''Songs and Proverbs of William Blake'' is a

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 ...

composed by

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

(191376) in 1965 for baritone voice and piano and published as his Op. 74. The published score states that the words were "selected by

Peter Pears Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears ( ; 22 June 19103 April 1986) was an English tenor. His career was closely associated with the composer Benjamin Britten, his personal and professional partner for nearly forty years. Pears' musical career started ...

" from ''

Proverbs of Hell ''The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'' is a book by the English poet and printmaker William Blake. It is a series of texts written in imitation of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own intensely personal Romantic and revolutionary beliefs ...

'', ''

Auguries of Innocence "Auguries of Innocence" is a poem by William Blake, from a notebook of his now known as the Pickering Manuscript.Encyclopædia Britannica Online.The Pickering Manuscript" Online. Accessed 13 December 2010. It is assumed to have been written in 1 ...

'' and ''

Songs of Experience ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a ...

'' by

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

(17571827). It was premiered at the

Aldeburgh Festival The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall. History of the Aldeburgh Festival Th ...

in June 1965 by the German baritone

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (28 May 1925 – 18 May 2012) was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous Lieder (art song) performers of the post-war period, best known as a singer of Franz Schubert's Lieder, ...

(19252012) and the composer. The critic William Mann thought that the cycle would be judged "Britten's deepest and most subtle song-cycle"; and

John Warrack John Hamilton Warrack (born 1928, in London) is an English music critic, writer on music, and oboist. Warrack is the son of Scottish conductor and composer Guy Warrack. He was educated at Winchester College (1941-6) and then at the Royal College ...

wrote in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' that Britten "has, I feel, here come to terms with the darkness and sense of cruelty that has always stalked his art". The cycle was recorded for

Decca Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label * Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group * Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label * Decca Studios, a recording facility in W ...

by the original performers in December 1965 in the

Kingsway Hall The Kingsway Hall in Holborn, London, was the base of the West London Mission (WLM) of the Methodist Church, and eventually became one of the most important recording venues for classical music and film music. It was built in 1912 and demolished ...

, London with

John Culshaw John Royds Culshaw, OBE (28 May 192427 April 1980) was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He produced a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's ''Der Rin ...

as producer and

Kenneth Wilkinson Kenneth Ernest Wilkinson (28 July 1912 – 13 January 2004) was an audio engineer for Decca Records, known for engineering classical recordings with superb sound quality. After working for small recording companies, Wilkinson was taken onto th ...

as engineer. A recording by

Gerald Finley Gerald Hunter Finley, (born January 30, 1960) is a Canadian baritone opera singer. Early life Finley was born in Montreal and studied music at St. Matthew's Anglican Church, Ottawa, the University of Ottawa, King's College, Cambridge and the Ro ...

(baritone) and

Julius Drake The gens Julia (''gēns Iūlia'', ) was one of the most prominent patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Republic. The first of the family to obtain the ...

(piano) won the solo vocal

Gramophone Award The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and refer ...

in 2011. The cycle is through-composed, without breaks, but divides into the following sections: # "Proverb 1" # "

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

" # "Proverb 2" # "

The Chimney Sweeper "The Chimney Sweeper" is the title of a poem by William Blake, published in two parts in ''Songs of Innocence'' in 1789 and ''Songs of Experience'' in 1794. The poem "The Chimney Sweeper" is set against the dark background of child labour that ...

" # "Proverb 3" # " A Poison Tree" # "Proverb 4" # "

The Tyger "The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his ''Songs of Experience'' collection and rising to prominence in the romantic period. The poem is one of the most anthologised in the English literary cano ...

" # "Proverb 5" # " The Fly" # "Proverb 6" # "

Ah! Sun-flower "Ah! Sun-flower" is an illustrated poem written by the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake. It was published as part of his collection ''Songs of Experience'' in 1794 (no.43 in the sequence of the combined book, ''Songs of Innocence ...

" # "Proverb 7" # "Every Night and Every Morn" "Proverb 7" and "Every Night and Every Morn" are from ''Auguries of Innocence''; the other proverbs are from ''Proverbs of Hell'', and the other poems from ''Songs of Experience''.

References

{{Authority control Song cycles by Benjamin Britten 1965 compositions Classical song cycles in English Musical settings of poems by William Blake