|
A Charm Of Lullabies
''A Charm of Lullabies'', Op.41 is a song cycle for mezzo-soprano with piano accompaniment by Benjamin Britten. It consists of five songs composed on poems by William Blake, Robert Burns, Robert Greene, Thomas Randolph and John Phillip. It was written in 1947 for Nancy Evans, who gave the first performance with Felix de Nobel (piano) at a festival in The Hague 3 January 1948. The score was first published in 1949 by Boosey and Hawkes in London. A performance of the cycle takes about 12 minutes. The variety of texts lends itself to variety of music, and questions the concept of 'lullaby'; especially the fourth song, "A Charm", which humorously threatens the child with all sorts of torment if it doesn't go to sleep. The songs # William Blake (17571827)"A Cradle Song" (Poems from the Notebook, 1794, verses 12 and 45 only) # Robert Burns (175996)"A Highland Balou" (Last Songs for the ''Scots Musical Museum'', 1792. Published in Volume 5, 1839) # Robert Greene (155892)"Sephest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Song Cycle
A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combination of solo songs mingled with choral pieces. The number of songs in a song cycle may be as brief as two songs or as long as 30 or more songs. The term "song cycle" did not enter lexicography until 1865, in Arrey von Dommer's edition of ''Koch’s Musikalisches Lexikon'', but works definable in retrospect as song cycles existed long before then. One of the earliest examples may be the set of seven Cantiga de amigo, Cantigas de amigo by the 13th-century Galicians, Galician jongleur Martin Codax. Jeffrey Mark identified the group of dialect songs 'Hodge und Malkyn' from Thomas Ravenscroft's ''The Briefe Discourse'' (1614) as the first of a number of early 17th Century examples in England. A song cycle is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |