Classical Music Dictionary

Lieder – complete index:

Lieder – Index B (Songs-Cycle: with Opus Number):

1. "A hymn on divine music"
2. "Cradle song"
3. "I have sinned"
4. "If thou wilt ease thine heart", Dirge for Wolfram
5. "Wild with passion", Song on the water

1. "A hymn on divine music "

Text by Anonymous
Music by Benjamin Britten

See also:

William Croft (1678-1727)

What art thou? From what causes dost thou spring?
Oh! Musick thou Divine Misterious thing?
Let me, let me but know, and knowing give me Voice to sing?
Art thou the warmth in Spring, that Zephire breathes?
Painting the Meads, and whistling through the leaves.
The happy, happy Season that all grief exiles,
When God is Pleas'd and the Creation Smiles?
Or art thou Love, that mind to mind imparts,
the endless concord of agreeing hearts?
Or art thou Friendship, yet a nobler Flame,
that can a dearer way make Souls the same? Or art thou rather which do all transcend, the Centre which at last the Blest ascend, the seat where Hallelujahs never end;
Corporeal Eyes won't let us clearly see, but either thou art Heav'n, or Heav'n is thee.

2. "Cradle song"

Text by Louis MacNeice (1907-1963)
Music by Benjamin Britten

Sleep, sleep
Sleep, my darling sleep;
Sleep, my darling, sleep;
The pity of it all is all we compass if
We watch disaster fall.
Put off your twenty odd
Encumbered years and creep
Into the only heaven,
The robbers cave of sleep.
Sleep, sleep, sleep.
The wild grass will whisper,
Lights of passing cars
Will streak across your dreams
And fumble at the stars;
Life will tap the window
Only to soon again
Life will have her answer
Do not ask her when.
When the winsome bubble
Shivers, when the bough Braks,
will be the moment But not here of now.
Sleep and [a]sleep, forget,
The watchers on the wall Awake all night
who know The pity of it all.
Sleep, sleep, sleep,
sleep, my darling, sleep.

3. "I have sinned"

Text by Jeremiah Taylor (1613-1667)
Music by Benjamin Britten

See also:

Pelham Humfreys (1647-1674)

Lord! I have sinned, and the black Number swells to such a dismal Sum,
that should my stony Heart, and Eyes,
and this whole sinful Trunk a Flood become,
and run to Tears, their Drops could not suffice to count my score,
much less to pay; but thou, my God, hast Blood in store,
and art the Patron of the Poor.
Yet since the Balsom of thy Blood, although it can, will do no good,
unless the Wounds be cleans'd with Tears, before thou,
in whose sweet, but pensive Face, Laughter could never steal a Place.
Teach but my Heart and Eyes to melt away,
and then one drop, one drop of Balsom will suffice.

4. "If thou wilt ease thine heart", Dirge for Wolfram

Text by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849)
Music by Benjamin Britten

See also:

Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918)

If thou wilt ease thine heart
Of love and all its smart,
Then sleep, dear, sleep;
And not a sorrow
Hang any tear on your eyelashes;
Lie still and deep,
With folded eye;
Sad soul, until the seawave washes
The rim o' th' sun tomorrow,
In eastern sky.
But wilt thou cure thine heart
Of love and all its smart,
Then die, dear, die;
'Tis deeper, sweeter,
Than on a rose bank to lie dreaming
And then alone, amid the beaming
Of love's stars, thou'lt meet her
In eastern sky.

5. "Wild with passion", Song on the water

Text by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849)
Set by Benjamin Britten

Wild with passion, sorrow beladen,
Bend the thought of thy stormy soul
On its home, on its heaven, the lov'd maiden,
And peace shall come at her eyes' control.
Even so, night's starry rest possesses
With its gentle spirit these tamed waters,
And bids the wave with weedy tresses
Embower the ocean's pavement stilly
Where the seagirls lie, the mermaid-daughters,
Whose eyes, not born to weep,
More palely-lidded sleep
Than in our fields the lily;
And sighing in their rest
More sweet than is their breath;
And quiet as its death
Upon a lady's breast.

Lieder’s Composers