Les Illuminations
Prelude: ‘Go play, boy, play’

1. Gilbert Spencer (1893–1979)
Football on Cookham Moor (1934?)

Description

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This picture was formerly owned by Jack and Mary Behrend, great philanthropists of art who gave much support to the artists Henry Lamb and Gilbert Spencer, the Aldeburgh Festival and the English Opera Group, in addition to commissioning Britten’s second string quartet. Cookham was the Berkshire village in which Spencer and his eleven siblings—the artist Sir Stanley Spencer was an older brother—were brought up. Images from childhood were frequent themes in his work, often placed in remembered landscapes. In 1933 Britten began work on what he hoped would become a five-movement suite for string quartet, subtitled ‘Go play, boy, play’: a useful tag from The Winter’s Tale on which to hang pieces referring to childhood pursuits. Although the piece was never completed a few bars eventually resurfaced in ‘Parade’ from Les Illuminations. Spencer’s tranquil, Housman-like scene is therefore a temperate prelude to the adult themes which soon impinged on the young composer and the young poet. Oil on canvas: 55 x 128.5 cm. Framed: 77 x 150.5 cm. [GB-ALb 5–9700506]