ABSTRACT
Lord Berners’ songs were mainly completed during the early part of his composing career, with the majority being finished between 1920 and 1921. Evidence of the piano accompaniments being written in a five-finger position abounds in the songs, as it does in the solo piano music. Berners’ songs are distinguished from those of his predecessors Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel by his use of much wider intervals in the melodic lines. Debussy’s and Ravel’s melodic lines are frequently suggestive of recitative, whereas Berners’ appear as rather more animated speech shapes, whatever language he is setting. In addition to the stylistic similarities already noted between the piano music and songs there is also evidence of some direct connections, with the best examples coming from Berners’ depictions of laughter. The way in which the intervals in the vocal line become larger as the phrase progresses in this example is another often-used feature of Berners’ vocal writing.
