Britton Vocal Set "Winter Words" Harmony Study

Edward Benjamin Britten(22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an prominent English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, concerto,orchestral, chorus, chamber as well as film music. With these influential works in Britain, Britten push this country's music to a high level after Henry Purcell.To interpret the important role played by harmony in the performance of art songs, this paper set the song cycle Winter Words as the main line, by analysing the harmony of the eight pieces of art songs, research the characteristics of harmony in the songs' accompaniments and clarify entirely, from the varieties of tonality, the transformation of complicated tonality, the construction of multiple chord and harmony conduct technique.There are three parts in the thesis: the introduction,the text an the epilogue. The introduction explain the aim of the project, significance and current situation.The text has five chapters. Chapter one is about Britten's life and career,the development of English art songs, the creation of Britten's vocal works, the introduction to the lyric writer Thomas Hardy and the creative background of Winter Words. Charpter two analyses the type of modes, tonality transformation and layout. Chapter three discusses the chord construction and the longitudinal harmony arrangement's feature.Chapter four concludes the work from the point of harmony element, mainly the transverse and longitudinal. In Chapter five, to make the work's characterist more clear the writer summarize the eight songs onbthe whole, putting the segments into organic whole. The epilogue sums up the musical feature and value, partly with musical aesthetic ideology.