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Britten’s musical language
Ex. 1.10: Dowland’s “If my complaints,� thematic epiphany
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hand, the encounter with utterance is emphatically social, for speech here takes place between distinct persons in an explicitly dramatic setting. God’s promise at Ararat – “Noye, heare I behette thee a hesteâ€? – never to bring another ood is one of those deďŹ ning moments in Britten’s musical dramas when utterance, by its inherently fused nature (word and note as “one thing, not twoâ€?), generates an event of forcefully overdetermined signiďŹ cance, encapsulating the whole action in one shattering musico-linguistic gesture. This promise music (Ex. 1.11) is a kind of acoustic miracle