At the age of 14 Britten composed these remarkable—and even that word is inadequate—settings of two poems each by Victor Hugo and Paul Verlaine. One has to look to Mendelssohn or Mozart to find a composer who approached Britten's level of technical maturity and accomplishment at such a young age. Particularly impressive is the third song, on a Hugo text depicting a dying mother and her five year old child, still naively singing and playing his little games, unaware of tragedy. In it Britten not only exposes an early interest in one of his most prevalent artistic themes (innocence versus corrupting experience) but juxtaposes the artless kid tune against music depicting the death-bed in a way that suggests Mahler. Outstanding music by any standards.

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