Lachrymae, Op.48, for Viola and Piano by Benjamin Britten
Publshed by Boosey and Hawkes
Benjamin Britten (1913-76) was among the most significant English composers of the middle 20th century. An admirer of the music of Mahler, Shostakovich, and his teacher Frank Bridge, he also found great inspiration in English baroque and Renaissance music and helped broaden the predominant English style beyond the prevailing pastoralism of his day. Though most known for his operatic, vocal, and choral music, he wrote much for strings.
Britten's ''Lachrymae'' (1950) is his only mature, substantial work for viola and piano, written for William Primrose. Subtitled ''Reflections on a song of Dowland'', it is a ghostly, ephemeral set of variations on Dowland's ''If my complaints could passions move''. It endures as one of Britten's most serious works of chamber music. For advanced players.
