MEDITATIONS ON A MUSICIAN

A Century begun, I think of times
That once belonged to England's greater past--
Of Britten walking on a pebbled shore
And meditating scenes for "Peter Grimes",
Crabbe's somber narrative; dark images
Of brackish marsh which salty gales had lashed--
All mournful, black and bleak-forlorn, and where
That tortured fisherman had cruelly plied
His desperate trade, a wracked and haunted man,
Who wreaked a misery that left men wrecked.

The dismal drama played out scene by scene
In flat iambic couplet lines, impressed
Young Benjamin, who, though he lived serene,
Desired to make a setting of the tale;
It stirred his creativity, immersed
His agile faculties in bringing forth
A work crammed full of vibrant power, and drew
From him a quality of utterance,
A latent treasure house of highest worth.

He wrought such paragraphs of beauty, forged
Within a furnace-fire, where dwelt the muse
Of genius, that making part of him,
A secret chamber in his heart, all purged
Of everything but harmony, the force
In musical necessity, a home
Of sweet invention, where ideas met
With energy, enabling the dream,
The soul of composition, giving shape,
Inhabiting an outward form to fit
The purpose of the mediated work.

And what a work is "Peter Grimes"! I find
It inexhaustible, fair riches strewn
Throughout the fabric of the whole, and set
As carefully as chosen jewels within
A necklace, ring or brooch; worked by a mind
Adroit and pattern-ordering. How fine
The icy scoring of the Interludes,
Which capture well the fretting of the tides,
Whose ebb and flow he heard on shingled shores.
It seems to thus embody Peter's pain
Of soul, a soul inflicting pain on those
He badly influenced, as though his quest
In life consisted of mere cruel pursuit.
And Britten married fine technique with deep
Ability to so create a mood
Or generate an atmosphere; for both
The operatic and orchestral works
Evince that quality-- from them we reap
A golden harvest, sonorously good,
All ripened to maturity beneath
A summer sun, that made his soul replete.

~ Stanley ~

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