Poems (and, by extension, songs) that invoke the night and ask it for a restorative sleep are relatively common. Darkness unsettles us and, whether we are awake or asleep, our worries and fears grow larger and weigh us down. Even an insignificant detail from the day, something we barely remember, can turn into a distressing nightmare..
This is what Nocturne is about, a song Benjamin Britten composed from a fragment of the play The Dog Beneath the Skin by W. H. Auden and Stephen Isherwood. Written in May 1937, when the composer was twenty four, it is the first, chronologically, of the five songs in the cycle On this island, op. 11; in the published order, however, it appears as the fourth.
The poem has three or four stanzas, depending on the source. Here I present it in four: three of six lines arranged in couplets, and a final one of five lines, in which only the first two form a couplet. I mention this because the structure of the song is closely tied to that of the poem. As for the content, the first stanza shows us what might be a globe that blurs under the command of the night. From there, the images speak of a world turned upside down in dreams, and the poetic voice, until then merely describing, without addressing anyone, asks the night to bring peace “to our friend.”
I want to talk about the structure of the song because Britten was a master at taking an apparently simple idea and building an equally “simple” song from it. But before reading on, I’d suggest listening to the piece (performed by Lynne Dawson and Malcolm Martineau). It’s really beautiful; calm at the beginning, less so at the end. With something hypnotic about it, mostly because the piano, for almost the entire song, accompanies the voice only with chords (which, at the start, could well evoke the chimes of midnight).
Now, if you’ve listened to Nocturne carefully, let’s look at the musical structure, focusing on the vocal line. For each couplet, Britten draws an ascending line for the first vers and a descending one for the second. But the second has more notes than the first, so the voice rises, so to speak, directly, while it lingers more on the way down. This pattern holds throughout the first two stanzas—six couplets that contribute to create the hypnotic feeling I mentioned.
The third stanza begins the same way, with an ascending line, but so do the second, third, and fourth lines: the rhythm is broken to show us that the world is upside down. And then comes the prayer: that our friend may have a healing sleep. Both phrases, one for each line, descend.
The fourth stanza begins very differently: the first three lines are sung on the same note, as if they were the nightmares that might threaten the friend. Then we reach the final two lines: The penultimate one begins a new ascending line, but it doesn’t stop at the end of the verse; it continues into the first part of the last line. It’s a longer ascent, ending on higher notes than the rest, highlighting a wish: “let him lie.” At that moment, the piano takes up the melody in the accompaniment, before the voice sings the final words, wishing that the friend may wake gently.
Listen to the song again, paying attention to the succession of rises and falls and to how they interweave again. Notice its beauty. And be careful, because it might happen to you as it did to me: I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve listened to Nocturne these days.
Now through night's caressing grip
Earth and all her ocans slip,
Capes of China slide away
From her fingers into day
And th'Americas incline
Coasts towards her shadow line.
Now the ragged vagrants creep
Into crooked holes to sleep:
Just and unjust, worst and best,
Change their places as they rest:
Awkward lovers like in fields
Where disdainful beauty yields:
While the splendid and the proud
Naked stand before the crowd
And the losing gambler gains
And the beggar entertains:
May sleep's healing power extend
Through these hours to our friend.
Unpursued by hostile force,
Traction engine, bull or horse
Or revolting succubus;
Calmly till the morning break
Let him lie, then gently wake.
Related articles
The grey hour
Among the times of the day most valued by photographers are the blue hour, which is, in the evening, the time between sunset and the dark night or, in the morning, the time between the first light and sunrise. That is, blue hour is an art concept that corresponds to twilight. These two periods are so interesting for photography because the light source, the sun, is below the horizon, but we see its reflection in the atmosphere, a diffuse light with a predominant deep blue colour that tinges everything. If the photographer is in nature, he can take advantage of orange colours on the horizon, because [...]
The day has made me weary
On 3 November 2021, I started a series of songs, “The Buch der Lieder and ten composers”. The series had a prologue, the article Buch der Lieder (I), in which I told you about this collection of poems by Heinrich Heine, one of the most important in German literature and fundamental in the history of Lied. Schubert and Schumann are the composers most closely [...]
I wept in my dream
Dream interpretation is an ancient practice; dreams often puzzle us, and all cultures have sought to give them a meaning. They have often been interpreted as messages from the gods: now that Christmas is coming, let's remember that God told Joseph in a dream that the family had to leave to avoid the madness of Herod. However, the messages are rarely so clear and so [...]
