Britten, Analysis, and the Augmented Sixth: Centennial Reflections
- When?
- Wednesday 6 March 2013, 16:00
- Where?
- Seedpod (Nodus Building)
- Open to:
- Staff, Students
You are welcome to our next music research seminar, on March 6th, 4pm in SeedPod (Nodus Building). Christopher Mark (University of Surrey) will be speaking on the music of Benjamin Britten:
"In a well-known article on Michael Tippett’s String Quartet No. 2, Derrick Puffett observed that (in contrast with Tippett in the movement Puffett is analyzing) ‘Britten … is not noted for his fondness for augmented sixths’. He is correct to the extent that Britten has indeed not been noted for this, but incorrect in the implication that this is an accurate observation. As I shall demonstrate in this paper, the augmented sixth is employed by Britten throughout his career at crucial structural and dramatic points in works as varied as Sinfonia da Requiem, Rejoice in the Lamb, Peter Grimes, Poet’s Echo, and Death in Venice. Characteristic of all of these contexts is the recognition of the augmented-sixth function at the moment of resolution, rather than the chord itself (which is normally just the root and the augmented sixth, usually spelt as a seventh) being imbued with the conventional impetus towards (or desire for) a specific resolution. This quality epitomizes Britten’s reworking of traditional elements of tonality."
"My analytical observations on these contexts will investigate the degree to which a consistent augmented-sixth usage can be proposed for Britten, but will also feed into broader considerations, which seem appropriate in the composer’s centenary year, about what we now know – or seem to think that we know – about Britten’s musical language; the relationship between current analytical understanding of his music and recent hermeneutical endeavours; why the preponderance of current Britten scholarship is biographical in orientation; and proposals for further analytically-based work."
Christopher Mark is senior lecturer in musicology at the University of Surrey. He was founding editor-in-chief of the Cambridge journal _twentieth-century music_ and founder of the Biennial International Conference on Music Since Nineteen-hundred, which held its first meeting in 1999 at the University of Surrey. He has published _Early Benjamin Britten_ (Garland, 1995) and _Roger Smalley: A Case Study of Late Twentieth-Century Composition_ (Ashgate, 2012), while _Britten: An Extraordinary Life_ is scheduled for publication by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Autumn 2013. He has also published numerous articles, conference papers, and book chapters on Britten, Smalley, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Warlock, and Tippett. He is currently working on a monograph on melancholy in twentieth-century English music.