bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Dennis Brain 1921-1957 (1958)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Since the war, the horn playing of Dennis Brain has been one of the most familiar, certainly one of the happiest, features of British musical life. No season went by without his superlative performances as soloist in horn concertos. He was frequently to be seen at the first desk of one or other of the London orchestras, and no one will ever forget his inimitable tone and phrasing in the solo passages, from the small fragments in the works of the earlier masters (often devastatingly high-but so securely played), to the full dress melodies of more recent times (including Siegfried’s horn call). Then there were his many appearances in chamber music either with a piano (Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro, op. 70) or a string group (Mozart’s Quintet, K. 407). His own excellent ensemble,1 too, has delighted us with musician and beautifully rehearsed performances of music from Mozart to the present day, some of which was inspired by and written for Dennis. The tragic car accident of 1st September leaves a musical gap which can never be filled.2 It has robbed us of an artist with the unique combination of a superb technical command of his instrument, great musicianship, a lively and intelligent interest in music of all sorts, and a fine performing temperament, coupled with a charming personality. It has also robbed us of a man of rare generosity, simplicity and charm.
Television and The Turn of the Screw (1959)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
This is the first time in this country that an opera of mine has been specially produced on television, and I am extremely grateful to Associated-Rediffusion for its enterprise and courage in mounting THE TURN OF THE SCREW1 I am particularly happy that it should have been this opera that was chosen because it is one of my works most close to me, and also the one I feel most suitable for television. Television can do an enormous amount to popularise opera in this country, especially if it avoids the spectacular Grand Opera so beloved by the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries and concentrates on the intimate and concise, which seems to me to belong particularly to the present day. I cannot praise too highly the skill, taste and knowledge shown in adapting this difficult opera for television, especially when coupled with a respect for the score which did not allow one note to be cut.
Back to Britain with Britten (1959)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
REID: Please throw your mind back to 1930. You settled in London as a raw sixteen-year-old. Just where? BRITTEN: I took a bed-sitter up under the roof in a boarding house at Prince’s Square, Bayswater. I hired a small upright piano and took care not to play it after ten at night. I hadn’t much money. As the youngest of four children I lived on a smallish allowance from my father. I was a ‘scholar,’ of course, but that didn’t amount to much; it merely meant that my tuition fees were paid. REID: I understand you weren’t happy at the Royal College of Music. That true? BRITTEN: Let’s put it this way: I was rather a failure as a student. The trouble was, I had been studying with Bridge since I was a young boy. Bridge’s approach was that of the highly professional international musician. The attitude of most of the R.C.M. students was amateurish and folksy. That made me feel highly intolerant. REID: How did you get on with your two teachers-John Ireland and Arthur Benjamin? BRITTEN: Well enough. But they didn’t wield anything like as much influence on their students as the great Vaughan Williams. For my own part I was frankly suspicious of V.W My struggle all the time was to develop a consciously controlled professional technique. It was a struggle away from everything Vaughan Williams seemed to stand for. REID: But, like everybody else I suppose, you were swept off your feet by his Symphony No. 4?BRITTEN: The Fourth Symphony impressed me greatly. But an odd story went round the College after a rehearsal of it. Vaughan Williams was reported to have said of his own work, ‘If that’s modern music, all I can say is I don’t like it.’ This story, I must say, shocked me profoundly. In those days I was very violent in my opinions, very ready to have grievances.
People Today: Benjamin Britten (1960)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
HAREWOOD: I think I’ve probably caught you at about as busy a time of year as you can get, haven’t I?BRITTEN: Well, it certainly is with the preparation of the Festival and with the opera rehearsals in full swing and of course many other things to cope with as well, but it’s a time of year one-let’s face it-enjoys very much indeed.1HAREWOOD: And you’ve been preparing for it, what-for really most of the year, one way and another, thinking about it and then gradually working out-?BRITTEN: One really prepares each Festival almost before the previous one is finished, I find. In fact one of the most pleasant things to do, I think, while you’re preparing one Festival, is to think what you’d like to do for the next year. HAREWOOD: It’s really one of the marks of Aldeburgh, in fact, this feeling that it’s been prepared a long time in advance, that the whole programme’s been worked out, things that you’ve been wanting to do, pining to do for a number of months and then working at finding the performers ...BRITTEN: Yes, it is-it’s a very pleasant way of making music, especially as we have found that there are enough people who like the kind of things that we like to come and make the Festival worthwhile without a great deal of advertising and of trying to make the Festival known.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
BBC: Mr Britten, this work is called an opera based on the work of Shakespeare. Have you in fact set Shakespeare’s lines to music?BRITTEN: Yes, Shakespeare’s text is the basis of the whole work. I think we’ve included half a line which is not written by Shakespeare, but otherwise it is only his words which we’ve used.1BBC: What were your feelings about the shaping of Shakespeare’s thoughts to a medium he didn’t intend them for? BRITTEN: Well, that does n’t worry me so much, because Shakespeare can look after himself and however well or badly or much I cut the work, the text thank goodness-remains. But my main feeling in setting this work was enormous love and reverence and respect for the text. I feel that everyone ought to set Shakespeare to music in order just to get to know the incredible beauty and intensity of these words. BBC: What made you want to write an opera, then, based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream particularly? BRITTEN: Well, I wanted to set a play of Shakespeare’s for several reasons. One was that it had to be done in rather a hurry, and there wasn’t time to get a libretto specially written, and so one had to take work-words which already existed. The Midsummer Night’s Dream-oh; for several reasons-seemed to be most suitable; partly because it has such amazingly beautiful poetry already intended for singing. A lot of the fairies’ words were intended to be songs. It is a very good operatic story-it has very clear situations and it has, what fascinated me particularly, these three different levels of creatures in it. It has the royal humans, Theseus, Hyppolyta, and the lovers; it has the rustics, these lovable peasants rustics-who behave so beautifully and charmingly throughout; and then of course these curious fairy creatures, Tytania and Oberon and the-Puck and the others.
On Writing English Opera (1960)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Since Peter Grimes, more than fifteen years ago, I have written ten works for the operatic stage-that is, including two intended primarily for children, an arrangement of The Beggars’ [sic] Opera and a realization of Dido and Aeneas. I am often asked why, living in England where there are only two permanent opera houses, I have spent so much of my creative time in writing operas. Here, at random, are some of the answers I give. I have become more and more interested in human beings, in their foibles and characteristics, and in the drama which can result from their interplay. I have also strong points of view to which I find opera can give expression. I have always been interested in the setting of words (some of my earliest efforts in composition were songs) and Purcell has shown me how wonderfully dramatic the sung English language can be. My interest in the human voice has grown, especially in the relation of sound to sense and colour; for me, this interest applies to the English voice in particular, singing our subtle and beautifully inflected language. Also, I believe passionately in the intelligibility of the words-opera being a fusion of music, acting, painting and poetry, of which the last-named demands to be understood. Because I do not speak Italian, it was not until I heard Mozart and Verdi operas sung in English that I realized to the full their fabulous subtlety, wit and dramatic aptitude. I always encourage my works to be sung, abroad, in the vernacular, even pieces like the Spring Symphony and the Nocturne, which contain some of the greatest English poetry. Of course, something is lost, but not a great deal when you substitute the gibberish which can result from singers using languages they do not understand and cannot pronounce.
Freedom of Borough of Aldeburgh (1962)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
It may seem an odd way of saying ‘thank you’ for the great honour paid to me this evening, if I start by saying that I’m afraid I rather distrust honours. In the arts, at least-it is so often the wrong person who gets them, or for the wrong reason. It is the dull, the respectable, the one who kow-tows, who sucks!W., the members of that favourite name today-the Establishment. You know what I mean (conveniently forgetting for the moment honoured names like Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Lord Tennyson, Chevalier Gluck)-think of Schubert, unwanted; Mozart, a pauper’s grave; Van Gogh mad like Blake; Wilfred Owen killed at the age of 25-how far honours were from these great names and hundreds like them. The trouble really is that the people who hand out honours usually know so little about the artists. They take a famous name, and that’s that. Why is it then that I am unexpectedly proud and touched this evening? After all, I shall not be able to write H..E.A.:B..A. (Honorary Freeman of the Ancient Borough of Aldeburgh) after my name; and I am very clearly made to understand that I cannot (as the result of being a free man) park my car on the wrong side of the High Street without lights, and I gather I must continue to pay 24 shillings in the pound! No, I am proud because this honour comes from people who know me-many of whom have known me for quite a long time too, because, although I didn’t have the luck to be born here in Aldeburgh, I have in fact lived all my life within 30 miles of it.1 As I understand it, this honour is not given because of a reputation, because of a chance acquaintance, it is-dare I say it?-because you really do know me, and accept me as one of yourselves, as a useful part of the Borough-and this is, I think, the highest possible compliment for an artist. I believe, you see, that an artist should be part of his community, should work for it, with it, and be used it. Over the last roo years this has become rarer and rarer, and the artist and community have both suffered as a result.
Erwin Stein: Form and Peiformance (1962)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Erwin Stein’s name was known to a comparatively small circle of people.1 He himself was the last person to complain about this since his was a retiring nature and he believed (and how rightly!) that some of the most important work is done without the glare of publicity. There were occasions, however, such as that of a particularly execrable performance of one of his favourite works, when he would regret that he had not the chance to conduct more often; forgetting his natural modesty, he would say he ‘could have shown them how!’ And after reading this book one can easily believe that he was right, for it shows a rare gift for detailed analysis, and at the same time a warmth and understanding of the music which, in my experience, is unique. He was not inexperienced as a conductor. Between 1910 and 1919 he conducted at many German opera houses and was responsible for the preparation of many different kinds of works, from the lightest to the most serious. Later he prepared and conducted the famous series of performances of Pierrot Lunaire with Erika Wagner, first in Vienna and then touring across Europe to London. In the ‘twenties he trained a chorus in Vienna and conducted Beethoven’s ninth symphony. After he came to England, he only gave one public performance, that of Pierrot lunaire, at the JEolian Hall in 1943. Instead of conducting he listened, and so came to write this book. He listened to all kinds of musical performances with that devastating yet good-humoured criticism which was so characteristic:’It was bad, of course’, he might say, ‘but not so bad.’He could talk in fascinating detail of his early, and certainly his most important, listening experiences-those performances of operas and concerts conducted by Mahler in Vienna. He went to them with his friends Schoenberg, Zemlinsky, Webern, and Berg, and they would sit together for most of the night discussing what they had heard. It is from Mahler that Erwin learned most of the art of performance--the moulding of a work’s form, a taut yet flexible rhythm, the balance of tone, sensitive phrasing, and intensity.
An Interview (1963)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
BRITTEN: I wouldn’t have thought my sound sensuous, although I love the clear and the resonant. This, I suppose I’ve learned from Mozart, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Stravinsky and others.OSBORNE: You must be tired of hearing about the Mahler influence in your music. One knows of your admiration for Mahler; indeed, I remember an ear-opening performance of his Fourth Symphony you once conducted. But in what music of yours do you your self hear any traces of Mahler? The Bridge Variations, I suppose. What else?BRITTEN: It’s very difficult to discover influences in one’s own work. Emotionally, Mahler can be rather remote from me, but I love and admire his ‘ear’ for sound. That can be spotted in my writing for orchestra. I think I appreciate his sense of form: perhaps this is apparent from the Requiem and the Spring Symphony. And I certainly love his vocal melody, as no doubt you can tell from many of my songs and folk-song arrangements.OSBORNE: You are in no way a consciously national composer, and this to me is a good thing.What in your music is English seems both incidental to and deeply and unconsciously integral to your own personality. I think of you as continuing a tradition that comes through Mozart, by-passing Beethoven but including Schubert, re-emerging in Mahler.
Tribute to Zoltan Kodaly (1965)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
There can be no composer of our century who has done more for the musical life of his country than Zoltan Kodaly. He and Bart6k, together and separately, may be said to have re-created Hungary’s whole musical language.When he started to compose, the dominant influences in central Europe were Wagnerian and Viennese; Hungarian music was equated with mere gypsy music. But turning his back on Austria and looking to Paris, where he first met Debussy in 1907, he could free himself for Folk Song and National Expression. His first major international impact occurred with Psalmus Hungaricus, written in 1923, and first performed in England-who that was there will ever forget it?-in 1927. His later symphonic and orchestral works are firmly in the repertoire of every orchestra. In our concerts this Festival we are to hear his rather less well known chamber works, all written before the Psalmus, but wholly characteristic of the man. With these, we shall have audible witness to that other triumph of Kodaly’s later career, the creation of a tradition of children’s choral singing which has already become something mythical.1 ‘Nobody’, said Kodaly, ‘is too great to write for children; in fact, he should try to become great enough for it.’ He started by creating a repertoire for children, and then revolutionised their education; and he based it on active music-making, and not on passive appreciation; thus he has created a new standard in sight-reading, as well as in vocal intonation and in rhythmic vitality, which listeners to the Budapest girls’ choir called after him will recognise as being quite unique.Like many other creators, he has been subjected from time to time to most venomous criticism, but his courage and integrity has triumphed. He is now, at eighty-two, the most honoured and loved man in Hungary, and we are proud and lucky to have him with us.
Tribute to Jean Sibelius (1965)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
I must confess that, for many, many years, the works of the Finnish master meant little to me. Then, by chance, hearing a performance of the 4th Symphony, I became interested; and since [then] I have taken every opportunity to study his scores and hear authoritative performances. I find his conception of sound extremely personal and original, and his musical thinking most stimulating. I pay sincere homage to him in his centenary year.
A Composer in Russia (1965)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
On the way to the airport we found we were short of things to read, and a hurried search at a bookshop produced the Penguin edition of Pushkin’s poems.With the verse in Russian and an English prose translation, this was the ideal supplement to our pre-breakfast struggles with irritatingly forgettable vocabulary and irregular verbs. And so, with Slava and Galya Rostropovich, we flew into Moscow for dinner and drove out to their dacha for the night.Two days later the Armenian hospitality began in all its touching, overwhelming force. We were going merely on a holiday, with Slava as host and ruthless sentry against intrusion-what he called donning imaginary tunic and bearskin, ‘a soldier of Buckingham’.Yet up from Yerevan1 came an important official from the Composers’ Union to look after us; and on the plane we were greeted on the loudspeaker by name, and we fastened our seat-belts to instructions in English first, before Russian and Armenian. At dinner in Yerevan that night we had our baptism of fire from Armenian alcoholic toasts.Next day we were whisked off to the Composers’ Colony at Dilidjan, about mo km. over mountainous roads from Yerevan. Driving up towards the Caucasus through thick fog, we missed the bands of children waving flags and holding flowers for us (though some of them did appear later and said, ‘Weelcome’, once or twice).
Britten On Aldeburgh And The Future (1968)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
ROSENTHAL: Mr Britten, Marion Harewood suggests that the Aldeburgh Festival virtually came into being so that what was at that time the recentlyformed English Opera Group might have somewhere to perform. Do you believe that opera must be an integral part of any music festival?BRITTEN: I suppose that the Aldeburgh Festival really came into being to bring music to East Anglia. But certainly a festival without opera is like bread without the jam-and had there been no English Opera Group in existence at the time of the first festival, I know we would have created a group to perform opera. I was writing operas at that time, and needed a platform for their performance.ROSENTHAL: All the operas produced at Aldeburgh have been performed by the English Opera Group. Will this always be the case, or is it possible that a Festival Opera might be formed for certain works-as at the Holland Festival for example?BRITTEN: No, I think opera atAldeburgh will always be based on the English Opera Group. But that is not to say that the Group is not expandable to a degree.ROSENTHAL: What operas have you then in mind for production at Aldeburgh-or rather at the new concert hall-cum-opera house at Snapethat would require the Group to be enlarged in size?BRITTEN: Well, I would like to do The Magic Flute; perhaps Fidelio; and certainly some operas by Gluck, a truly great operatic composer-I am especially thinking of the second Iphigenie opera.ROSENTHAL: Would these operas be performed in English or the original language?BRITTEN: In English of course; I hardly have to tell you that!ROSENTHAL: How do you visualize those works being produced at Snape?BRITTEN: I imagine that a new open-stage technique of opera production might well be evolved. It’s a very exciting prospect.
Some Notes On Forster And Music (1969)
Authors: Kildea Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
There is no doubt that E. M. Forster is our most musical novelist. And I don’t mean that he just likes music or likes going to concerts and operas, or plays the piano neatly and efficiently (all of which he does), but that he really understands music and uses music in his novels, and fairly frequently. The musical locus classicus is, of course, in Howards End (pp. 32-6) where a number of characters are presented in a tiny musical vignette-each of them reacting in a different way to a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.1 Musically they range from Mrs. Munt, who wants to tap ‘surreptitiously’, via Fraulein Mosebach, who is reminded that it is ‘echt Deutsch’, Helen who sees pictures in it (goblins and elephants), and Margaret who just listens, to Tibby (poor Tibby!) who is up in the techniques of music and ‘implored the company generally to look out for the transitional passage on the drum’. The whole remarkable passage shows a most sensitive reaction to music, and allows the novelist to make some perceptive observations on Beethoven-profound enough to help explain why his music has kept its hold on the public’s affection all these years:’... the goblins were there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.’ The passage also allows him to make some less valid observations on the acoustics of the lamented Queen’s Hall, which make curious reading when one thinks of the acoustics and general concert atmosphere of the South Bank complex.The science of acoustics does not seem to have advanced much in the last half-century. Concerts in the Queen’s Hall were a joy to hear; big and small music came winging to one with real resonance; the sounds were not dry or boxy.