Britten, Benjamin. (1913–1976) & Pears, Peter. (1910–1986) [Brain, Dennis. (1921–1957)] . Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings - SIGNED SCORE & PROGRAM. London: Boosey & Hawkes. 1944.
Miniature score to the important English composer's Serenade, op. 31, signed on the title page by both Britten and Peter Pears, his lifelong companion and the tenor who first performed the work. Dated May 1954 with an ownership signature on the inside front cover. [PN] 8934. 38 pp. Some light overall toning, but otherwise in fine condition. 5.5 x 7.5 inches (13.5 x 18.7 cm). Together with an original program from a 1955 performance of Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with Peter Pears and horn player Dennis Brain, for whom the piece was composed in 1943. The program, with the Scottish National Orchestra under Karl Rankl, also included Mozart's Horn Concerto no. 3, Mozart arias, and Beethoven's Symphony no. 8. Dated January 21, 1955. A few small scuffs; overall in fine condition. 15 pp. 5.5 x 8.5 inches (13.8 x 21.5 cm).
"There was a lull in Britten’s flow of composition around this time [1942-50], owing partly to a serious attack of measles for which he was in hospital and then off work in March and April 1943. Several projects were abandoned, but during the months he was resting he composed, at Snape, the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings. In this work he invented his own kind of shadowed pastoralism, not the ideal England of the folksong composers but a place in which the worm finds the bud and a darker side of medieval experience is explored (in the Lyke Wake Dirge); the high ostinato that is also the strophic vocal line enabled a particularly fruitful orchestral dialogue to suggest deeper levels to this poem." (Philip Brett/Heather Wiebe, New Grove.)
Britten, Benjamin. (1913–1976) & Pears, Peter. (1910–1986) [Brain, Dennis. (1921–1957)] . Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings - SIGNED SCORE & PROGRAM. London: Boosey & Hawkes. 1944.
Miniature score to the important English composer's Serenade, op. 31, signed on the title page by both Britten and Peter Pears, his lifelong companion and the tenor who first performed the work. Dated May 1954 with an ownership signature on the inside front cover. [PN] 8934. 38 pp. Some light overall toning, but otherwise in fine condition. 5.5 x 7.5 inches (13.5 x 18.7 cm). Together with an original program from a 1955 performance of Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with Peter Pears and horn player Dennis Brain, for whom the piece was composed in 1943. The program, with the Scottish National Orchestra under Karl Rankl, also included Mozart's Horn Concerto no. 3, Mozart arias, and Beethoven's Symphony no. 8. Dated January 21, 1955. A few small scuffs; overall in fine condition. 15 pp. 5.5 x 8.5 inches (13.8 x 21.5 cm).
"There was a lull in Britten’s flow of composition around this time [1942-50], owing partly to a serious attack of measles for which he was in hospital and then off work in March and April 1943. Several projects were abandoned, but during the months he was resting he composed, at Snape, the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings. In this work he invented his own kind of shadowed pastoralism, not the ideal England of the folksong composers but a place in which the worm finds the bud and a darker side of medieval experience is explored (in the Lyke Wake Dirge); the high ostinato that is also the strophic vocal line enabled a particularly fruitful orchestral dialogue to suggest deeper levels to this poem." (Philip Brett/Heather Wiebe, New Grove.)