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Attempts to approach Benjamin Britten's The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Opus
35, whether as performer, listener, or analyst, may well be marked by some unease, for
this cycle contains nine of Donne's challenging texts in which the poet, in part, wrestles
not only with God but with himself and this world, and which are set to music by a
brilliant composer-pianist (I do not use the phrase loosely) for a vigorous and superbly
talented tenor (Peter Pears), who had been a major musical collaborator and friend since
March of 1934, just over eleven years before the Donne settings were completed.
Thought by some to be less accessible than Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Opus 22
(1940) -- the first work to be written especially by Britten for Pears -- the Holy Sonnets
display a maturity, a textural unity and complexity, and a sure-footedness and confidence
in his singer that one suspects could only have come after the writing of Peter Grimes,
Opus 33 (completed in February of 1945 and first performed at Sadler's Wells, London,
on 7 June of that year). W. H. Auden, whom Britten had met in 1935, had encouraged
Britten and Pears to explore the work of Donne,[1] and after returning from a recital tour as
accompanist to Yehudi Menuhin to Germany in the summer of 1945, which included trips
to concentration camps at Belsen and elsewhere, playing for survivors of the Nazi
wretchedness, Britten plunged into work on texts which had been on his mind for a while,[2]
completing all nine settings between 2 and 19 August, as the score records.[3] Clearly, the
German experience -- which Britten never forgot, and which affected him profoundly
though he chose not to discuss it much, apparently, for the memories of Belsen were
doubtless all too painful (Carpenter 228) -- was something of a precipitant, and he
worked, as usual, at a rapid pace, the last six songs being written while he suffered from a
fever allegedly caused by an inoculation given to him before he left for the Continent
(Carpenter 227). The cycle was also to mark the 250th anniversary of Henry Purcell's
death (Britten and Pears performed it for the first time in Wigmore Hall on 22 November
1945 [St. Cecilia's Day] ), like String Quartet No. 2, Opus 36, clearly a tribute to Purcell,
which was given its premiere by the Zorian Quartet at Wigmore on 21 November, the
earlier composer's birthday.[4]
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Certainly, Britten's regard for Purcell is undoubted -- there are moments in many of
the vocal works that offer points of comparison apart from acuity of treatment of text, for
example, his use of dissonance in broken chord / arpeggiated melodic lines, his work with
material in Harmonia Sacra,[5] and so on, and the passacaglia (chacony) -- the five-bar
ground bass -- in "Death, be not proud" (IX in The Holy Sonnets), like the chacony in the
finale of the second quartet, is more than a mere reminiscence. Yet in the end Britten is
always himself -- more mannerist (in his diffusion of energy across lines, intervals, rhythms)
than his baroque predecessor, especially in The Holy Sonnets, with the poems' own
mannerist tendencies embedded in the texts that direct the reader's vision inward and
outward, reciprocating, as it were, between thematic (tonal) centres and connotative
invitations (and even discordances). While sensing a prompting from Purcell's Divine
Hymns, Michael Kennedy rightly points to an affinity with Wolf,[6] though the linkage there,
I suggest, goes well beyond a simple unity of voice and piano; further, it embraces earlier
nineteenth-century German composers, including Schubert -- especially because of
repeated figures in the piano part -- and Schumann -- because of the intense emotional
unity of voice and piano and the employment of the piano to introduce and to conclude a
song, to suggest /or to finish a mood while the singer, as it were, gives voice to coherent
thought (in the middle) arising out of the emotional state.[7]
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Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Opus 22, are about love, certainly, but The Holy
Sonnets are about far more than just death:[8] they are also about love and faith (human and
divine), about sin and guilt, and, towards the end of the cycle, about redemption and
transfiguration. What emerges from Britten's contemplations is faith in the love of
God, in everlasting life -- the certainty for which Donne, in the midst of Loyolan exercises,
was striving. Out of Belsen comes -- ironically, magically, and beautifully -- serene and
divine love and life. In the end, one must believe that humanity, despite its own evil and
corruption, will survive. Commenting on the somewhat hostile reaction to the
introduction of Christianity in The Rape of Lucretia, Opus 37 (first performed on 12 July
1946 -- marking the beginning of Glyndebourne's post-war resurrection), Imogen Holst
remarks somewhat trenchantly: "in Britten's mind there was no question of 'dragging in'
Christianity: it had been there all the time. He would never have set a cruel subject to
music without linking the cruelty to the hope of redemption" (Holst 40). Further, texts
suggesting love and reconciliation are found throughout the canon. Britten's ordering of
his choice of sonnets provides a clear indication of his thinking:
| Britten's title |
No. and date in John Shawcross, ed.,
The Complete Poetry of John Donne[9] |
| |
|
| 1. Oh my blacke soule! |
163
Feb.-Aug. 1609 |
|
2. Batter my heart |
171
1609? |
|
3. O might those sighes and teares |
176 1609-1611? |
|
4. Oh, to vex me |
180
after Jan. 1615 |
|
5. What if this present |
170
1609? |
|
6. Since she whom I loved |
178
after Aug. 1617 |
|
7. At the round earth's imagined corners |
165 Feb.-Aug. 1609 |
|
8. Thou hast made me |
174
1609-1611? |
|
9. Death, be not proud |
167
Feb.-Aug. 1609 |
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The selection and placement of each poem is obviously unique.[10] Note, in particular, the
turn from pieces which deal strongly with conscience, unworthiness, and death (1-5) to the
personal melancholy of 6 ("Since she whom I loved") -- written by Donne after the death of
his wife -- and to the idea of resurrection, which is continued to the end of the cycle. Out
of the hideous memory of Belsen and the collective guilt of mankind for such massive
cruelty emerges conviction and faith -- an intensely personal testament, it would seem,
reflecting the contemplative nature of the texts, and, perhaps for Britten, a kind of
personal atonement for a sense of collective guilt. But, of course, this was not the end of
his reflections -- the War Requiem, Opus 65, would follow in 1961, with its first
performance (conducted by Meredith Davies and Britten) at reconstructed Coventry
Cathedral on 30 May 1962.
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Voice and piano in this cycle form an organic unit -- rhythmically, harmonically,
and melodically they are part of the whole. Indeed, it is difficult to think in terms of an
accompaniment in Britten's vocal writing; whether he works with piano, with strings, or
with a large orchestra, the linkages and interdependence of parts is undeniable. Further,
even when dealing with a set of single songs with different intellectual, emotional, and
rhythmic demands, the conception is broad, and thematic and harmonic
connections -- some obvious and some subtle -- turn up through the cycle. Britten's sense
of form is acute, like his ear for verbal accent and quality of vowels, but he is not a
mechanical worker, a slave to formal construct devised for an occasion, nor so hopelessly
in the grip of textual representation that the melodic thrust becomes compromised.
Certainly, Britten often employs repeated figures and intervals -- the piano here not only
can reflect text as well as the voice but, as noted earlier, establishes the emotional base (or
bases) for a song so that the words grow out of and reflect the overall mood.[11]
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The nature of Britten's approach is established in the first bars of "Oh my blacke
Soule!" The piano opens ff
with pulsing octaves (
etc.), a rhythm which
reflects "summoned" in the first line of the text; the voice begins in bar 3, descending from
F# through D and B to E# (i.e., the range of a minor ninth (or augmented octave)), the E#
forming a stunning dissonance on "Soule" (bar 4) with the F#s in the piano (which are
sustained until bar 11 -- see Ex. 1). The vocal part rises in stages, preserving the anguish
of the poet through continued dissonance, until it reaches F# again in bar 8, forming a
unison with the piano's continuing F#s; note, too, that the line passes across (with an
interruption on G in bar 8) a rising minor ninth, from the E-flat of "death's" to the first
syllable of "champion." Here, then, are the harmonic and melodic foundations of the
song -- minor ninths, and major and minor seconds. The rising ninth appears again with
"Thou art like a pilgrim" in bars 10-11, with "Or like a thief" in bar 15, and in the bass of
the piano part in bars 18-19 (with a major ninth sequence occurring in bars 22-23); a
descending pattern comes with "execution" (bar 21), an ascending form occurs with "he
might be imprisoned" (bars 23-24), and the descending ninth comes back again in "O
make thy self" in bars 32-33 (identical here in pitch to the voice part of bars 3-4) and
"That being red, it" (bars 40-41). What one has here is a song in which there is not
painting of specific words but of the emotional impact of word groups, with particular
words highlighted, as it were, as in the case of "Soule" (bar 4), "champion" (bars
8-9), "Thiefe" (bar 15), "damn'd" and "hal'd" (bar 20 -- see Ex. 2), "imprisond" (bars 23-24),
"grace" (bar 25), and "white" (bars 42-43). The vocal line takes on, in a way, the nature
of declamatory recitative which veers towards lyricism periodically, depending on the
words; see, for instance, "Wisheth himselfe . . . prison" (bars 17-19) and "Yet grace . . .
beginne?" (bars 25-30). Also notable is the way in which the piano lines support the
voice -- the seconds are pervasive, even in the melodic echoes in the bass of bars 18-22;
also, mark the way in which the rhythmic pattern moves from octaves to clumped chords
(to accompany the reprises of the vocal descent in bar 32) which gradually open upwards
(suggesting further tension) to bring back the octaves, though with medial notes (though
with no third to offer solace), in bar 40. The affirmation at the end -- "it dyes red soules
to white" ("red" reflecting "blushing," "sinne," and the "blood" of Christ) -- is stark, as if
to say that in the midst of despair one must accept the promise. The insistence of the
pervasive rhythm and the 2/2 pulse is dictated by the first four words; beyond those,
which set the mood, the text is moved dexterously so as to preserve the normal verbal
accent and to make use of vowel sounds, e.g., "champion" (bars 8-9). Britten's markings
are precise and must be followed: consider, for instance, the p
offering of "Or like a thiefe,
which till death's doome" (bars 15-16, with an emphasis on "doome" -- see Ex.
3) and the
contrasting ninth for "execution" (bar 21 -- see Ex. 4).
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Let me pause, however, before looking at the settings of the other sonnets in some
detail, to note that the ninths and seconds which figure so markedly in "Oh my blacke
Soule!" and which give it so much of its tension are also essential features of -- or figure
in -- the harmonic fabric of virtually all the songs in the cycle, except that, significantly, the
minor ninth does not appear in No. 6, "Since she whom I loved," though the more than
casual observer might catch it embedded in bar 15 of the piano part. In No. 2, "Batter my
heart," it also crops up in the piano part (see bars 9-10, 14-15, and 25-26) but most
obviously in the vocal line with "me new" (bars 10-11). In No. 3, "O might those sighes
and teares," in which the seconds (by step) figure so prominently, the ninth is caught
between voice and piano, for example, in bars 5, 7, and 27, but, more obviously, echoes
the vocal line of bars 3-4 of No. 1 with bass octaves in the piano part in bar 13 (see Ex. 5)
and again in bars 15-16 and 21-22. In No. 4, "Oh to vex me" in which seconds play a
prominent role in the sixteenth note figuration in the piano part as well as in the vocal line
(largely contrasting eighth notes), the minor ninth appears in ascending form with "and
today" (bars 36-37) and, with interruption, with "Tomorrow I quake" (bars 42-44, and
again, between G# descending to G natural, with decorative interruptions, with "shake
with" (bars 64-70). No. 5, "What if this present," displays the ninth ornamented with a trill
in the piano part (see bars 1, 2, and 3) and in the voice, with an upper F to E flat line
echoing the trill in the piano. Other ornamented variants of the ninth can also be found in
the treble of the piano part, for instance in bars 5-6, 7, 11, 13, and 19, while versions of
the form in bar 1 appear in bars 12, 23-24, and 27, with the voice part displaying the
progression again with "adjudge . . . forgivenes" (bars 18-20). In No. 7, "At the round
earth's imagined corners," the ninth (major and minor) appears in the trumpet-call figure
from bar 1 on, with the minor version marking bar 12 and bars 20 ff.; significantly, this
plea for repentance is built partly on the voice's initial statement; note, too, the movement
from "tyrannies" (F) (bar 10) to "God" (F#) in bars 12-13, and again from "But let" (D)
(bar 19) -- gradually -- to "of grace" (E) (bar 24). No. 8, "Thou hast made me," displays
repeated sequential seconds throughout, and the minor ninth shows in the melodic sweep
of the piano part (bars 5-6, 6-8, 8-9, and 12-13, for example) and in vigorously ascending
form, with "before . . . "feeble" (bars 38-40). In the last sonnet, No. 9, the seconds are
present both in chords and by step, and the minor ninth progression appears ascending and
descending -- much more gradually and without angularity -- in the piano part as part of the
stately ground bass over which this song is built; even so, it is harmonically heard as a
seventh (on the dominant) which resolves easily. It also appears in the beginning of the
voice part (bars 5-10) as it reproduces the notes of the ground. In the voice part, again,
the ninth is reflected (D#-E) briefly in bars 30-31 and, more obviously, in bars 47-49, with
"stroake; why swell'st thou then?" (see Ex. 6) as if to put at rest the anguish which opens
the cycle. The voice part (bar 51) once again picks up the melody of the ground with
"One short sleep," but, with the confidence of the final two lines of text, the ninth is in
evidence only in the piano and not in the voice. Thus, Britten not only uses melodic and
harmonic patterns as unifying structural blocks but, always in control of his material,
employs them in strategic ways for dramatic purposes. As it stands, this cycle has
particular coherence and a direction that absolutely sustains Britten's particular ordering
of the poems -- what shows here is also revealed in his handling, for instance, of the
quartet, the symphony, and the opera.
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Those points on linking elements now established, let me return to look at No. 2,
"Batter my heart," and the other sonnets in the cycle. The marked sixteenth-note triplets in
the piano (see Ex. 7) set the rhythmic drive for the entire song and appear throughout
except for "Yet dearly . . . enemie" (bars 24-25, 27-28). The voice picks up the triplet (in
bar 1) with "Batter" but is not restricted to the rhythm, the composer being guided entirely
by placement of verbal accents, importance of words, vowel qualities, and so on; the result
is the presence, frequently, of hemiolas (cross-rhythms) which, with Britten's
characteristic dissonance contribute to the tension as well. Important along the way is the
pitch accorded to words (or groups of words) -- note, for instance, "heart" and "God" in
Example 7, the note values and reflective melodic shape of line given to "bend Your force,
to breake, blow, burn and make me new" (see Ex. 8, and mark the minor ninth), and the
quite literal descending sigh with "Oh" (bars 16-17). With "Divorce mee . . ." Donne
offers his challenging paradoxes, and Britten continues his triplet sixteenth note chords, in
the piano part, but now against repeated rolling arpeggios in the bass as the upper part of
the accompaniment rises partly chromatically to conclude the setting in C minor after the
dramatic word painting of "ravish" (bars 36-37 -- see Ex. 9).
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No. 3, "O might those sighes and teares," is in various ways a beautifully
constructed little piece, rather suggestive of a latter day Purcellian miniature. From the
first syncopated suspensions in the piano part which anticipate the "sighes" and "teares" of
the text (bar 4), the somewhat tortured mood, epitomised in "holy discontent" (bar 9), is
perfectly captured; even the slowing drift, (from 
to 
) of the alternating
seconds (bar 2) makes this a little gem of word painting and presages a rather more free-flowing pulse which escapes from the insistence of No. 2, for here one moves from 4/4 to
5/4 to 4/4 to 3/4 to 2/4 and so on -- all of the changes governed by the words but with
Britten keeping a tight line on the vocal tessitura which only, and therefore obviously,
expands its range above F with "hydroptique" (bar 21), "itchy" (bar 24), and
"remembrance" (bar 26). The tremolos in the piano part at bars 22, 24, and 26-27 -- all of
which involve seconds -- suggest just how close Britten is to the recitative of his notable
English predecessor, were it not for some of the harmonies.
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The fourth sonnet, "Oh, to vex me," is sprightly, and both voice line and piano part
reflect not just specific words but the general state of the poet's mind. Key words here,
obviously, are "contraryes" and "Inconstancy," marked by dissonance and by a melodic
line which reverses direction (and the leap of a seventh in bar 5 has parallels later) and by
the sixteenth-note figures in the piano which nearly always involve a similar change (see
Ex. 10). Verbal accent is preserved, and Britten's careful reading of the text is obvious,
for example, in his longer note values for "profane [2d syllable] Love" (bars 21-22), "and
today in prayers" (bars 36-38), and "court God" (bars 40-41); even more striking is the
hemiola beginning on the second syllable of "tomorrow" (bars 40-42) leading to "fear"
(bars 45-55) and the subsequent hemiola ending with "rod" (bars 55-56).
These cross rhythms not only create a sense of tension -- the pulls are latent in the
text -- but also allow the voice to give a sense of moving freely and working into and out
of the piano part. Lock-step is never an issue in Britten -- except when it is natural and
demanded by the words. Further, the triplet quarter notes in the voice of bars 43, 44, and
46 anticipate the triplet eighths of "like a fantastique Ague" (bars 58-59), which in turn
lead to the one real example of pure word painting in the piece (which reminds one, again,
of Purcell and Handel) -- triplet melismatic eighths, descending through melodic shakes,
given to "shake" (bars 64-70) which also produce cross rhythms of 3 against 4 and 3
against 2, given the piano part, and which come in marked contrast to the earlier part of
the setting, which is wholly syllabic (see Ex. 11). Even the piano part ends with chromatic
scales in contrary motion (bars 69-70) -- a nice touch.
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Note how easily the idea of shaking with fear (at the end of "Oh, to vex me" leads
to the question raised in the following sonnet, "What if this present were the world's last
night?" Further, the opening two bars in the piano catch the shake, as it were, in the trills,
pick up the triplet eighths, and, in the sixteenth-note groups in bars 4 ff., preserve not only
triplet rhythms in many cases but display the reversal of direction noted regarding the
piano part figures in "Oh, to vex me." The vocal line begins with the anguishing question,
moving from D ("What") to G flat "(night?") (bars 3-4 -- see Ex. 12). Again, longer note
values and/or marked changes in pitch throw light on major words, e.g. "Christ" (bar 8),
"Teares" (bar 12), "Blood" (bar 15), "forgiveness" (bars 19-20, "spight" (bar 21), and
"no" (bar 27). Word painting -- again, some would argue, the influence of Purcell, though
he was by no means the first or last to use it -- appears with the tortuous triplet melisma of
"crucified" (bars 9-10) and in the compelling descending line given to "Teares in his eyes
quench the amazing light" (bars 12-14). So striking, too, in this setting is Britten's sudden
diminuendo after the second "no" (bar 24): here is the beginning of a change, as the poet
works through "idolatrie" (see also "idolatry " in "O might those sighs . . . ," bar 13) and
contemplates his "profane mistresses" to reaffirm, as the setting works to a conclusion in a
major tonality for the first time in the cycle, that "This beauteous forme assures a piteous
mind" (bars 35-38). Through longer note values the pace seems to slow from bar 31 to
the end, and after bar 34 the shakes in the piano part are localised in the bass, without the
trill, and provide a constant, reassuring, quasi-pedal for the extended tierce de Picardie.
Here, too, is the preparation for "Since she whom I loved," No. 6, which follows.
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The sixth sonnet Pears sees as "the centre of the cycle. . . . [I]t is the one purely
lyrical Sonnet . . . . Britten had not previously made such a highly impassioned utterance,
which is yet so surely balanced and logical in structure. No one today [i.e., in the early
1950s] but Britten could have covered such ground in those first twelve bars . . . ."[12]
Perhaps it is fair to regard this setting not so much as "the centre of the cycle" but rather
as the confirmation -- in extended terms -- of the peace which emerges at the end of No. 5.
Further, while the text -- written, as John Shawcross suggests, after August 1617, that is,
following the death of the poet's wife -- provides along with the music so much
emotional impact, one might feel that even the youthful Ben could tug vigorously at the
heart, as bleary eyes during and after the "Sentimental Saraband," movement III of Simple
Symphony , Opus 4 (1934) -- based on suite No. 3 (1925) for piano[13] marked
Poco piu
tranquillo, will do it every time. In this sonnet -- and in the setting -- the personal nature of
death and loss is brought home with strength and tranquillity: she "hath payd her last debt
/ To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead / And her Soule early into Heaven ravished
. . . " (bars 1-11; cf. "Ravish mee" in No. 2, "Batter my heart," bars 36-38). In this setting
the piano, with undulating triplet eighths, provides a subtle harmonic base to a melody in
which the hemiolas with the vocal line suggest more freedom than tension (see Ex. 13);
even the triplets release their grasp three bars from the end, again to rest significantly in
the major with the third on top. Britten moves out of the E flat-D flat-A flat circle,
tellingly, with "A holy thirsty drop melts mee yett" (bars 24 ff.) to give voice to Donne's
query regarding "tender jealously" (bars 37-38) and to return, finally, to a sense of
understanding which Britten conveys in his slow resolution in the final bars of the piano
part. This is grief focused and personal; it is -- given the wellspring of human horror in the
memory of Belsen -- surpassingly universal, perhaps reminiscent, in a way, of the effect of
Section 5 of Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, Opus 45 -- "Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit,"
which was written in memory of Brahms' mother. And as Brahms offers comfort, so too,
I suggest, do Donne and Britten. The setting is unmarked by contrivance -- Britten had a
gift for simplicity and felicity; he also had a superb grasp of melodic lines -- and long
ones -- when they were needed.
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What emerges from these moments of understanding is a renewed conviction, and
Britten moves quite logically to the rhythmically contrasting "At the round earth's
imagined corners," No. 7 of the cycle. From death comes transfiguration. The piano
offers the trumpet call (the diminished ninth passage now a celebratory phrase), and the
vocal line provides a much more decorative utterance, seizing, with turning figures, (cf.
those in "Oh, to vex me" and "What if this present," noted above, in "imagin'd" (bars 1-2), "Angels" (bar 3), "death," "infinities" (both bar 4), and "scatter'd" (bar 5 -- see Ex.
14). The imitative pattern continues with similar melisma on "flood" (bar 7) and
"o'erthrow" (bar 8), accents on "war, death, agues, tyrannies, Despaire, law, [and]
chance" (bars 9-11), and further echoing melisma on "behold" and "never" (bars 12 and
14) with four beats (
) given to "God" (bars 12-13) -- all heard with successive
trumpet-like figures set against dissonant tremolos in the piano. ""Woe" (given a whole
note, bar 15) brings one to thirty-second note swoops, echoes of a first one in bar 6, and,
in bar 19, the placement of octave tremolos in the bass and trumpet figures in lower range
(two octaves down from the beginning), pp, for "But let them sleep . . . " (bars 19 ff.), all
subsiding until the final vocal statement -- tellingly solo: "for that's as good / As
if thou
hadst seal'd my pardon, with thy blood" (from D to G and back, bars 30-31, cf. "Blood"
and the terrifyingly assertive conclusion to "Oh, my blacke Soule," bars 38-43). While no
cadential figure ends the song, none is needed for the voice, with the high point on "seal'd
my pardon" offering a clear D major statement.
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In No. 8, "Thou hast made me," the movement across seconds (as well as in
chords), which is frequent as a kind of motif (along with the minor ninth) in this cycle,
provides the running bass -- taking a cue from "runne" (bar 24). Once again there is the
pull between body and soul, between death and decay on the one hand and transfiguration
and eternal life on the other. Awareness of another's mortality makes one sensitive to
one's own (hence, a link to Meditation XVII and a possible though rejected epilogue):
"mine end doth haste, I runne to death, and death meets me as fast" (bars 22-27 -- see Ex.
15). Word painting, in the strict sense, is minimal here, but the falling line on "yesterday"
is obvious (bars 30-31), as are the melodic changes in direction and accents, despite the
pp
marking, on "Despaire behind, and death before . . . " (bars 36-38) which lead to greater
emphasis as the text moves towards "Hell doth weigh" (bars 43-44 -- see Ex. 16). Yet
clearly imitative harmony -- more stunning because it is used with restraint and not as a
matter of convention or careless habit -- shines through in "Only thou art
above" (bars 45-47 -- see Ex. 17) and in its melodic reprise with "I rise again" (bars 50-51). The volume
and vocal pitch subside again with the approach to "But our old subtle foe . . ." (bars 56
ff.), and the repeated E flat in the vocal line through "They Grace . . . draw" (bars 64-71),
reminiscent of "Thou hast . . . and shall" (bars 16-18), sets off the largamente statement of
"mine iron heart" (bars 72-73 -- see Ex. 18), the first two words set over a diminished
chord which leads to the repeated seconds (in octaves) and the final, confident if
thunderous, E flat minor chords.
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It is the assertion at the end of No. 8, reflecting the textual argument which Britten
develops in his ordering of the poems, which leads, with superb logic, to No. 9, "Death, be
not proud," built over a magnificent five-bar ground (containing, as noted, the motivic
minor ninth, now comfortably resolving as a dominant seventh (on F#) to the third of B
major (see Ex. 19). Reflections are used sparingly -- "poore death," following an octave's
drop, is a case in point (bars 16-17). A more lyrical vocal statement begins quietly with
"From rest and sleepe . . ." (bars 21 ff.). "Rest of their bones" (bars 32-33) is markedly
suggestive in its lower range and movement only through a minor second (see Ex. 20),
and Britten provides pointed emphasis, reflected in the piano part, for "Fate, Chance,
kings, and desperate men" (bars 36-40), as well as a marcato dotted figuration for "And
dost with war" (bars 41 ff.), picking up the broad but highly connotative words Donne
uses with such impact. "Fate" and "kings," tellingly, are given the same pitch and
harmony, while "Chance" and "men" both share the dissonance of a seventh chord (see
Ex. 21), and the first syllable of "poison" (bar 42) is clearly dissonant. After "stroake"
(bar 47) the vocal line moves, as noted above, down through the minor ninth (see Ex. 6)
to pause and then to pick up the stately ground, without the ninth (seventh) as noted
earlier, with "One short sleepe . . ." (bars 51 ff.), resolving, at the last, on the tonic of B
Major with "die."
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Carpenter states that "Some of the sonnets give hope, yet Britten's settings do not
indicate that the terror of damnation has been overcome" (Carpenter, 227). With respect,
I would suggest that Britten's arrangement of the sonnets and his melodic/harmonic
arguments support the opposite conclusion. Out of misery and chaos, personal and public,
come serenity, strength, and repose -- existence, for a sensitive soul, is otherwise
unbearable, and one would want to believe that Donne found his own solace in the end as
well. Of course, as I have pointed out, these are difficult pieces -- for performer and for
listener -- in technical, intellectual, and emotional ways, and if they are to be performed,
they can only be done well, else all is lost. For some listeners, perhaps, they will not yield
easily on first hearing. But what sonnet of Donne, read for the first time, ever did that?
Working with highly individual, mannerist text (with multiple perspectives and
paradoxes), Britten rises to his challenge -- literary, musical, and, ultimately, spiritual; his
wrestle, like Donne's, is with the problem of faith in a tortured world with its death and
misery, and in The Holy Sonnets both musician and poet find their resolution.
