Poet: Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
Source: Les Illuminations
Date of Composition: 1939 (Mar. 16)*
Publication: Boosey & Hawkes, 1944
Voice Difficulty Level: Moderately Difficult
Subject: A picture of a dying beauty.
Range: Ab3 – G#5 (C4 – G#5)
Tessitura: F#4 – E5
Tempo: Lento ma comodo; 4/4
Duration: 03:27
Vocal Characteristics: Duple eighth notes against triplet feel in the piano; triplet figures with odd intervallic patterns; staccato, ascending sixteenth note scale; long passage with sustained E5;
Piano Difficulty Level: Difficult
Accompaniment Characteristics: Piano transcription by the composter; Repetitive triplet eighth note chords; ascending and descending sixteenth note scalar passages;
Additional Comments: *The dedicatee is Peter Neville Luard Pears.
*From the Britten Thematic Catalog http://www.brittenproject.org/works/BTC867