A Boy Was Born

History and versions#

Britten composed A Boy Was Born at age 19 as a student at the Royal College of Music. Variation structures particularly appealed to Britten: even before composing A Boy Was Born, he had started a set of variations for string orchestra which he was later to complete as the Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. Later he was to compose a set of variations for his Piano Concerto, and his opera The Turn of the Screw is extensively based on the variation principle. This version was first performed on 22 November 1955 in London at the Grosvenor Chapel, by the Purcell Singers conducted by Imogen Holst. Britten himself conducted a recording with Michael Hartnett (treble), the Purcell Singers, boys’ voices of the English Opera Group, and the choir of All Saints. In 1957–58, Ralph Downes added an organ part. In 2013, celebrating Britten’s centenary, A Boy Was Born was performed by the BBC Singers and the Temple Church Choir at The Proms, conducted by David Hill. Festivals in Sheffield and Birmingham in 2013, in honour of the centenary of Britten’s birth, were named after the composition.

Music#

Britten displayed in the elaborate work his skill in composition and the handling of words. He composed six choral variations on the first four notes sung by the sopranos: : \set Score.automaticBars = ##f \key d \major \time 2/2 \relative c’ d2 \bar " " e2 g2 \bar " " e2 \addlyrics A boy was born Paul Spicer notes about the key: “Theoretically in D, the work, like most of Britten’s music, is as much modal as diatonic, though his modality bears little relationship to that of the English pastoralists—Vaughan Williams and the rest—who were then at their most influential.” He mentions Alban Berg as a composer who influenced Britten’s variation techniques such as augmentation and inversion of motifs. The choral writing is demanding. Spicer points out that the boys’ choir has to be a separate group but should be positioned not far from the mixed choir because of their intricate relationship.

See also#

• “Puer natus in Bethlehem”, a medieval Latin Christmas hymn

External links#

• Listening to Britten – A boy was born, Op.3 goodmorningbritten.wordpress.com, 8 June 2013