About STILL FALLS THE RAIN

No art is made in a vacuum. All artists seek to communicate with their community and the world around them and are inspired by various catalysts and muses. When I was a college student, I became fascinated by the deep love between Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears and how it spurred and fed their creativity and musicality. In exploring their published correspondence, I discovered that Pears was not Britten’s only muse; the composer was inspired by many other musical collaborators and artists.

During the 1940s and ’50s Britten enjoyed close friendships with various inspiring talents, notably the poet Edith Sitwell and horn-player Dennis Brain. Brain was principal horn in the Royal Air Force Orchestra when Britten first met him in 1942, and he composed incidental music for wartime broadcasts by the RAFO. Immediately impressed by Brain’s playing, Britten took every opportunity to write horn solos for the project, and the two men quickly became friends. Their friendship is enshrined in Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, a piece which catapulted Brain to the forefront of the British classical music scene as a virtuosic soloist. Britten also had Brain in mind when writing Canticle III – Still falls the Rain, a setting of Sitwell’s poem about the air raids on London in 1940.

After undergoing heart surgery in 1973, Britten found that his right hand was partially paralysed, and he could no longer accompany Pears in concert. Ever particular about his replacement, Britten wrote some new pieces for the harpist Osian Ellis to perform with Pears. Britten had written much with Ellis in mind, including elaborate harp parts for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Curlew River and the War Requiem, as well as a solo Suite for Harp. Britten made extreme technical demands on Ellis; there are anecdotes about him giving the harpist lessons during rehearsals for the first performance of Curlew River.

Julia Cameron uses a baseball analogy (in her book Walking in this World) to show how artists need a ‘catcher’s mitt’ – a person to show the artist where their art is aimed. She writes: ‘We make art to communicate not only to ourselves, but also to the world. Someone or something must represent that world.’ Britten was clearly in tune with this idea, and surrounded himself with such muses, or catcher’s mitts, who both stimulated his imagination and disciplined its exercise, pushing technical and expressive boundaries and creating a richer world of musical colour and expression.

Similar personal connections have brought me to the pieces on this recording. Sivan Magen and I became close friends during our summers at the Marlboro Music Festival. We sought music to perform together and were naturally drawn to Britten, as his music forms a significant part of the harp and voice repertoire. Jennifer Montone and I became friends after her debut recital at Carnegie Hall (the very first solo horn recital to be presented by the Hall in its 125-year-history), at which we performed Britten’s Third Canticle together. Myra Huang and I have forged a strong friendship over years of touring and performing Britten. In thinking about the history of these pieces and how I have come to them myself, I observe how Britten’s music was born from love and friendships – no doubt one reason why his music still speaks to us so compellingly.