Translating Nature to Music, Essay Example

Translating Nature to Music: Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings

Benjamin Britten’s Pastoral and Nocturne, both within his Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, exists as strikingly different musical pieces, yet reflect a common theme or subject.  Employing the poetry of Cotton and Tennyson, and very much in keeping with Britten’s English appreciation of landscapes, the pieces express haunting perceptions of nature, and the ways in which time alters the meaning of nature.  This common element, however, gives way to musical approaches of contrasting styles; the Pastoral is languid and dreamy, in both verse and music, while Tennyson’s Nocturne has an alternating triumphant and sad quality captured by Britten’s use of horn and strings, and of the tenor rendition of the poetry.  As the following analysis will support, Britten’s music both reflects and enhances the natural scenes of the Pastoral and Nocturne, essentially translating the aspects of natural realities to musical expression.

Pastoral

The relationship between verse and music in the Pastoral is so integrated, it becomes difficult to determine which element is influencing others. To begin with, Cotton’s poem is in classic form, with an iambic pentameter meter and an easy, natural flow to it.  This is in keeping with the subject; Cotton merely traces the end of a day, reinforcing how the sunset lingers and changes the ways shadows define the natural landscape and all within it.  There is a consistently restful, calming tone to the poem, as subject and structure lead the reader to a nearly “drowsy” state.  Britten then takes this complete effect and quite literally translates it into musical form, losing none of Cotton’s approach or feeling.  To begin with, there is throughout the Pastoral a strange union between the tenor vocal, the horn, and the strings, as though each represents different aspects of the natural scene.  The rhythms in Britten in fact extend the slow pace of Cotton’s verse, with the tenor drawing out each word over sustained individual notes.  This is a rhythm both stately and measured, but also accelerated slightly in the middle passage.  This is not so much dictated by the poem’s content, which is consistently observational, but rather by a natural shift in the narrative as a moving piece; as in conversation, there is simply a change in rhythm.  It then returns from the brief diversion to resume the slow measures.

There is as well a unity of the instruments in perfect conjunction with the tenor’s “narration.”  There is a sense that the horns work to provide alto harmony with the tenor in a contrapuntal way.  It is not exactly harmony, but the horns are accentuated after high notes to contrast them with deeper, and similarly sustained, notes. Similarly, the strings alternate with the horns to produce a harmonic effect going to a higher register. Then, both horns and strings seem to represent certain elements of the landscape and the day’s end. As the verse describes the journey of the sun, the brass seems to “echo” the sun itself, as the high horns express in sound a grand, sweeping movement.  The strings have a similar effect, and become more prominent when the poem focuses on the earthbound, as in the “brambles” and “cedars” of the poem.  In a sense, then, the instruments themselves are used to translate material realities, and reflect their natural grace in moving slowly and being transformed.  All of this rests on a melody very simple in structure and of a dreamy, romantic quality. Britten completely holds to the tonal quality of the poem,  and the combination of the score and the vocal create a visual effect mirroring the scenes of the poem.  As the Pastoral ends, both instruments and tenor join forces to fade dramatically, emphasizing the sun’s setting as complete.  In essence, then, Britten’s Pastoral is a perfectly true musical translation of Cotton’s perspective on a single natural scene, and one in which influence is so mutual, the harmonic effect of the whole is complete.

Nocturne

Britten’s Nocturne is more complex than the Pastoral, even as it employs the same musical motifs and techniques to achieve an harmonic whole with Tennyson’s verse.  The poem is far more vivid and lively than Cotton’s, going to larger than life images and phrases, and Britten sizes upon this from the beginning.  As the verse describes a splendor falling on both castles and snowy mountains, the tenor sings in modulated bars emphasizing the high notes.  Behind this the strings come in with speed, matching in intensity the vocal vitality and stress.  They seem to “rip” through the scene being presented, which gives the aural impressions of lightning or fantastic gusts of wind.  Then, a beat before the tenor commands the bugles to blow, the horns come in, and in a slightly removed way.  The tenor command is repeated, and in the ensuing bars the trumpets gain in volume and intensity, as they “skip” along varying notes to reflect the echoes described as flying.

The rhythm and the melody then quickly shift pace, becoming suddenly slower to express the Tennyson reference to the dying echoes.  It is the first of three such shifts in rhythm, which in turn goes to creating an element of the melody line itself.  It is in fact a precise break in the music, followed by a variation of the opening.  Once again, the tenor demands attention to the sound of horn, and this is first expressed through rapid string movements “flashing” an echo of the command, and at a high pitch.  Once again as well, the tenor’s noting of the power of the bugles is matched by increased volume and tripping of notes, suddenly muting when the narrator again refers to them dying.  In two successive passages, then, Britten is translating a literal description of horns and simultaneously reinforcing how, as the poet phrases it, the sounds fly away and disappear over the mountains. The pattern continues in the third and final passage, with minor variations in the sequences heard before. As with the Pastoral, then, Britten constructs the score to translate into music the reality of the natural scene presented in verse.

The Pieces Together

In equal ways, also, it is arguable that timbre is the most defining aspect of both Nocturne and the Pastoral. This goes to the distinct character of musical sounds, in a way apart from their pitch or tone.  At the same time, timbre in both works relies on tonal color, and for the horns and strings alike.  As strings vibrate in ways simultaneously in parts and as wholes, the single string instrument then produces a greatly complex sound, and of a specific quality.[1] This is heard in the ringing sound made by the strings in the openings of each Nocturne passage, and it is heard in the soft, more subdued and “earthy” tones of the strings in the Pastoral.  Tonal color is as well very much a component of the horns in both works.  In the Tennyson piece, the color exists in a dual way; it represents the actual brass referred to in the poem, and it suggests in the rising and diminishing volumes the sense of the horns as echoes themselves.  Britten uses tonal color in both sets of instruments to be symbolic of the content of the verses, even as they add haunting qualities reinforcing the poems.

In terms of melody, it is arguable that Britten’s work here is anti-melodic; that is, as he is so intent on translating the poetic scenes, the music itself is narrative, and does not convey the patterns and repetitions associated with melody.  This in itself goes to form, as the structures of both works carefully represent the scenes and actions within them of nature having its effects.  The Nocturne‘s form is more unusual, in that a very brief work is actually segmented into three distinct parts.  At the same time, the integrity of form in the Pastoral is just as strong, and just as committed to pure expression of the content.  These elements would appear to render tempo meaningless, but that is not the case.  It is true that each piece reflects either minimal pacing or erratic timing.  Tempo, however, also represents qualities apart from specific timing or pacing.  The term allegro, for example, which is a temp notation, translates to “lively” or “vivacious”.[2]  In the cases of these works, it is a critical element, adding to the stately, dreamy quality of the Pastoral while reinforcing the contrasts of intensity within the Nocturne. When all of these musical realities are considered, the commonality between Britten’s two works discussed becomes all the more evident.  Ultimately, his music both reflects and reinforces the natural landscapes of the Pastoral and Nocturne, essentially translating the aspects of these natural realities to musical expression.

Bibliography

Kerman, Joseph, and Tomlinson, Gary  Listen, 7^th Ed.  Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2012.

[1] Joseph Kerman and Gary Tomlinson, Listen, 7^th Ed. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s press, 2012), 14.

[2] Ibid, 18.