Friday Afternoons
Friday Afternoons is a set of twelve short songs by Benjamin Britten, written between 1933 and 1935 for the pupils at Clive House School in Prestatyn, Wales, where Britten’s brother Robert was headmaster. Two songs from the collection, Cuckoo and Old Abram Brown, later appear in the film Moonrise Kingdom, and A New Year Carol is used in Challengers.
Britten began the pieces after leaving the Royal College of Music, using texts from Walter de la Mare’s Come Hither. He kept a diary entry in November 1933 about writing a light song for R.H.M.B. & Clive House, with Ee-Oh! following in December. After May 1934 he returned to Clive House to work with the pupils, finishing the collection in August 1935 with Begone, Dull Care. The title was originally Twelve Songs for Schools, but Robert Britten suggested Friday Afternoons because class singing happened on Fridays.
The work is dedicated to Robert and the boys of Clive House. Critics note Britten’s memorable melodies and his skill with canon, a technique he used again in later works. The first recording, by the Choir of Downside School for Decca, covered almost all the songs (omitting Ee-oh), and reviewers praised the collection’s enchanting quality, especially A New Year Carol.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:14 (CET).