Curlew River – A Parable for Church Performance is an English music drama, with music by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by William Plomer. The first of Britten's three 'Parables for Church Performance', the work is based on the Japanese noh play Sumidagawa of Juro Motomasa], which Britten saw during a visit to Japan and the Far East in early 1956. Beyond the noh source dramatic material, Britten incorporated elements of noh treatment of theatrical time into this composition. Curlew River marked a departure in style for the remainder of the composer's creative life, paving the way for such works as Owen Wingrave, Death in Venice and the Third String Quartet. Plomer translated the setting of the original into a Christian parable, set in early medieval times near the fictional Curlew River, in the fenlands of East Anglia. Peter F. Alexander has investigated in detail the librettist's contribution to the work, through study of the letters between Plomer and Britten. Mikiko Ishi has done a comparative study of the 'weeping mother' figures in Sumidagawa, Curlew River, and various religious plays from medieval Europe. Daniel Albright has examined Britten's and Plomer's adaptations of aspects of the Sumidagawa original into the context of their own cultural and religious backgrounds in the creation of Curlew River. Under Colin Graham's direction, the work was premiered on 13 June 1964 at St Bartholomew's Church, Orford, Suffolk, England, by the English Opera Group. The original cast included Britten regulars Peter Pears and Bryan Drake. The United States premiere was presented at the Caramoor Summer Music Festival on 26 June 1966, with Andrea Velis as the Madwoman.
Roles
Synopsis
Curlew River opens, as do the other two Church Parables, with a processional, to the hymn Te lucis ante terminum, in which all performers, including the musicians, walk to the performance area and take their places. At a cue from the organ, the Abbot, who acts as a narrator, introduces the "mystery" to be presented. An unhurried robing ceremony – to stately instrumental accompaniment – follows, after which the play commences. The Madwoman and Traveller wish to cross the Curlew River on the Ferryman's boat. After briefly introducing themselves, the Madwoman explains her quest: she is searching for her child who has been missing for a year. Though the Ferryman is initially reluctant to carry the Madwoman, the other characters take pity on her and persuade the Ferryman to give her passage. As he is carrying the Madwoman and the Traveller across the river, he tells the story of a boy who, one year ago, arrived in the area with a cruel master who kidnapped him from his home near the Black Mountains. The boy was sick, and was left by the river by his master. Though the boy was looked after by the local people, he died. The Ferryman recounts the boy's words: The river people believe that the boy's grave is sacred, that: As the Ferryman tells his story, it becomes clear that the boy who died one year ago is the child of the Madwoman. Grief-stricken by this knowledge, she joins the rest of the cast in praying at the boy's graveside. At the climactic moment when all the men are chanting together, the voice of the boy is heard echoing them, and his spirit appears above the tomb to reassure his mother: At this point, the Madwoman is redeemed and her madness lifts. Britten depicts the moment with the Madwoman letting out a joyful, melismatic "Amen", the final note of which resolves onto a long-delayed unison with the full cast – a signal of return and acceptance. Here the robing ceremony music returns, as at the start, and the players resume their normal dress. The Abbot reiterates the moral, and bids the audience farewell. The full cast then recess to the same plainsong with which the work began.
Unusually, there is no conductor in the work—instead, the instrumental performers lead among themselves; the places at which each instrument is to lead are marked in the score. The lack of a conductor allows Britten to dispense with a universal tempo, the performers often instead playing in two or more separate groups at separate tempi, comparable to the sound of the music of a Nobayashi ensemble in Noh plays. This leads to another unusual notational device, the 'Curlew sign', which is used to 'resynchronise' previously separate groups of musicians by instructing one to sustain or repeat notes 'ad lib' until a given point has been reached in the music of another group. The harp part is heavily influenced by music for the koto and the chamber organ part features extensive use of tone clusters, which are derived from the shō, an ancient Japanese free-reed mouth organ used in gagaku court music. Britten's chief compositional technique in Curlew River is heterophony, which he uses to extraordinary dramatic effect. It permeates all aspects of the work's composition, with textures derived from short, decorative couplings, or long, unsynchronised layers of melody. The opening plainsong suggests many of the melodic shapes throughout the Parable. As in many of Britten's other dramatic works, individual instruments are used to symbolise particular characters. In Curlew River, the flute and horn are used most clearly for this purpose, symbolising the Madwoman and Ferryman respectively. With such a small orchestra, Britten does not use the 'sound worlds' that are clearly demonstrated in his War Requiem and A Midsummer Night's Dream, nor the dramatic change in orchestral timbre that accompanies the appearances of Quint in The Turn of the Screw or Tadzio in Death in Venice.
Recordings
The composer and Viola Tunnard supervised the first commercial recording of the work, for Decca, with the following singers:
