JAVS Fall 1997

21

than from the theme directly; incorporation of parody elements; the overlapping of variations; and the combination of variation technique with other compositional devices, especially fugues and grounds. !I Only the first four of these features are found in Lachrymae. The first, for ex ample, can be seen in Britten's use of the first strain of Dowland's song as a fragmentary theme for variations, while the fourth can be seen in the continuous flow of music from Variation 4 through Variation 6. Variation technique is not combined with other compositional devices in Lachrymae, though Britten must surely have meant to suggest a concluding ground in Varia tion 10. This could well have been self-parody, for Variation 10 is not, in fact, a ground. The first measure of the Introduction sets motives x in the muted viola andy in the piano against one another, both beginning on C. The second measure sustains the resulting har monies. This figure is heard four more times, the last two without motive y. Each appearance is a fifth higher, so that each appearance of motive x with the first pitch of the next appearance forms motive x' (Figure 2). Britten recognized that the rising perfect fifth between the first and last pitch of motive x' presented him with an opportunity for delicious irony, for the initial pitches of the first four appearances of motive x outline the viola's open strings. This would have been possible only in C minor, which may have been the reason the melody and the work are found in that key. C minor is articulated early: in the third measure a crucial change is made to motive x. The second note is raised a half step, making the motive an arpeggiation of the dominant chord with a substituted sixth inC minor rather than of a new tonic chord in E~ major, as it would have sounded if unaltered. The fifth appearance of motive x-perhaps it is again irony that prompted Britten to supply a nonexistent E-string to the viola-ends on C, as the first began, and the way has been prepared for the appearance of the theme.

FIGURE 2. Motives x, x ', andy in the Introduction, mm. 1-8

,--x-

,---------- y -

,---------- y -

tJ

••

1

The first strain of Dowland's melody is heard very softly in the left hand of the piano begin ning in measure 9. It would be easy to miss hearing it altogether: it sounds very nearly like a bass line. 12 Despite their surprising sound, the harmonies played by the viola and the piano are clearly related to C minor-the key in which Dowland's melody is quoted-and based upon surprisingly traditional root movement. 13 Each phrase of four measures begins with a pan diatonic combination of dominant and tonic harmonies; V is supported by secondary har monies before the first cadence (actually a half cadence, as this harmony makes clear) and I (with an extra note, as V 7 /iv) by subdominant harmony before the second (Figure 3). Three of the remaining four chords are related to III, the tonic of the relative major key, E~ major, a key that plays a significant secondary role in Lachrymae; the fourth is a passing chord conveniently formed by linear chromatic movement. In the first phrase these harmonies support descending fourths retracing the open-string fifths formed by the appearances of motive x in the first eight measures. Following the Theme are six bridge measures, during which the viola and piano alternately play motive x, each starting on the final pitch of the other.