Sacred and Profane, Op. 91, is a collection of 'Eight Medieval Lyrics' for unaccompanied voices in five parts (SSATB) composed by Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...

 in 1974-5. The texts are in Medieval English.

The work was first performed by the Wilbye Consort of Voices, for whom the work was composed, on 14 September 1975 at The Maltings, Snape

Snape

-Places:*Snape, Suffolk, a small village, the site of:**Snape Maltings, the home of part of the annual Aldeburgh Music Festival*Fair Snape Fell, one of the larger hills in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire*Snape, North Yorkshire, England...

 in Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, England (Elaine Barry & Rosemary Hardy, sopranos, Margaret Cable, contralto, Nigel Rogers, tenor, Geoffrey Shaw, bass), directed by Peter Pears

Peter Pears

Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears CBE was an English tenor who was knighted in 1978. His career was closely associated with the composer Edward Benjamin Britten....

.

Movements

1. St Godric's Hymn
2. I mon waxe wod
3. Lenten is come
4. The long night
5. Yif ic of luve can
6. Carol
7. Ye that pasen by
8. A Death