Listening to a favorite work, perhaps not one of the monuments of Western music, but, well – Britten’s Choral Dances from Gloriana, a suite of all-too-short dances that represent a miniature masque held in the Elizabethan court. I love the whole opera, too, although the best recording doesn’t seem to be available any more; of all the Britten operas, it is the most fun to play through bits of this one at the piano.
These dances are so tersely bizarre – embedded in what at first seems a rather friendly, square meter are a whole collection of peculiar, Stravinskian rhythmic textures – great fun. The one for the men, under a minute long, adds the wit of a tricky set of tongue-twisters, all full of different plosives and sibilants that keep landing in unexpected places – it must be maddening to learn. And the final ‘dance of homage’ has such a gracefully sad, farewell sort of quality to it – it resonates with the beautifully fragmented last minutes of the opera, which present snapshots of the latter part of Elizabeth I’s life in a way that suggests the fading of dreams and joy (almost, in fact, like the second act of Robert Ashley’s Improvement, where it is made clear that the protagonist Linda has lost much of her confidence in her own life, even through the successes and changes that she lives through). A beautiful piece of work – what a shame that the bourgeois Elizabeth II didn’t much like it....
Comments