Tit For Tat 布瑞頓

20世紀60年代末，布裡頓開始重溫他在早熟多產的童年時期創作的一些作品。這五首沃爾特-德拉馬雷的作品最初創作於 1928 年至 1931 年間，最初並不是一個完整的作品集：直到 1968 年春天布裡頓準備出版這些作品時（稍加潤色），他才將這些作品結集成冊，取名為《Tit for Tat》，並獻給詩人之子、當時布裡頓的出版商 Faber Music 的董事長理查-德拉馬雷。雖然布裡頓在出版的樂譜序言中寫道："我對這些歌曲的重要性或原創性不作任何評價"，但這部 9 分鐘的歌曲集在音樂語言的保證和對詞句設置的敏感度方面都非常出眾，儘管作曲家的藝術個性完全展現出來還尚需時日。此外，這些歌曲還預示了布裡頓日後許多作品中都會出現的各種主題和關注點，尤其是最後一首歌《Tit for Tat》，這首歌曲譴責了無情的偷獵者湯姆-諾迪（Tom Noddy）捕捉無助動物的行為，觸及了布裡頓六年後創作的管弦樂組曲《我們狩獵的父輩》中更大規模的主題"

作曲家: Britten, Benjamin
樂器: Medium Voice, Piano
出版社: Faber Music
原文簡介:
During the late 1960s, Britten began to revisit some of the works he had written during his remarkably precocious and prolific childhood. Originally composed between 1928 and 1931, these five settings of Walter de la Mare were not originally written as an integrated cycle: it was only when Britten prepared them for publication in the spring of 1968 (adding some minor retouchings) that he assembled them into a collection he entitled Tit for Tat and dedicated to Richard de la Mare, son of the poet and, at the time, chairman of Britten's publishers Faber Music. Although in his preface to the published score, Britten wrote 'I hold no claims whatever for the songs' importance or originality', this 9-minute song collection is remarkable for the assurance of musical language and sensitivity to word-setting, even if the composer's full artistic personality is still some way round the corner. Furthermore, the songs foreshadow various themes and preoccupations which would manifest themselves in many a later Britten work, not least in the final song,'Tit for Tat', which in its condemnation of the uncaring poacher Tom Noddy's ensnaring of helpless animals touches on a subject which Britten would return to on a larger scale in his orchestral song-cycle Our Hunting Fathers composed some six years later.