Beware! Three Early Songs is a song cycle for voice and piano composed by Benjamin Britten and set to texts by Herbert Asquith, Robert Burns and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
"Beware!" and " O that I had ne'er been Married" were composed in 1922, and are considered examples of Britten's juvenilia, as they were composed at the age of 10. "Epitaph: The Clerk", is a setting of the first verse of the poem "The Volunteer" by Herbert Asquith. It was composed in 1926. The pieces were revised in 1968 and published in 1985. [1] Britten mistakenly believed that "Epitaph: The Clerk" was written by Walter de la Mare when he was revising Tit for Tat, his setting of five pieces by De La Mare, in 1968. [2] The pieces were compiled into this collection by Britten when he was reviving Tit for Tat and Five Walztes (sic), two early compositions from 1926. [1] Rudyard Kipling's "Fuzzy Wuzzy", composed between 1922 and 1923, was revised at the same time, but remains unpublished. [3]
Britten's biographer, David Matthews, wrote of "Beware" and " O that I had ne'er been Married" that it was "a little disconcerting to find the texts of both of these songs are warnings against women". [4] Graham Johnson wrote that of Beware that for an 8 or 9-year-old "to write music that is this direct, this aware of the vocal line and potential of the human voice is almost a Mozartian feat". [5]
" O that I had ne'er been Married" was performed by Peter Pears with accompaniment from pianist Roger Vignoles on a Thames Television broadcast from the Britten Pears Foundation on 29 November 1976, though pre-recorded on 20 May that year. [6]
The songs are:
A complete performance takes about 3 minutes. [7]
Beware! Three Early Songs is a song cycle for voice and piano composed by Benjamin Britten and set to texts by Herbert Asquith, Robert Burns and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
"Beware!" and " O that I had ne'er been Married" were composed in 1922, and are considered examples of Britten's juvenilia, as they were composed at the age of 10. "Epitaph: The Clerk", is a setting of the first verse of the poem "The Volunteer" by Herbert Asquith. It was composed in 1926. The pieces were revised in 1968 and published in 1985. [1] Britten mistakenly believed that "Epitaph: The Clerk" was written by Walter de la Mare when he was revising Tit for Tat, his setting of five pieces by De La Mare, in 1968. [2] The pieces were compiled into this collection by Britten when he was reviving Tit for Tat and Five Walztes (sic), two early compositions from 1926. [1] Rudyard Kipling's "Fuzzy Wuzzy", composed between 1922 and 1923, was revised at the same time, but remains unpublished. [3]
Britten's biographer, David Matthews, wrote of "Beware" and " O that I had ne'er been Married" that it was "a little disconcerting to find the texts of both of these songs are warnings against women". [4] Graham Johnson wrote that of Beware that for an 8 or 9-year-old "to write music that is this direct, this aware of the vocal line and potential of the human voice is almost a Mozartian feat". [5]
" O that I had ne'er been Married" was performed by Peter Pears with accompaniment from pianist Roger Vignoles on a Thames Television broadcast from the Britten Pears Foundation on 29 November 1976, though pre-recorded on 20 May that year. [6]
The songs are:
A complete performance takes about 3 minutes. [7]