3 Review(s)

Benjamin Britten's setting of Edith Sitwell's poem Praise We Great Men is arranged for SATB soli with mezzo soprano part, a mixed voices chorus and orchestra, and this vocal score includes a piano reduction for rehearsal purposes. The piece was left unfinished at Britten' death. It was being written for Mstislav Rostropovich to include in his first season with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C, in 1977. The manuscript breaks off after 118 bars, near the end of the fifth of an intended ten sections. The fragment therefore amounts to at most half the work, but it is fully composed. A further two bars were found sketched in one of Britten's notebooks and were added to this score in 1985, when it was revised by the composer, Colin Matthews, ahead of its first performance.