The Importance of Text Through Music in Benjamin Britten's Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo

Through a Renaissance Looking Glass:
The Importance of Text Through Music in Benjamin Britten’s Seven Sonnets of

Michelangelo
Kyle Felkins
Research Methods and Bibliography
November 12, 2020

THROUGH A RENAISSANCE LOOKING GLASS: THE IMPORTANCE OF TEXT
THROUGH MUSIC IN BENJAMIN BRITTEN’S SEVEN SONNETS OF
MICHELANGELO
Before The Turn of the Screw or the moving War Requiem, Benjamin Britten
(1913-1976) composed a song cycle called Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. By exploring
the relationship between a fifteenth century text and a twentieth century musical
composition, Britten’s use of text painting is analogous to the highly text-focused music
of the Renaissance. There are two key elements in understanding these relationships in
Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. The first is to consider the context of the text
and music in both the lives of Michelangelo Buonarroti and Benjamin Britten. The
second is recognizing Britten’s use of sophisticated compositional techniques to facilitate
the story of the poetry.
***
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564), also known as
Michelangelo Buonarroti or simply, Michelangelo, lived in Italy and achieved fame as a
master of poetry, architecture, and art. He worked under the patronage of many, including
nine popes and the Medici family. He insisted on being selective about recipients of his
art because he did not want to be treated as a workshop artist.1
1
William E. Wallace, Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, edited by
Jonathan Dewald, s.v. "Michelangelo Buonarroti (Born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni,
1475–1564)," 110-113, Vol. 4, New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004, Gale eBooks (accessed
September 27, 2020),
https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.baylor.edu/apps/doc/CX3404900734/GVRL?u=txshracd2488&sid=GVRL&x
id=79f1a070.
1
The sonnets used in Britten’s song cycle were written by Michelangelo for
Tommaso Cavlieri (ca. 1509-1587) and were accompanied by drawings that depict
mythological symbols from the poetry. Both the sonnets and the drawings were likely
completed between the years of 1530 and 1533 as gifts for Calvalieri. Michelangelo often
used his art as a symbol of his status and gave it as gifts to prove that he was of a high
social class. This was true of the sonnets and drawings he gave to Calvalieri, in that they
were gifts for him. In this case, the intent of the gifts was less about social status in the
case of Michelangelo and Cavalieri.2 A correlation between Britten and Michelangelo is
that both used the sonnets as a way to express feelings of love and desire to their intended
recipient; Michelangelo to Tommaso Cavalieri and Benjamin Britten to Peter Pears
(1910-1986).
Britten chose to use a text written in the heart of the Renaissance, but there are
few moments where his compositions have techniques that were popular in secular vocal
music during the Renaissance in Italy. This is particularly interesting given that Britten
has produced several other compositions that harken back to the Renaissance. For
example, Britten composed A Ceremony of Carols using Renaissance Era English and
Scottish poetry and he uses plainsong in the Processional and Recessional sections of this
work.3 Although plainsong is a musical form established during the Medieval Era of
music, it proves that Britten is capable and educated in a way that would allow him to use
the musical forms and styles of an era as distant as that of the Renaissance and before.
2
Douglas W. Bolin, “Pictorial and Poetic Influences in Benjamin Britten's Seven Sonnets of
Michelangelo: A Magical Journey Through Associations” (DMA diss., Ohio State University, Columbus,
OH, 1996), 101-103, OhioLINK Electronic Thesis & Dissertations Center,
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/pg_10?0::NO:10:P10_ACCESSION_NUM:osu1381149612#abstract-files.
3
The Christmas Encyclopedia, s.v. “A Ceremony of Carols,” accessed September 27, 2020,
https://search-credoreference-com.ezproxy.baylor.edu/content/entry/mcfc/a_ceremony_of_carols/0.
2
In order to draw certain connections between Britten and compositional styles of
the Renaissance in Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, it is necessary to look at significant
forms in secular music written by Italian composers during the Renaissance. Florence
was a cultural hub for the Italian arts in the late 1400’s and 1500’s, there were many
composers that worked concurrently with Michelangelo in Florence, and many for the
Medici family.
The main musical form that used the sonnet was the madrigal. As it happens,
there were a handful of Italian composers that revitalized the madrigal during the
sixteenth century when Michelangelo created these sonnets. Madrigals had an earlier
form in the Medieval Era, but all references to madrigals that follow will examine the
later form from the Renaissance. A madrigal is a musical form that employs
unaccompanied voices in a chamber style.
Sixteenth century Italian madrigals were built around the canzoni and sonnets of
Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374). His poetry was treasured by young artists and poets in
Italy. The musical forms of the madrigal were built to facilitate Petrachan poetry. Relating
to the musical forms of the madrigal, an article titled “Madrigal” from Grove Music
Online explains, “the new use of Petrarchan and Petrarchistic texts called for musical
forms as free as the verse, and for a fully vocal, declamatory polyphonic texture as
serious as the melancholy love-poems newly in fashion.”4
Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo have some obvious differences from the madrigal,
like the “fully vocal” form and the use of polyphony. However, the heart of the Italian
4
Kurt von Fischer, Gianluca D’Agostino, James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Massimo Ossi, Nigel
Fortune, Joseph Kerman, and Jerome Roche, Madrigal, Grove Music Online, 2001, Accessed 27 Oct. 2020,
https://www-oxfordmusiconline-com.ezproxy.baylor.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.0
01.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040075.
3
Renaissance madrigal is found in Britten’s song cycle. There is a limpid parallel between
Britten’s writing and renaissance compositions due to the hyperfocus on text.
Britten was still a young composer when he completed these pieces, and was
intent on highlighting the emotional impact of the texts he chose.5 He is masterful in his
use of word painting in these sonnets. Though he may not have had musical ideas from
the Renaissance in mind, the clear focus he has on facilitating the text is highly
concurrent with renaissance compositional thinking. Britten had many influences for his
music and this song cycle uses many compositional elements. Understanding, in brief, the
use of the madrigal in the Renaissance is necessary to fully understanding this work.
Britten knows the text extremely well. There are many instances in the text where
Britten puts a musical stress on specific words. For example, Douglas W. Bolin, in his
paper Pictorial and Poetic Influences in Benjamin Britten's Seven Sonnets of
Michelangelo: A Magical Journey Through Associations, points out that in the XXIV
sonnet, he uses rhythms to indicate salient words that have to do with sight. In one
phrase, he deemphasizes the word referring to seeing one’s own reflection, and highlights
the word Italian word for ‘seen’. He does this by putting a dotted rhythm on beat two on
the word “specchia,” (to see one’s self in the mirror) and two quarter notes with the
stressed syllable on the highest note in the textual phrase, on the word “vede” (seeing) on
beat three.6 This is highlighted in red in Example 1.
5
OH, 1996), 50, OhioLINK Electronic Thesis & Dissertations Center.
6
Ibid., 79-81.
4
Example 1; Benjamin Britten Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Sonnet XXIV, measures
7-12, shows ascending piano line into tenor line.7
Interestingly, the Symond’s translation used by Britten renders the phrase as “as in
a glass, we see.”8 It is only in the word-for-word translation where there is context given
for the text painting in this specific instance. Britten had a deep understanding of the
poetry in its original Italian in order to add the stresses in the scansion properly.9 More
examples will be given in the broader analysis of the music later.
7
Benjamin Britten, Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, text by Michelangelo Buonarroti, (1940, repr.,
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 26.
8
Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti, Translated by John Addington
Symonds, Translated by John Addington Symonds (Portland, Maine: Thomas B. Mosher, 1901), 27.
9
OH, 1996), 78, OhioLINK Electronic Thesis & Dissertations Center,
5
Of the seventy-seven sonnets written by Michelangelo and published in Symond’s
translated compilation, Britten chose to use sonnets XVI, XXXI, XXX, LV, XXXVIII,
XXXII and XXIV, in that order, for his composition. The poems he chose are not
chronological. Bolin argues that this is because they represent a romantic journey, as a
sort of initiation into love.10
Leading up to 1940 (the year Britten published this song cycle), he studied
alongside the poet W. H. Auden (1907-1973) where he gained interest in poetry and
politics. He read through much fiction and poetry during this time, some of which he
would use as material for his future compositions. Auden not only influenced Britten in
the literature he explored, but he encouraged Britten to explore his sexuality in the early
1930’s. Britten began to explore his homosexual feelings in 1933 after leaving the
ideologically conservative Royal College of Music, leading to an interest in romantic
poetry. Doing so allowed him to express his newfound freedom in romantic expression.11
Britten composed for people, whether for an individual, like this song cycle, or a
group, like his War Requiem or The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. When he
won the Robert O. Anderson Aspen Award of the Humanities in 1963, he said in his
address, “I certainly write music for human beings—directly and deliberately. I consider
their voices, the range, the power, the subtlety, and the color potentialities of them.”12 In
10
11
Paul Kildea, The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten, edited by Mervyn Cooke (Cambridge
Companions to Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 42-44.
12
Benjamin Britten, “On Receiving the First Aspen Award” (speech, Aspen Institute of Humanistic
Studies, Aspen, CO, July 31, 1964.)
6
1940, 26-year-old Benjamin Britten took the text of seven of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s
Renaissance Era sonnets, and created a piece for the young tenor Peter Pears.13
Britten and Pears’ friendship began in the summer of 1937 and they remained
friends until 1939. They corresponded in letters, which gives a clear picture of their
business, personal lives, and relationship. Pears began singing Britten’s works in 1937 as
they began to spend time together. They moved to the US in 1939, where they began
their romantic relationship. They considered themselves married for the 37 years they
were together.14
Britten’s study of poetry with Auden as well as his relationship with Pears led him
to write Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. Britten had come to know Pears' voice well
while they were friends, affording him the knowledge to create a piece tailored to Pears’
voice. Fueled by their new relationship, Britten wrote the song cycle for Pears. The
dedicatory note at the top of the score is inscribed with “To Peter.”15 These are key poetic
and life influences which inspired the song cycle.
Approaching 1940 when Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo was published, Britten
began composing for film after studying with Frank Bridge (1879-1941) in 1936.16 Frank
Bridge primarily gave Britten an opportunity to develop his own voice. In fact, Britten
13
OH, 1996), ii, OhioLINK Electronic Thesis & Dissertations Center,
14
Vicki P. Stroeher, Jude Brimmer, and Nicholas Clark, My Beloved Man: The Letters of Benjamin
Britten and Peter Pears, My Beloved Man, NED - New edition, (Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2016), 17-20.
15
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 1.
16
Lucy Walker, Benjamin Britten: New Perspectives on His Life and Work, NED - New edition, Vol. 8,
(Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2009), 56.
7
criticizes Bridge for downplaying the cardinality of Germanic compositions influencing
his work. In spite of any criticisms, Bridge influenced Britten to use English folksong in
his compositions throughout his career. Frank Bridge and his wife considered Britten to
be their son, and Britten published Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge two years
before Bridge’s death.17
After his time with bridge Bridge, Britten began his studies with John Ireland.18
John Ireland was influenced greatly by mythology, and under his tutelage, Britten
composes multiple works around mythological themes, including Young Apollo, a work
for piano, string quartet and orchestra.19 Even the sonnets used in Seven Sonnets of
Michelangelo are tied to mythology and the painting of mythological figures that
Michelangelo includes with the original paintings.
While studying at the Royal College of Music in the early 1930’s, Britten was
trained very strictly. They taught intellectually conservative and traditional values for
both music and society, which were reflected in Britten’s compositions until he met W.H.
Auden in the mid-1930’s.20 As Britten broke away from the RCM, his focus on text drove
his compositions, taking him away from the strictness of his training, bringing him
stylistically closer to Alban Berg. Britten wrote two song cycles in the 1930’s preceding
Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. On This Island and Les Illuminations are both eclectic in
17
Christopher Mark, “Bridge and Britten, Britten and Bridge,” Music and Letters 99, no. 1, (February
1, 2018), 45–73.
18
Britannica Academic, s.v., "Benjamin Britten," accessed October 5, 2020,
https://academic-eb-com.ezproxy.baylor.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Benjamin-Britten/16540.
19
Britannica Academic, s.v. "John Ireland," accessed October 6, 2020,
https://academic-eb-com.ezproxy.baylor.edu/levels/collegiate/article/John-Ireland/42754.
20
Companions to Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 43.
8
both poetry and musical style. The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten says of
On This Island:
The first song opens in an opulent, neo-baroque, triadic D major, complete with
fanfare figures for the piano, before turning to an even more overtly Purcellian G
minor in 6/4. Debussy is arguably recalled in the third song, Faure in the fourth
and Walton in the fifth: Britten's deliberate eclecticism here surely highlights the
mercurial spirit of Auden's verse. 'Fish in the unruffled lakes' springs from the
same year and the same partnership, and its piano part is a typical Britten
response to watery imagery.21
In 1939, Britten published Les Illuminations, a song cycle for high voice and
string orchestra.22 In listening to the piece, there is a stark contrast between this cycle’s
musical and emotional ideas and the objectives in Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. The
beginning of Les Illuminations sounds as if it has a musical reference to English military
music.23 Kildea explains of Les Illuminations,
Harmonically, much stems from the conflict between Bb and E, which is

presented in the most explicit terms at the opening. Having twice dissolved into C
major, the clash is finally sounded six bars before the end of the cycle and
allowed to 'resolve' onto Eb major. Various reminders along the way keep the
structural dissonance active; for instance, 'Antique' ends on a serene Bb major,
immediately gainsaid by the forceful E major of 'Royaute'.24
Britten’s musical influences leading to the composition of Seven Sonnets of
Michelangelo were focused on writing music that facilitated the text. In this instance, it
21
Companions to Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 262.
22
Graydon Beeks, "Benjamin Britten," In Great Lives from History: The 20th Century, edited by Robert
F. Gorman, (Salem Press, 2008),
http://ezproxy.baylor.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/salemgltw/benjamin_br
itten/0?institutionId=720.
23
Benjamin Britten, “Les Illuminations,” Ian Bostridge, BBC Proms, 2013, video of live performance,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XQGHOfIdYY.
24
Companions to Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 262-263.
9
mattered less when the text originated, but what the text said and what musically could be
done to push the message of the text. As previously mentioned, there are parallels
between his writing and Berg’s writing. Though Britten was not considered an
expressionist, his music is highly influenced by expressive elements, which in the case of
his vocal music in the 1930’s and early 1940’s, was the text.
***
Sonnet XVI, XXX and XXIV will be used in the analysis as they each are
significant to the journey of the song cycle with the greatest shifts in poetic themes. The
text of sonnet XVI from the Symond’s translation that Britton used for reference is as
follows:
As pen and ink alike serve him who sings

In high or low or intermediate style;
As the same stone has shapes both rich and vile
To match the fancies that each master brings;
So, my loved lord, within thy bosom springs
Pride mixed with meekness and kind thoughts
that smile:
Whence I draw naught, my sad self to beguile,
But what my face shows- dark imaginings.
He who for seed sows sorrows, tears, and sighs,
(The dews that fall from heaven, though pure and
clear,
From different germs take divers qualities)
Must needs reap grief and garner weeping eyes;
And he who look son beauty with sad cheer,
Gains doubtful hope and certain miseries.25
Britten introduces the piece with a fanfare in the piano, followed immediately by
text painting on the phrase “in high or low or immediate (middle) style” by the
25
10
emphasized dotted quarter note landing on an increasingly lower pitch.26 This is
highlighted in red in Example 2. The fanfare is followed by octaves in unison on the
piano and in the voice, painting the same text in a new way, indicating the unification of
pen, ink and singer, both advanced or beginning, high voiced or low voiced, the
opportunity to express.
Example 2; Benjamin Britten, Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Sonnet XVI, measures

1-7, text painting.27
26
27
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 2.
11
Though the key signature is marked with three sharps, the first eight bars of the
piece are tonally ambiguous. He creates a feeling of instability by removing the third
from the f# minor triad in measures two and three. The piece maintains this unstable
feeling until the final cadence in A major.
When considering the key in context of the poetry, sonnet XVI talks of “sighs,”
“tears,” “prides,” and “kindness.”28 The instability of the key could well reflect the
variety of thoughts the speaker has about a love yet unexplored, just as Michelangelo and
Britten were thinking of Cavlieri and Pears, respectively, at the beginning of their
relationships. Michelangelo’s desire for Tommaso Cavlieri was, as far as can be deduced
from his writings, often unrequited.29 Britten specifically chose these sonnets for the
content of the poetry and, disregarding the order of their creation, was able to craft a
musical journey through the progression of a relationship. The instability of the key
reflects the meaning of the text and implies the emotions of a new relationship. This
informs that the journey is just at its beginning, when feelings, like the key, are still
unsure, and the relationship itself is still unstable, unexplored, and undeveloped.
There is one notable difference between the sonnet’s original text and the sonnet
in the score. The phrase “signor mie car,” which is translated to “my beloved Lord,” is
repeated at the end to add to the rhetoric.30 Britten moves the piece into A major with the
28
29
30
12
added text, seen in example 3. It is with that additional line, the most stable cadence in
the piece is found: a perfect authentic cadence. The strength of this final cadence is text
painting the firmness of feeling the speaker has for the “Lord.”31 Additionally, Britten
repeats the notes found on the word “high” at the beginning of the piece to finish Sonnet
XVI.32
Example 3; Benjamin Britten, Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Sonnet XVI, measures

46-49, voice in the top treble line and piano in the two lines below, added text and final
cadence.33
31
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 5.
32
33
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 5.
13
Sonnet XXXI continues on the theme of unrequited love. In the third sonnet,
XXX, the thematic materials begin to change. Here is the Symond’s translation of the
text:
With your fair eyes a charming light I see,

For which my own blind eyes would peer in
Vain;
Stayed by your feet, the burden I sustain
Which my lame feet find all too strong for me;
Wingless upon your pinions forth I fly;
Heavenward your spirit stirreth me to strain;
E’en as you will, I blush and blanch again,
Freeze in the sun, burn ‘neath a frosty sky.
Your will includes and is the lord of mine;
Life to my thoughts within your heart is given;
My words begin to breathe upon your breath:
Like the moon am I, that cannot shine
Alone; for lo! Our eyes see not in heaven
Save what the living sun illumineth.34
The music for Sonnet XXX is as intimate as the poetry. The key signature is
marked with one sharp and the piano begins on a G major triad in root position in the left
hand. When the tenor enters, the first line is pentatonic using the first, third, augmented
fourth, fifth and seventh scale degrees, implying that the key is in the lydian mode.
However, the piece does not remain in lydian. The g major triad remains in the left hand
as a pedal for thirteen and a half bars. In those bars, there are only two chords: a G major
chord and an F# major chord.
Halfway through the thirteenth bar, Britten uses chromatic movement upward in
the left hand to a G# major chord in root position and then lands on an A major chord,
which becomes a new pedal. Generally, the piano moves chromatically when changing
chords, with the left hand mostly playing triads on stressed beats. In the end, the piece
34
14
cadences in G major, passing through an F# major chord in the right hand before
rejoining the left hand in G major.35
The text implies the speaker’s dependence on their beloved. The fluctuating
chords over the major triads give the feeling of dizziness, with words that indicate the
speaker’s lack of strength. At the same time, the firmness of the major triads in the left
hand draw a parallel to the text that speaks of the direction the beloved gives the speaker
with phrases like “Stayed by your feet” and “Your will includes and is the lord of
mine.”36
Bolin points to the melodic material in the tenor voice that moves like waves with
the text. When the sonnet speaks of what the speaker’s love does for him, the line moves
up. When the speaker speaks of his own infirmity, it moves down.37 In example 4,
Symond’s translates the text to “Stayed by your feet, the burden I sustain.”38 The example
is highlighted in yellow. The melody moves up with the idea being “stayed” and down
with the thought of the personal “burden” of the speaker.39
35
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 10-13.
36
Ibid., 10-13.
37
38
39
Ibid.
15
Example 4; Benjamin Britten Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Sonnet XXX, measures
9-16, voice in the top treble line and piano in the two lines below, showing text painting
in melodic contouring.40
An analysis of movements LV, XXXVIII, and XXXII will be given only briefly.
It is important to note the themes in the sonnets for continuity into the last movement.
Sonnet LV can best be summarized in the first line. “Thou knowest, love, I know that
thou doest know/ That I am here more near to thee to be.”41 It reflects on the desire for
oneness, with the speaker feeling like he is more committed than his beloved. Bolin says,
“If the traveler’s analogy is continued into the fourth sonnet, one can see that the vocal
line is awkward in its coordination with the accompaniment, that something is a little
off.”42
40
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 10.
41
42
16
Symond entitles Sonnet XXXVIII Love’s Vain Expense, in which there is
continued decay in the journey of the relationship.43 The speaker asks to have the things
he sacrificed for his beloved’s sake back.44 The music is quick and the vocal line is
simple compared to the previous movement. Britten emphasizes the items on the list of
things that the speaker wishes to be returned to him by raising the pitch in melody. The
vocal line in this movement has a considerably more condensed tessitura compared to the
previous movements. This gives it a speechlike quality with the intensity of the piano
accompaniment.
Sonnet XXXII is a long question with multiple parts, all starting with the word
‘if’ and ending with “can mere angry spite this knot untwine?”45 The speaker is trying to
hold on to his beloved. Musically, Britten writes another fast tempo with an abundance of
syncopation in the accompaniment. The tenor line is wordy, with another narrow
tessitura, giving it a speechlike quality.
Britten emphasizes syncopated major seconds in the right hand. The dynamics are
marked forte through the piece until the end when the question comes to an end. Britten
re-emphasizes the forte dynamic numerous times, but with descriptive words along the
way, like “meno f,” “piu f” and “f con forza.”46 By doing so, he places greater stress on

43
44
Ibid.
45
Ibid., 35.
46
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 24-25.
17
the question at the end of the sonnet: “can mere angry spite this knot untwine?”47 This is
the only moment in the movement where a quiet dynamic is marked. The piece ends pp,
followed by fermati on the rests at the end in which the question rests unanswered.48
The final sonnet, XXIV, reads as follows in the Symond’s translation:
Choice soul, in whom, as a glass, we see,

Mirrored in thy pure form and delicate,
What beauties heaven and nature can create,
The paragon of all their works to be!
Fair soul, in whom love, pity, piety,
Have found a home, as from thy outward state
We clearly read, and are so rare and great
That they adorn no other like to thee!
Love takes me captive; beauty binds my soul;
Pity and mercy with their gentle eyes
Wake in my heart a hope that cannot cheat.
What law, what destiny, what fell control,
What cruelty, or late or soon, denies
That death should spare perfection so complete?49
This sonnet is in text an emotional abandonment to love. Looking at the text,
Michelangelo uses ambivalent parlance to this abandonment, but a resignation to it
regardless. Musically, this surrender is almost as triumphant as the fanfare in the first
sonnet. Britten fills the music with chromatic rises in the accompaniment. When the tenor
enters, the line is high, unaccompanied, loud and “largamente.”50 The tenor line is a
continuation of the line built by the piano. It is extremely consonant and simple
harmonically. The first line descends back into the piano line in D major, which moves
47
48
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 25.
49
50
Benjamin Britten, Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, text by Michelangelo Buonarroti, (London:
Boosey & Hawkes ltd., 1943), 26.
18
chromatically again in the piano accompaniment. What this does for the text is prove the
words of the sonnet.
The piano sets the tenor to soar and return to the piano for support, just as the
speaker of the sonnet is set free by the love he feels. The vocal line sits atop the
accompaniment fully when the words read “Love takes me captive; beauty binds my
soul.” The vocal line and the piano line are tied together. Example 5 shows the piano line
that leads into the soaring tenor line, then example 6 shows in red how the voice and the
piano are brought together on the words “L’amor mi prende, e la beltá mi lega,”51 or,
“Love takes me captive, beauty binds my soul.”52

1-9, shows ascending piano line into tenor line.53
51
52
53
19
27-31, voice in the top treble line and piano in the two lines below, shows tenor line and
piano lines coming together with the text “L’amor mi prende, e la beltȧ mi lega.”54
54
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 28.
20
This line is likely the climax of the movement and the song cycle in its entirety
because of the representation behind it. This is the highest point of text painting in the
piece. “Britten uses these words to unite himself as a pianist, to Peter Pears as a vocalist,
both literally, emotionally and metaphorically. He was bound by love to the person, the
artist, and most importantly, the soul.”55
The last line of the is a plea for the beloved to remain unchanged and to be spared
from death. This is once again nearly unaccompanied. It leads downward to the return of
similar melodic material that piano maintains through the entirety of the piece. This time
55
21
however, it remains in D lydian and ascends in octaves in a scale in the left hand, and
through ascending inversions of a D major triad in the right hand, seen in example 7. The
song cycle ends on a pianississimo D major chord. This implies both strength and
tenderness.

40-46, voice in the top treble line and piano in the two lines below, showing D lydian and
final cadence.”56
***
By examining the poetry, music and lives of Michelangelo and Britten, it is clear
why Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo has such an intense focus on text and exactly how
56
Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943), 29.
22
Britten facilitates that concentration. The poetry of Michelangelo, though built in a
different time, is brilliantly correspondent to the moment in Britten’s life when he
composed these songs. Each sonnet tells a specific story according to the life of
Michelangelo in relation to Cavalieri. Then, in 1939, Britten’s studies with Auden,
Ireland and Bridge led him to carefully craft each song with an intense regard to the
specific messages in each sonnet.
A correlation can be drawn between the creation of the text and the music of
Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. Though separated by hundreds of years and multiple eras
of musical styles, Britten creates music that is reminiscent of the Renaissance Era, from
which Michelangelo Buonarroti wrote his sonnets. The music is highly focused on
painting text and elevating the messages therein. It goes far enough to draw literal life
parallels between Michelangelo and Tommaso Cavalieri and Britten and Peter Pears. In
this, Britten exceptionally captures the heart of renaissance vocal music in Seven Sonnets
of Michelangelo. Britten indeed understood what it meant to ‘specchiarsi’, having seen a
reflection of his own life in the works of Michelangelo.
23
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beeks, Graydon. "Benjamin Britten." In Great Lives from History: The 20th Century,
edited by Robert F. Gorman. Salem Press, 2008. Accessed 27 Sept. 2020.
http://ezproxy.baylor.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entr
y/salemgltw/benjamin_britten/0?institutionId=720
Bolin, Douglas. “Pictorial and Poetic Influences in Benjamin Britten's Seven Sonnets of
Michelangelo: A Magical Journey Through Associations.” DMA diss., Ohio State
University, Columbus, OH, 1996. OhioLINK Electronic Thesis & Dissertations
Center. Accessed 27 Sept. 2020.
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/pg_10?0::NO:10:P10_ACCESSION_NUM:osu13811496
12#abstract-files.
Britten, Benjamin. “On Receiving the First Aspen Award.” Speech given at the 1st
Robert O. Anderson Aspen Award in the Humanities ceremony, Aspen, CO, July
31, 1964. Accessed 3 Oct. 2020.
http://www.aspenmusicfestival.com/benjamin-britten/
________. Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. Text by Michelangelo Buonarroti. (1940;

repr., Boosey & Co. Ltd., 1943).
Buonarroti, Michelangelo. The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti, Translated by

John Addington Symonds. Translated by John Addington Symonds. Portland,
Maine: Thomas B. Mosher, 1901.
Fischer, Kurt von, Gianluca D’Agostino, James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Massimo Ossi,
Nigel Fortune, Joseph Kerman, and Jerome Roche. Madrigal. Grove Music
Online. 2001. Accessed 8 Oct. 2020.
https://www-oxfordmusiconline-com.ezproxy.baylor.edu/grovemusic/view/10.109
3/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040075.
Mark, Christopher. “Bridge and Britten, Britten and Bridge.” Music and Letters 99, no. 1
(February 1, 2018): 45–73.
24
Kildea, Paul. The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten, edited by Mervyn Cooke.
Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999.
Stroeher, Vicki P., Jude Brimmer, and Nicholas Clark. My Beloved Man: The Letters of
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears. My Beloved Man. NED - New edition.
Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2016.
Walker, Lucy. Benjamin Britten: New Perspectives on His Life and Work. NED - New
edition. Vol. 8. Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2009.
Wallace, William E. Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World,
edited by Jonathan Dewald, s.v. "Michelangelo Buonarroti (Born Michelangelo di
Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, 1475–1564)." 110-113. Vol. 4. New York, NY:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004. Gale eBooks. Accessed 13 Sept. 2020.
https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.baylor.edu/apps/doc/CX3404900734/GVRL?u=txsh
racd2488&sid=GVRL&xid=79f1a070.
25

The Importance of Text Through Music in Benjamin Britten&#39;s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Importance of Text Through Music in Benjamin Britten&#39;s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Through a Renaissance Looking Glass:

The Importance of Text Through Music in Benjamin Britten’s Seven Sonnets of

Research Methods and Bibliography

November 12, 2020

(1913-1976) composed a song cycle called Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. By exploring

second is recognizing Britten’s use of sophisticated compositional techniques to facilitate

the story of the poetry.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564), also known as

Michelangelo Buonarroti or simply, Michelangelo, lived in Italy and achieved fame as a

art because he did not want to be treated as a workshop artist.1

case of Michelangelo and Cavalieri.2 A correlation between Britten and Michelangelo is

recipient; Michelangelo to Tommaso Cavalieri and Benjamin Britten to Peter Pears

the Renaissance in Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, it is necessary to look at significant

unaccompanied voices in a chamber style.

serious as the melancholy love-poems newly in fashion.”4

Britten’s writing and renaissance compositions due to the hyperfocus on text.

paper Pictorial and Poetic Influences in Benjamin Britten's Seven Sonnets of

beat three.6 This is highlighted in red in Example 1.

examples will be given in the broader analysis of the music later.

sort of initiation into love.10

ideologically conservative Royal College of Music, leading to an interest in romantic

and life influences which inspired the song cycle.

Approaching 1940 when Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo was published, Britten

before Bridge’s death.17

Michelangelo includes with the original paintings.

beginning of Les Illuminations sounds as if it has a musical reference to English military

music.23 Kildea explains of Les Illuminations,

Harmonically, much stems from the conflict between Bb and E, which is

Britten’s musical influences leading to the composition of Seven Sonnets of

As pen and ink alike serve him who sings

highlighted in red in Example 2. The fanfare is followed by octaves in unison on the

Example 2; Benjamin Britten, Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Sonnet XVI, measures

feeling until the final cadence in A major.

Example 3; Benjamin Britten, Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Sonnet XVI, measures

With your fair eyes a charming light I see,

chord and an F# major chord.

rejoining the left hand in G major.35

with the thought of the personal “burden” of the speaker.39

tessitura, giving it a speechlike quality.

OH, 1996), 106, OhioLINK Electronic Thesis & Dissertations Center,

The final sonnet, XXIV, reads as follows in the Symond’s translation:

Choice soul, in whom, as a glass, we see,

This sonnet is in text an emotional abandonment to love. Looking at the text,

Michelangelo uses ambivalent parlance to this abandonment, but a resignation to it

words of the sonnet.

“Love takes me captive, beauty binds my soul.”52

Example 5; Benjamin Britten Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Sonnet XXIV, measures

artist, and most importantly, the soul.”55

Example 7; Benjamin Britten Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Sonnet XXIV, measures

different time, is brilliantly correspondent to the moment in Britten’s life when he

Michelangelo in relation to Cavalieri. Then, in 1939, Britten’s studies with Auden,

specific messages in each sonnet.

of Michelangelo. Britten indeed understood what it meant to ‘specchiarsi’, having seen a

reflection of his own life in the works of Michelangelo.

________. Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. Text by Michelangelo Buonarroti. (1940;

Buonarroti, Michelangelo. The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti, Translated by

You might also like

The Importance of Text Through Music in Benjamin Britten's Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo

The Importance of Text Through Music in Benjamin Britten's Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo