B. Britten: On This Island - "Seascape"

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

On This Island, Op. 11 (1937) - 3. Seascape

Emily Hamilton, soprano

Nathan Eck, piano

Recorded on June 28, 2022 in Duino, Italy during the International Music Festival of the Adriatic (IMFA)

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Look, stranger, at this island now

The leaping light for your delight discovers,

Stand stable here

And silent be,

That through the channels of the ear

May wander like a river

The swaying sound of the sea.

Here at the small field’s ending pause

Where the chalk wall falls to the foam, and its tall ledges

Oppose the pluck

And knock of the tide,

And the shingle scrambles after the sucking surf, and the gull lodges

A moment on its sheer side.

Far off like floating seeds the ships

Diverge on urgent voluntary errands;

And the full view

Indeed may enter

And move in memory as now these clouds do,

That pass the harbour mirror

And all the summer through the water saunter.

- W. H. Auden (1907-1973)