The Golden Vanity was composed in 1966 for performance by the world-famous Vienna Boys' Choir, who commissioned it from Britten and went on to perform it at the Aldeburgh Festival.

A vaudeville on an old English ballad , the work's double chorus of trebles tells the story of a sea battle with Turkish pirates, the humble cabin-boy who saves the day, and a treacherous sea-captain who refuses to keep the promise of his daughter's hand in marriage and lets the hero drown. There is typical Britten-esque use of folk-song idiom with undertones of dissonance and chromaticism suggesting the tragic aspects of the lonely, heroic schoolboy.

The Golden Vanity

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