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Britten composed this work on the boat ride back to Britain from America. W. H. Auden was the author of the three poems that make the text, and they are dedicated to Britten himself (Britten's birthday of November 22 is St. Cecilia's day in the Christian calendar). The poetry addresses the subject of lost innocence, a subject that resonated with Britten. The work is in three movements and sets the three texts very sensitively, if not always literally; the text is sometimes evocative of musical instruments, but the piece is written for unaccompanied chorus.
This work represents the last artistic collaboration between Auden and Britten; a sad fact, especially considering that Britten went on to compose 14 operas, and Auden later proved to be an expert librettist (he provided the text for Stravinsky's Rake's Progress). Britten and Auden did remain friends, but the fact that Auden stayed in America and Britten moved to England separated them in more ways than just geography. Nonetheless, Britten never forgot the importance of this early influence, and much of his later work reflected it.
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