2pm & 5pm
"Singworks"
Worcester Baptist Church
Sponsored by The Rowlands Trust
Benjamin Britten - Noyes Fludde
The children of the Singworks course
Sue Hollingworth - Music Director
Peter Leslie Wilde - Director
Benjamin Britten's ‘opera', Noyes Fludde, is based on a late 16th century mystery play from the Chester Mystery Cycle in an edition by Alfred W. Pollard. In 1957, after hearing a concert performed by several hundred East Suffolk children in Aldeburgh Church, Britten decided to write a work for school children to sing, play and act in a "big building ... preferably a church - but not a theatre." Completed in December 1957 and first performed during the 1958 Aldeburgh Festival, it is his most extended and elaborate work for children. In common with Saint Nicolas and The Little Sweep, the work is written in such as way as to combine professional and amateur performers, the music often tailored to take account of the abilities of less accomplished players but without any sense of compromise or ‘writing down'. The congregation (audience) also participates by joining the cast in three hymn-settings. Britten's unerring skill in seamlessly integrating these various elements with musical invention of a consistently high quality is undoubtedly one of his finest achievements, while the church setting and general method of presentation clearly point the way forward to the ‘Church Parables' of the 1960s.
