Winter Words, Op. 52, is a song cycle for tenor and piano by Benjamin Britten. Written in 1953, it sets eight poems by Thomas Hardy.[1] The cycle is named after Hardy's last published collection, but the poems are from different parts of his collected poems.[2]
The cycle was premiered at the Leeds Festival in October 1953, with Peter Pears singing and Britten at the piano. It was dedicated to John and Myfanwy Piper -- Myfanwy Piper was the librettist of Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw, which was begun in 1953 and premiered the following year.[3]
A performance takes about 22 minutes.[3] The poems are:[4]