Nocturne (Britten)

Nocturne for tenor, 7 obbligato instruments & strings is song cycle by Benjamin Britten. Premiered at the Leeds Festival in October 1958, it is his fourth and final orchestral song cycle, after Our Hunting Fathers (1936), Les Illuminations (1939) and Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (1943). It is dedicated to Alma Mahler.

The theme of the piece (as its name suggests) is sleep and darkness, both in the literal and figurative sense. In this respect the work is reminiscent of Britten's earlier Serenade. Unlike Serenade, Nocturne is presented as a continuous piece rather than separate movements. This is emphasised by a number of figures which occur throughout, most notably the 'rocking' string motif which opens the work. The conflicting tonal relationship between C and D-flat is also evident throughout, reflecting the contrast between the untroubled and the more perturbed aspects of sleep which are also described by Britten's choice of poems.

The seven obbligato instruments for which the piece is scored are flute, cor anglais, clarinet, bassoon, harp, french horn and timpani.

Structure

The piece sets eight sections of poetry to music, each accompanied by strings and (with the exception of the first) by an obligato instrument:

• Shelley - Prometheus Unbound
• Tennyson - The Kraken, with Bassoon
• Coleridge - The Wanderings of Cain (extract), with Harp
• Middleton - Blurt, Master Constable, with French Horn
• Wordsworth - The Prelude (1805) (extract), with Timpani
• Owen - The Kind Ghosts, with Cor Anglais
• Keats - Sleep and Poetry, with Flute and Clarinet
• Shakespeare - Sonnet XLIII, with all of the obbligato instruments.