives the impression that we are listening ourselves to Pan’s reed pipe. The third renders the weeping of the mother Niobe, whose proud boasts over her many children led to their death and her own subsequent transformation into a mountain. Finally, the delicate, cascading lines of the sixth movement remember Arethusa, the nymph who fled the amorous pursuits of the river god Alpheus and was turned into a spring.

Although he is perhaps best remembered for his many operas or his Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Britten also participated in the 20th-century folksong revival, compiling over six collections of folksongs from across Great Britain, Ireland, and France. His arrangements are simple, yet clever and original, drawing upon his own experience in writing for voice and years spent accompanying singers. While he wrote piano accompanying parts for most of his folksong arrangements, his sixth volume entitled England trades the guitar for the keyboard instrument. The overall effect of this change provides a mellower underlying timbre for the singer, whose voice is allowed to ring out all the brighter with the guitar’s quiet support. The singer never overshadows the guitar, however, as Britten’s writing affords the instrument ample opportunity to demonstrate its capacity for both exquisitely serene lines and percussive bursts of energy.

Britten’s third String Quartet was composed, published, and premiered just one year before he died. It had been thirty years since the second quartet, and a great deal had changed in Britten’s life. The most important change, as one might expect, was simply the passing of time. In 1972 Britten learned that he would need heart surgery, soon, if he were to live beyond the immediate future. He put off the procedure until completing Death in Venice, and the eventual surgery was not entirely successful. It also left him partially paralyzed in his right arm and hand, ending his career as a pianist.

In the midst of failing health and a last great creative burst for the opera, Britten found solace in Venice itself. He returned there in late 1975 to complete the majority of the Quartet. Of course, autobiographical links between himself and Gustav Aschenbach, the hero of Thomas Mann’s novel, would have been painfully clear. Like Aschenbach, Britten knew his end was near. Waning days were colored by visions of loves lost, youth long gone, and the tender permanence of the ancient city on the water.

Quartet No. 3 contains five contrasting movements – contrasting, that is, except for the fact that all five are in a simple ABA form. Like the second quartet, it is end-oriented. The finale is by far the longest and most substantial portion, and it once again explores the quartet’s shifting balance between unity and individuality. The first movement presents several duet pairings, and the main theme’s undulating contours have an obvious source in Britten’s day-to-day experiences in Venice. The second and fourth movements are both short, fast, agitated, and difficult. In between, the third movement offers a strident homage to Dmitri Shostakovich, whose music and artistic friendship meant a great deal to Britten in later life. The final movement, a recitative and passacaglia, quotes extensively from the Death in Venice opera. Resonant low cello notes call up the Venetian bells that Britten remarked upon in his letters. The final notes drift off without resolution. One senses Britten’s recognition that such a work would mark his last substantial contribution to music.

Jason Stell and Emily Masincup, © 2025