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Phillip Reed writes: The Holy Sonnets of John Donne was completed on 19 August 1945, a few weeks after Britten's return from Germany where he and Yehudi Menuhin had toured at the end of July. On 27 July they visited Belsen to give a pair of concerts to the liberated survivors; it was a harrowing experience and one which undoubtedly coloured the sequence of nine settings of Donne's profound religious meditations, all of which are concerned with the related themes of death and repentance....'Thou hast made me' is a restless, agitated setting..."
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Ian Bostridge, tenor
Graham Johnson, piano.
Thou has made me from The Holy Sonnets of John Donne
Set by Benjamin Britten to text by John Donne (1572-1631)
Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
Repaire me now, for now mine end doth haste,
I runne to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
I dare not move my dim eyes anyway,
Despaire behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sinne in it, which it t'wards Hell doth weigh;
Onely thou art above, and when t'wards thee
By thy leave I can looke, I rise againe;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one houre myselfe can I sustaine;
Thy Grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like Adamant draw mine iron heart.
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