Britten Thematic Catalogue

Notes

Britten's variation was the fourth of six composed by leading British composers to form a collaborative work to be played at the 'Coronation Choral Concert' at the 1953 Aldeburgh Festival. Britten emphasizes the work's function as a royal tribute by quoting the 'Green leaves' motive from his coronation opera Gloriana. The theme is a (probably Irish) dance tune which had wide popularity from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries as Sellenger's round or The beginning of the world.

At neither of the first two performances was the authorship of specific variations divulged, and members of the Aldeburgh audience were invited to enter (on payment of a contribution towards Festival funds) a competition to correctly attribute the variations. The sequence was:

Theme (Byrd, arr. Imogen Holst)

Variation 1 Allegro non troppo (Arthur Oldham)

Variation 2 A lament Andante espressivo (Michael Tippett) (later became the second movement of his Divertimento for chamber orchestra (Sellinger's round)

Variation 3 Andante (Lennox Berkeley)

Variation 4: Quick and gay (Benjamin Britten)

Variation 5: Nocturne Adagio (Humphrey Searle)

Variation 6: Finale Presto giocoso (William Walton)