Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Lachrymae. Reflections on a Song of John Dowland Op. 48 for viola and piano

Britten composed his Lachrymae for the great violist Williama Primrose. The two artists premiered the piece at the Aldeburgh Festival in June 1950.
Similarly many other English composers of his time, Benjamin Britten was an enthusiast of tradition. He published and performed old, mainly English music. After the success of his opera Peter Grimes he settled in Aldeburgh in Suffolk where, in 1947, he and his artist friends E. Crozier and P. Pears, the yearly festival of English music. he also founded the English Opera Group, which performed Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in 1951.
This fascination with old English music and with the folksongs of England, Scotland, Ireland and France is also visible in his own oeuvre. Britten not only borrowed themes from the old masters, especially Purcell; he also related to old composing techniques, thus constantly refreshing his own.
Lachrymae is a cycle of free variations on a theme from a love lament by John Dowland (1563-1626), If My Complaint Could Passions Move from that famous composer’s and lutist’s collection Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares published in London in 1604. Britten’s subtitle Reflections is quite apt since he certainly does not maintain the structure of his model; instead, in the individual episodes, he uses various fragments of Dowland’s melodies, the full shape of which is only presented towards the end. The melody of another song, Flow My Tears, also makes a single appearance.

Wiesława Berny-Negrey