Friday Afternoons
Friday Afternoons is a collection of twelve song settings by Benjamin Britten, composed 1933–35 for the pupils of Clive House School, Prestatyn, Wales where his brother, Robert, was headmaster.[1] Two of the songs, "Cuckoo" and "Old Abram Brown", were featured in the film Moonrise Kingdom.[2] "A New Carol" was included in the soundtrack of the film "Challengers (film)".[3]
Composition
Not long after graduating from the Royal College of Music, Britten started composing his collection of mostly unison songs (the last song, "Old Abram Brown", being in canon) to texts he selected from Walter de la Mare's anthology Come Hither.[4] Britten noted in his diary on 2 November 1933 (just over a month before his twentieth birthday) that he had composed that afternoon "a song, for R.H.M.B. & Clive House, very light & bad – 'I mun be married a Sunday'".[5] "Ee-Oh!" followed on 19 December.[6]
There was no further mention in Britten’s diary of composing school songs until May 1934, when he spent time with Robert at Clive House and helped by coaching pupils in cricket and taking singing classes.[7] He then resumed work on his songs, including "A New Year Carol", a setting of the traditional "Levy-Dew".[7] He completed the collection in August 1935 with the song "Begone, Dull Care".[8]
The title of the collection was originally Twelve Songs for Schools,[9] but at the suggestion of Robert Britten was changed to Friday Afternoons, since class singing was held at Clive House at that time in the week.[10] Britten dedicated Friday Afternoons "To R.H.M. Britten and the boys of Clive House, Prestatyn".[10]
Songs
- "Begone, Dull Care" (Anon.)
- "A Tragic Story" (Thackeray)
- "Cuckoo!" (Jane Taylor)
- "Ee-Oh!" (Anon.)
- "A New Year Carol" (Anon., ed. Walter de la Mare)
- "I Mun Be Married on Sunday" (Nicholas Udall)
- "There Was a Man of Newington" (Anon.)
- "Fishing Song" (Izaak Walton)
- "The Useful Plough" (Anon.)
- "Jazz-Man" (Eleanor Farjeon)
- "There Was a Monkey" (Anon.)
- "Old Abram Brown" (Anon.)
Critical reception
The classical music writer Michael Oliver has said that Friday Afternoons exemplifies Britten's ability to write melodies of the kind which "insists on being sung and, once sung, lodges in the memory."[11] John Bridcut has pointed out that Britten's use of canon in "Old Abram Brown" – a "little coup de maître [which] makes the funeral march great fun to sing"[12] — was a technique he was to reuse in several future works such as A Ceremony of Carols ("This Little Babe") and Noye's Fludde. When the first recording was made of almost the entire collection (omitting "Ee-oh") by the Choir of Downside School, Purley on Decca, reviewer Diana McVeagh in The Musical Times described some of the songs having "a spell-binding enchantment — A New Year Carol is as healing as 'Jack shall have Jill' in The Dream."[13]
References
Notes
- ^ Oliver: p. 217
- ^ Lin, Kristian (17 October 2012). "Benjamin Britten and "Moonrise Kingdom"". Fort Worth Weekly.
- ^ Ragusa, Paolo. "Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross Unveil Original Score for Challengers: Stream". Consequence of Sound. Consequence. Retrieved 21 May 2024.
- ^ Palmer: p. 273
- ^ Evans (2009): p. 152
- ^ Evans (2009): pp. 157, 187
- ^ a b Evans (2009): pp. 210-11
- ^ Britten (1991): p. 375
- ^ Evans (2009): p. 285
- ^ a b Bridcut (2006): p. 127
- ^ Oliver, p. 51
- ^ Bridcut (2006): p. 23
- ^ McVeagh, Diana (August 1967). "Review: Gemini Variations; Psalm 150; Songs from Friday Afternoons by Britten, Gabriel Jeney, ZoltanJeney, Viola Tunnard, Choir of Downside School and Purley". The Musical Times. 108 (1494). Musical Times Publications Ltd: 714–715. doi:10.2307/952257. JSTOR 952257.
Sources
- Bridcut, John (2006). Britten's Children. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571228399.
- Britten, Benjamin (1991). Donald Mitchell (ed.). Letters From a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Volume I, 1923–1939. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 057115221X.
- Evans, John (2009). Journeying Boy: The Diaries of the Young Benjamin Britten 1928–1938. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0571238835.
- Oliver, Michael (1996). Benjamin Britten. London: Phaidon Press. ISBN 0714832774.
- Palmer, Christopher, ed. (1984). The Britten Companion. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571131476.
External links
- Friday Afternoons project, providing free downloads of lyrics, scores and teaching resources
- v
- t
- e
- Paul Bunyan (1941)
- Peter Grimes (1945)
- The Rape of Lucretia (1946)
- Albert Herring (1947)
- The Little Sweep (1949)
- Billy Budd (1951)
- Gloriana (1953)
- The Turn of the Screw (1954)
- Noye's Fludde (1958)
- A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960)
- Owen Wingrave (1971)
- Death in Venice (1973)
- Curlew River (1964)
- The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966)
- The Prodigal Son (1968)
- Plymouth Town (1931)
- Night Mail (1936)
- The Prince of the Pagodas (1956)
- Sinfonietta (1932)
- Simple Symphony (1934)
- Soirées musicales (1937)
- Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937)
- Mont Juic (1937)
- Sinfonia da Requiem (1940)
- Matinées musicales (1941)
- The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946)
- Piano Concerto (1938, rev. 1945)
- Violin Concerto (1939, rev. 1958)
- Young Apollo (1939)
- Diversions for Piano Left Hand and Orchestra (1940 rev. 1954)
- Cello Symphony (1963)
- Our Hunting Fathers (1936)
- The Company of Heaven (1937)
- Les Illuminations (1939)
- Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (1943)
- Saint Nicolas (1948)
- Spring Symphony (1949)
- Nocturne (1958)
- Cantata academica (1959)
- War Requiem (1961)
- Cantata misericordium (1963)
- Children's Crusade (1969)
- Phaedra (1975)
- Beware! Three Early Songs (1922–26)
- Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo (1940)
- The Holy Sonnets of John Donne (1945)
- Britten's Purcell realizations (1945)+
- 5 Canticles (1947–75, including Canticle I: My beloved is mine and I am his, Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac (1952), Canticle III: Still falls the rain (1954) and Canticle IV: The Journey of the Magi (1971)
- A Charm of Lullabies (1947)
- Winter Words (1954)
- Songs from the Chinese (1957)
- Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente (1958)
- Songs and Proverbs of William Blake (1965)
- The Poet's Echo (1965)
- Who Are These Children? (1969)
- A Birthday Hansel (1975)
- Friday Afternoons (1932–1935)
- A Boy was Born (1933)
- Te Deum in C (1934)
- Advance Democracy (1938)
- A Ceremony of Carols (1942)
- Hymn to St Cecilia (1942)
- Festival Te Deum (1944)
- Rejoice in the Lamb (1943)
- Five Flower Songs (1950)
- Hymn to St Peter (1955)
- Missa Brevis (1959)
- A Hymn of St Columba (1962)
- The Golden Vanity (1966)
- Children's Crusade (1968)
- Sacred and Profane (8 medieval lyrics) (1974)
- Jubilate Deo (1961)
- String Quartet in D major (1931)
- Phantasy Quartet (oboe quartet, 1932)
- String Quartet No. 1 (1941)
- String Quartet No. 2 (1945)
- Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria (organ, 1946)
- Six Metamorphoses after Ovid (oboe, 1951)
- Fanfare for St Edmundsbury (three trumpets, 1959)
- Cello sonata (1961)
- Nocturnal after John Dowland (guitar, 1963)
- Cello suites (1964, 1967, 1972)
- String Quartet No. 3 (1975)
- Homage to Paderewski (1941)
- Variations on an Elizabethan Theme (1953)
- War Requiem (1989 film)
- Benjamin Britten (train)
- Benjamin Britten Academy
- Britten Inlet
- Britten Hall
- Britten Sinfonia
- Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century
- Britten's Children
- Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten
- English Opera Group
- The Dark Tower
- Scallop (2003)