Gordon Cameron Sly, Britten’s Donne, Hardy, and Blake Songs

Abstract

Britten’s Donne, Hardy, and Blake Songs, by the music theorist Gordon Cameron Sly, examines three cycles inspired by the poetry of the respective authors. His main argument is that they constitute examples of “true” cycles out of fifteen poetry collections set to music by Britten. While The Oxford Companion to Music defines “cyclic form” simply as “a term to describe any such work in which the movements are connected by some musical theme or themes common to all,” for Sly, as obvious as it may sound, a cycle must be cyclical. It presupposes a well-defined architectural structure, or, more precisely, an overarching design. He believes that this structure imparts a sense of interconnectedness and interdependency to the poems or texts assembled. This cohesion is also explored by Sly on a more subjective level in his analysis of the themes and content of the cycles in relation to Britten’s own philosophical and personal views over the years.