Top 20 Britten recordings | Classical-Music.com Top 20 Britten recordings We name the best recordings of the great composer's music 21 December 2012 - 3:33pm 0 The January issue of BBC Music Magazine is a Benjamin Britten centenary special. To mark the occasion, we've put together a list of the top 20 recordings of his music. Let us know what you think – and if we've missed off one of your cherished discs, leave us a comment below or get in touch by email .

1 Peter Grimes (1958) Peter Pears (tenor), Claire Watson (soprano), James Pease (bass-baritone), Jean Watson (contralto), Geraint Evans (baritone), Lauris Elms (mezzo-soprano), David Kelly (bass), Owen Brannigan (bass), Raymond Nilsson (tenor), Marion Studholme (soprano), Iris Kells (soprano); Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House/Benjamin Britten Decca Legends 467 6822 Tenor Peter Pears performs in the title role of this opera which helped Britten gain an international reputation as a composer. The role of Grimes – the ill-fated outsider in a small fishing-town in East Anglia – was written for Pears and this recording is still the benchmark. Our critic, Matthew Rye said: ‘No one should be without this evocative, wonderfully sung recording’.

Galina Vishnevskaya (soprano), Peter Pears (tenor), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Simon Preston (organ); London Symphony Orchestra; Melos Ensemble; London Symphony Orchestra Chorus; Highgate School Choir; The Bach Choir/Benjamin Britten Decca 475 7511 (2 discs) The premiere of the War Requiem was, famously, not a great success. Among other hitches, Britten didn’t manage to get the brilliant Russian soprano, Galina Vishnevskaya over to the UK because of visa problems. But for this recording, made in 1963, he managed to get his dream cast. Our critics decided this was one of the 50 greatest recordings of all time in the January 2012 issue of BBC Music Magazine – and it’s hard to disagree. Barry Tuckwell (horn), Peter Pears (tenor); London Symphony Orchestra; English Chamber Orchestra/Benjamin Britten Decca 436 3952 Britten’s Serenade was written in 1943, for the unusual forces of tenor, horn and strings.

A prologue and epilogue for solo horn bookend six poems by writers including Keats, Tennyson and Blake. Here Britten conducts his partner, tenor Peter Pears, and horn player Barry Tuckwell with the London Symphony Orchestra in a subtle, elegant performance. Buy on Amazon or Download on iTunes 4 The Turn of the Screw (DVD) Miah Persson (soprano), Toby Spence (tenor), Susan Bickley (mezzo-soprano), Giselle Allen (soprano), Joanna Songi (soprano), Thomas Parfitt (treble); London Philharmonic Orchestra/Jakub Hrůša; dir. Jonathan Kent (Glyndebourne, 2011) FRA Musica DVD 007: FRA; Blu-ray: FRA 507 A chilling work, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, based on a ghost story by Henry James has always proved popular with audiences. In 2006 Glyndebourne on Tour staged a production which has only now been released on DVD (a CD of the production but with a different cast) has already been released).

Tenor Toby Spence takes the role of the chilling Peter Quint and soprano Miah Persson is a brittle governess. And Hymn to St Cecilia, Missa Brevis in D major, Festival Te Deum in E, Rejoice in the Lamb, Te Deum, Jubilate Deo in C major Choir of King's College Cambridge/Sir David Willcocks, Sir Philip Ledger EMI 562 7962 Britten wrote this ethereal piece for choir and harp on the long transatlantic journey back to England. There are a handful of excellent recordings, but David Willcocks and the Choir of King’s Colllege, Cambridge are hard to beat for quality of sound and a tangible sense of occasion.

7 Billy Budd Peter Glossop (baritone), Peter Pears (tenor), Michael Langdon (bass), John Shirley-Quirk (bass-baritone), Bryan Drake (baritone), David Kelly (bass), Kenneth MacDonald (tenor), David Bowman (baritone), Dennis Wicks (bass), Robert Tear (tenor), Robert Bowman (tenor), Benjamin Luxon (baritone); Ambrosian Opera Chorus; London Symphony Orchestra/Benjamin Britten Decca 417 4282 Britten conducts another of his own works on this recording from 1961. Glossop in the title role, along with Peter Pears and Michael Langdon as Vere and Claggart respectively, create a definitive performance which is superbly captured by producer John Culshaw.

Ian Bostridge (tenor), David Daniels (countertenor), Christopher Maltman (bass-baritone); Julius Drake (piano), Aline Brewer (harp), Timothy Brown Virgin Classics 07243554552526 Tenor Ian Bostridge performs Britten’s Canticles on this recording with pianist Julius Drake in a performance that our critic, Hilary Finch, said created ‘a sensuous – and, indeed, sensual – stream of sound for the tides and tributaries of Britten’s word-setting’. The Canticles use texts by the poet Francis Quarles, extracts from medieval mystery plays and words by TS Eliot and Edith Sitwell. 9 Death in Venice Philip Langridge (tenor), Alan Opie (baritone), Michael Chance (countertenor); BBC Singers, City of London Sinfonia, Richard Hickox Chandos CHAN 10280 Death in Venice was Britten’s last opera and once again tenor Peter Pears was foremost in his mind when the main role – that of a dying writer called Aschenbach – was written. And there is a recording of Pears in the role.

Nevertheless, this Chandos recording made in 2005 is a brilliantly unsettling piece of drama. Philip Langridge is anguished as Aschenbach and Alan Opie is sinister as the succession of characters who lead the writer to his doom. Peter Pears (tenor), John Shirley-Quirk (bass-baritone), Harold Blackburn (bass), Bryan Drake (baritone), Bruce Webb (treble); English Opera Group/Benjamin Britten Decca 421 8582 Britten’s Japanese-infused Christian parable was premiered in 1964 at St Bartholomew’s Church, Orford in Suffolk – and recorded with an almost identical cast the following year. Britten was strongly influenced by his trip to Japan in the 1950s and his encounters there with noh theatre. Curlew River echoes the sounds of shamisen songs and the gagaku orchestra Britten heard in the Far East, while delivering a thoroughly Christian tale about charity and the afterlife. An authoritative and moving account of a fascinating work.

Benjamin Britten | British composer | Britannica.com Benjamin Britten Alternative Title: Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh born Felix Mendelssohn Benjamin Britten, in full Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten Of Aldeburgh (born November 22, 1913, Lowestoft , Suffolk , England —died December 4, 1976, Aldeburgh, Suffolk), leading British composer of the mid-20th century, whose operas were considered the finest English operas since those of Henry Purcell in the 17th century. He was also an outstanding pianist and conductor. Benjamin Britten. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Britten composed as a child and at the age of 12 began several years of study under the composer and teacher Frank Bridge . He later studied under John Ireland and Arthur Benjamin at the Royal College of Music in London and, while there, composed the set of choral variations A Boy Was Born (1933; revised, 1958).

He then worked as a composer for the radio, theatre, and cinema , coming into close contact with the poet W.H. Auden . In 1937 his Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, for string orchestra, won him international acclaim. From 1939 to 1942 he was in the United States , where his first work for the stage, the operetta Paul Bunyan (1941; libretto by Auden), was performed. A commission by the Koussevitzky Foundation led to the composition of his opera Peter Grimes (1945; libretto by M. Slater after George Crabbe ’s poem The Borough), which placed Britten in the forefront of 20th-century composers of opera.

His later operas include The Rape of Lucretia (1946); the comic Albert Herring (1947); Billy Budd (1951; after Herman Melville ); Gloriana (1953; written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II ); The Turn of the Screw (1954; after Henry James ); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960); Owen Wingrave (television, 1971); and Death in Venice (1973; after Thomas Mann ). With the church parable Curlew River (1964), his conception of musical theatre took a new direction, combining influences from the Japanese Noh theatre and English medieval religious drama . Two other church parables, The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966) and The Prodigal Son (1968), followed. An earlier church-pageant opera, Noye’s Fludde (1958), made use of one of the medieval Chester mystery plays . The Rape of Lucretia marked the inception of the English Opera Group, with Britten as artistic director, composer, and conductor.

This undertaking gave rise to the Aldeburgh Festival (founded 1947), which became one of the most important English music festivals and the centre of Britten’s musical activities. Preeminent among Britten’s nontheatrical music are his song cycles. Among those that established his stature as a songwriter are (for voice and piano) Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo (1940; written for the tenor Peter Pears , his life partner and artistic collaborator), The Holy Sonnets of John Donne (1945), Winter Words (1953), and Hölderlin Fragment (1958); and (for voice and orchestra) Our Hunting Fathers (1936; text by Auden), Les Illuminations (1939; text by Arthur Rimbaud ), and Serenade (1943). Britannica Stories Obama Acts to Protect the Arctic Britten’s largest choral work is the War Requiem (1962) for choir and orchestra, based on the Latin requiem mass text and the poems of Wilfred Owen , who was killed in World War I . Other choral works include the Hymn to St.

Cecilia (1942; text by Auden), Ceremony of Carols (1942), Rejoice in the Lamb (1943), St. Nicolas (1948), Spring Symphony (1949), and Voices for Today (1965; written for the United Nations ’ 20th anniversary). Among his principal instrumental works are the Simple Symphony for strings (1925); three string quartets (1941, 1945, and 1976); concerti for piano and for violin; The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (1945); and Symphony in D Major for Cello and Orchestra (1963), written for the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich . Britten’s operas are admired for their skillful setting of English words and their orchestral interludes, as well as for their dramatic aptness and depth of psychological characterization. In chamber operas such as The Rape of Lucretia and the church parables, he proved that serious music theatre could flourish outside the opera house.

His continual willingness to experiment with modern musical styles, forms, and sonorities and with new theatrical environments proved extremely fruitful. Classical Net - Basic Repertoire List - Britten Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976) One of the most fabulously-gifted musicians ever, Edward Benjamin Britten (he dropped the "Edward" fairly early) excelled not only as a composer, but as a conductor and pianist. Many consider him among the five great stylists of Modern English music, along with Edward Elgar , Ralph Vaughan Williams , William Walton , and Michael Tippett . Although a superb orchestral composer, he also became one of the finest writers for the human voice, with masterful song cycles and choral work. Britten (November 22, 1913 - December 4, 1976) began composing at a ridiculously early age. He was writing capably even before he mastered spelling, as some titles of his juvenalia show.

By eighteen, he had written masterpieces, as shown by recent recordings of early work, including the 4 chansons françaises (1928), a Double Concerto for violin and viola (1932) and 2 Portraits (1930). He studied privately with Frank Bridge , who helped him tighten his craft and who introduced him to the "advanced" European Moderns like Arnold Schoenberg , Igor Stravinsky , and Alban Berg , all of whom made an impact on the young composer. Bridge remained a musical mentor and advisor to Britten even after the period of formal study. Mahler became another influence. He entered the Royal College of Music in 1930, where he studied piano with Arthur Benjamin and composition with John Ireland. Ireland exercised more of a psychological hand-holding rather than a real musical influence. Importantly, however, he stood up for the boy and agitated for performances of his student's work in the face of opposition from other faculty. Britten, even as a student, was too far out for the establishment. Nevertheless, even here he wrote lasting work, including the remarkable Sinfonietta, Op.

1 (1932, influenced by Schoenberg's first chamber symphony), A Hymn to the Virgin (1930; rev. 1934), and the massive choral motet A Boy was Born (1933). In the Thirties, Britten resolutely set his face against most of the British musical scene – particularly British pastoralism and followers of Jean Sibelius – in favor of advanced trends on the continent. He allies Schoenberg and Berg to a Stravinskian technique and a fondness for artistic masks, usually expressed through a heightened sense of parody. Typical works of the period include the Auden cycle Our Hunting Fathers (1936), On This Island (1937), with its Purcellian first song and its fox-trot finale, and Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937), almost all parody or evocation of popular genres and styles. Besides the concert work (and to make ends meet), Britten turned out a ton of film scores, theater music, and music for the BBC. It was in this period that the outlines of Britten criticism were more or less set. One could call it Blinded by Technique.

Those against the music essentially disparaged the music as "clever," while those who promoted it at times seemed to believe that great craft meant great music. This was also a time when Britain suffered from a large dose of cultural inferiority. With more wonderful home-grown composers on the ground than in any country in Europe excepting France, critics began to lament their "provinciality," by which they seemed to mean that the dodecaphonists and Béla Bartók weren't popular. However, the dodecaphonists, with the exception of Berg and perhaps Schoenberg, weren't really popular anywhere. Bartók gained a repertory foothold only in his late period, a condition which largely persists. Germany and later Austria had banned much modern music, and most advanced composers had either emigrated or were interred or killed. It's also true that most of the musical establishment leant toward the conservative, and for the most part it had little idea of what to make of Britten's music, although it recognized the craft – hence, the "clever." Incidentally, this charge followed Britten throughout his life.

At his death, a critic lumped the composer's music with that of Camille Saint-Saëns . It wasn't a compliment. Discouraged by the musical state of Britain as well as the political state of Europe, Britten left for North America in 1939 – first Canada, then the United States – with his life partner, the tenor Peter Pears. Several works came from this expatriation, including Canadian Carnival, Britten's first opera, Paul Bunyan, to a libretto by Auden, Young Apollo, the cycle Les Illuminations, and the magnificent Sinfonia da Requiem. Although the very influential Aaron Copland promoted Britten's work, many other critics, including Virgil Thomson (who called Britten "a local Shostakovich" – again, it wasn't a compliment) dismissed the composer as lightweight. Britten became disillusioned with the United States ("all the faults of Europe and none of the attractions") and with Pears returned to England in 1942. In America, he had thought long and hard about his artistic identity, influenced by the model of Aaron Copland.

He began to want the mantle of national composer and to plan how to reconcile his music to the role. Largely, he rebelled against Vaughan Williams and remade the relevant artistic past. Consequently, he avoided (at least at first) folk song and symphony. He rejected Vaughan Williams' inspiration in the Tudor period and went for Henry Purcell . Still, like Vaughan Williams, he began to identify deeply with the English past, mainly through its literature, and to consider how to get his music to reach out to the community. Early consequences of this were Hymn to Saint Cecilia (1942), A Ceremony of Carols (1942), the Serenade (1943), Rejoice in the Lamb (1943), A Shepherd's Carol (1944), Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Henry Purcell (The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, 1945-47), and the opera Peter Grimes (1945).

In these works, Britten has changed the emphasis of his music, increasing diatonicism and the importance of melody without getting rid of "difficult" dissonance, and searching for a new emotional warmth, without losing entirely his irony and satire. Britten also began on a series of "realizations" of earlier work, mainly by Purcell – including a wonderful Saul and the Witch at Endor (1947) and The Beggar's Opera (1949). These are less "editions" than "recompositions," and as much as Britten changed the originals, the originals helped him change his own music. Grimes became a hit and vaulted Britten into the front rank of British composers. A string of operas followed: The Rape of Lucretia (1946), Albert Herring (1947), The Little Sweep (1949), with parts for amateurs and children, Spring Symphony (1949), and the full-length Billy Budd (1951) for Covent Garden. No British composer since Purcell had written an opera with such international success. Britten began to eclipse his contemporaries and to supplant Vaughan Williams as the Great English Composer.

Indeed, the main critical fights in Britain at this time rose from the Vaughanians vs. the Sons of Ben. Silly as it is to think about know, if you stood in one camp, you were denied a pass into the other. Like most turf wars, they turned out largely beside the point as well as aesthetically and historically off-base. After all, Vaughan Williams in his own way was just as "internatonal" in his outlook as Britten, and he, like Britten, had forged his own brand of Modernism in works like the Symphony #4, the Concerto Grosso, and the Piano Concerto. True, Britten and Vaughan Williams were allergic to one another's music. Vaughan Williams thought Britten unnecessarily cruel to performers (although he immediately recognized the stature of Peter Grimes), and Britten regarded Vaughan Williams as "amateurish and 'pi,'" although he felt very keenly Vaughan Williams' central relevance to the British musical scene.

At any rate, critic Hans Keller proclaimed Britten the greatest composer alive, despite the fact that Stravinsky was still around and still writing, and one began to see various critics awarding Britten the title of Greatest English Composer since Purcell, conveniently forgetting Elgar at the least. It says much for Britten that as a conductor and performer, he began to reinvestigate Britain's recent musical past, rescuing composers like Holst and Delius from neglect, and even leading performances of Elgar's Gerontius. However, Vaughan Williams remained conspicuously absent from Britten's repertoire. Britten was sufficiently launched to inaugurate and head his own festival at Aldeburgh, which became one of the world's most important. Not only did it premiere several of Britten's own best works, but it attracted superstar performers from all over the world. Queen Elizabeth II's coronation led to the commission of another full-length opera, the still-underrated Gloriana, Britten's take on Tudor music (very different than that of Vaughan Williams, of course) and one of the great political operas of the century.

A spate of glorious work continued through the early Sixties, which gave Britten the title he longed for: the British composer. Pieces during this period include Lachrymae for viola and piano (1951), The Turn of the Screw (1954), the Hardy cycle Winter Words (1954), Canticles II and III (1952, 1954), the marvelous ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (1957), whose evocation of Balinese gamelan turned out to influence much of his later work, Noye's Fludde (1957), another "outreach" to amateurs, children, and professionals, the exuberant Cantata Academica (1959), and Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), one of the finest of all Shakespearean operas. This remarkable run culminated in the composer's War Requiem (1962), a work which tore through the musical world and gave Britten his greatest success.

It may very well be the most recent work to score with critics, professionals, and amateurs, and like Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, it did so without musical compromise. In fact, the War Requiem threw Britten's subsequent music somewhat into the shade, despite fabulous pieces. These include the Symphony for Cello and Orchestra (1963), three "church parables" (Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace, and The Prodigal Son; 1963, 1966, 1968), the final opera, Death in Venice (1973), and the cantata Phaedra (1975). Although most of his output had long since entered the standard repertory, interest in his new work declined. The mantle of new up-and-comer now draped the shoulders of Michael Tippett. Britten's music was seen as "thin," rather than "clear" or "elegant." The earlier Vaughan Williams/Britten battle had returned with new players, and the results did not go Britten's way. Apparently, even the most sophisticated critics can't resist the crude game of King of the Mountain.

Inevitably, the heat died down, and Britten's place in music seems secure. Britten's last years were marked by severe heart problems, not entirely cured by surgery. In 1973, he suffered a stroke which crippled his right hand, and for a time, he felt unable to compose. He confined himself to what he called "chores" (revisions of early work, arrangements for full orchestra of chamber music, for example) and very contained works. In 1976, he became the first British composer to receive a peerage and became Lord Britten of Aldeburgh, an irony in the light of his anti-authoritarian philosophy. He became increasingly weak and ill and died in the arms of Peter Pears in December, 1976. ~ Steve Schwartz Recommended Recordings MRS JOHN CLAGGART'S SAD LIFE: Benjamin Britten: THE BITTER WITHY MRS JOHN CLAGGART'S SAD LIFE The Widder Claggart speaks about music new and old, the malady of opera, art, life, death, people detested and not detested -- the detested are in the majority amidst much else.

Sunday, September 8, 2013 Benjamin Britten: THE BITTER WITHY That is the second tune from one of Britten’s last works, Suite on English Folk Tunes. Although the lyrics aren’t set, they are an old vernacular Christmas carol. The withy is the willow tree, which rots from within. This is the last stanza: Then He says to His Mother: “Oh, the withy! Oh, the withy! The bitter withy that causes me to smart, to smart, Oh, the withy, it shall be the very first tree That perishes at the heart!” (Britten in his parents' garden) “What is truth?” Pontius Pilate asked. The person being interrogated by Pilate was a poor Jew from Palestine , who would have only spoken Aramaic. Pilate would have spoken Greek and of course, Latin. The accused, whose name was Yeshu (that is Joshua in Hebrew and Jesus in Greek), wouldn’t have understood, any more than Pilate would have understood him. And would the Prefect of Judea have even met a rough Jew accused of leading a dreary little rebellion?

And was Pilate, a crude, cruel soldier at heart, have been given to “philosophical” questions? Not likely. It shows how we humans proceed. We make things up. We have to: we put ten words in a given sequence on a page – and that is not reality, it’s not even how reality happens. What is truth? There’s no such thing. (at school) Who was Benjamin Britten? Who knows? He was born November 22, 1913 , died December 4, 1976 . Yes, a large number of people met Ben in one way or another. (Presumably) a lot of people (relatively) heard poor Yeshu preach or incite rebellion, or do a little of both. Maybe he had a bag a magic tricks to get their attention, and since he was free lance, anything that might entice a drachma or two from those who responded was a good idea. But we don’t have much idea of who he was either. The writing about Yeshu has him manifesting himself in various ways. Ben Britten, likewise, manifested himself in various personas. Most people settled for one, perhaps knowing a little about another.

But he was famous and biographies MUST be written. Humphrey Carpenter wrote the first big biography of Britten and talked to many witnesses who knew him in different ways. (Benjamin Britten: A Biography, Faber and Faber, written in 1992). Now that the centenary is underway there is a new big book by Paul Kildea, (Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century, Penguin Global, published this July.) Kildea is anti-Carpenter. Carpenter had many documents available to him and used them, Kildea has more documents made available more recently including a vast number of letters that Britten wrote (these have been published in separate, expensive volumes). Carpenter has an “old fashioned style”; he is expansive and likes the anecdote, the short character sketch and repeating gossip. He knew of a certain Britten, but he speaks to others who knew someone different by that name: younger, say; as a conductor; as a sometime friend or collaborator; as a combination of atoms and elements they found detestable.

Some of those people only knew a label: queer, and their story of Britten contained their feelings about queer people, hateful sinners, the lot; or fundamentally sad and lost; or trivial -- “That homosexual stuff was really silly,” says the late conductor, Sir Charles Mackerras in the documentary, Britten’s Children (based on the book by John Bridcut). He got into serious trouble with Britten for making a joke about there always being “kids” about. But some thought heroic a good word. Britten lived in what for all intents and purposes was a marriage with the tenor, Peter Pears, for thirty five years, more or less openly in England , where homosexual acts between consenting adults in private were criminal until 1967 and men so accused frequently went to jail. (But Britten hated the word gay, according to Pears in the sappy documentary produced by Tony Palmer called A Time there was.) Britten also disliked gay couples, queeny jokes, camp and effeminate behavior. One of the crazy “reviewers” at Amazon faults Kildea for not mentioning that Ben was bisexual.

That goes to an opinion still large in the world that homosexuals are less than human and must be somehow not wholly and utterly “that way” -- we need look no further than a Mr. Putin of Russia . There is no evidence whatever that Britten was ever sexually intimate with a woman. In fact in his diary, as edited by John Evans, Britten writes that he found the naked female body, “disgusting”. But perhaps a later generation of queer would have recognized an internalized homophobia in Ben; or perhaps Ben was stuck emotionally and sexually at the age of eleven? Kildea has a more “modern” style, telegraphic. “Supporting characters” are dealt with in a sentence (even those who according to Carpenter were crucial to the composer for periods of time). He is light on hearsay and offers fewer details about the mechanics of how Britten managed to compose so much while in his earlier days, touring with Pears and running the English Opera Company and The Aldeburgh Festival (both founded by composer and tenor to promote Britten’s work). His main label for Britten is a man absolutely of the 20th century, of difficult times where the world continuously changed rapidly and radically and technology triumphed.

His Britten started his career in the Depression, as the political situation in the world deteriorated. Right after he graduated from the Royal College of Music, a fantastically precocious but sheltered and provincial twenty year old, Britten entered the circle of the great poet, Wysten Auden. This was a left leaning, Bohemian group of people, many of them homosexuals such as Auden and his close friend and sometime collaborator, Christopher Isherwood, who also befriended Britten (judging from the diary, Britten set Auden's poems but much preferred Isherwood's company). Auden got Britten his first jobs -- writing the music for leftist documentaries (Carpenter says it was Britten’s private composition teacher, Frank Bridge who got him the first job), but insisted that the young composer read and think beyond music, understand politics and his own sexuality. As a result, Britten became two of the most unpopular things one could be at the time: a pacifist and a homosexual.

(He had already told his older brother of his “inclinations” but it was the acceptance of Auden’s group and the examples there of devoted couples of both sexes that eventually brought Britten “out” – according to Carpenter. Kildea seems to think that it was Auden’s nagging and Isherwood's example that got Britten “experimenting” with males). Auden and Isherwood later became among Britten’s more famous “corpses”. According to his early friend and librettist, Eric Crozier, Britten warned him that one day he would be a corpse, dead to the composer. Though Crozier was invaluable, Britten turned on him for no obvious reason as they completed Billy Budd. Kildea thinks Crozier exaggerated out of sour grapes, and Britten did stay loyal to a small group of people throughout his life, but the list of the discarded was long, reasons for their “demise” were often unclear, and Ben could be cruel. Kildea goes into a lot of detail about the discouraging musical life Britten faced (it may be the most interesting part of his book).

London was a backwater musically with self promoting conductors such as Sir Thomas Beecham and “Flash” Sargent (Sir Malcolm), rough and ready orchestras, wildly underpaid, seriously under rehearsed, and all dedicated to the most conservative repertory, the classics given ramshackle, inaccurate performances. The “new works” that were performed were short, pandered to a dull, unsophisticated audience, often were in a “folk style” that Britten both hated and thought amateurish. There was no interest in the new music being written on the continent or in experiment; radio, though a source of modest income for musicians, was in its infancy in England When he and Peter Pears, still just friends, fled to America , hoping for a land of opportunity they found much the same. It was in LA that Ben read The Borough by George Crabbe and with the encouragement of Pears (by then his lover) started thinking of it as an opera. (Britten and Pears) They returned to potential trouble as “conchies” in England . Both were able to call in influential allies and were let off with a slap on the wrist.

Michael Tippett, the great composer, eight years Britten’s senior, went to jail where he met Britten and Pears by turning pages for one of the recitals they were “condemned” to give in prisons as part of their punishment. They became and more or less remained friends, although Tippett did call Peter Grimes “English verismo”, which he did not mean as high praise. When he was dying, Ben felt Sir Michael had over taken him, after years of obscurity and derision, becoming popular with the always desired “younger people” and with much of his music, including his operas, being recorded by Phillips. One wonders where Sir Michael (who lived until 1998) stands today. Many of the recordings are available, often in cheap reissues, and the music is as tremendous and eccentric as ever; but the huge vogue for his symphonies has ended, he never made the Metropolitan Opera… Britten’s only serious teacher was Frank Bridge , a full fledged professional composer with a powerful technique and a passionate interest in the “new” music. They met through Britten’s piano teacher when he was 13.

Bridge was stunned by the amount of interesting music the boy had written and agreed to teach him, demanding the highest level of clarity and control. “I still feel I haven’t come up to his technical standards,” Britten averred in 1963. Both Carpenter and Kildea shrug him off. At one point it looked like Ben could travel to Germany and work with Alban Berg, whose music he worshiped, though he knew it only from score. According to Carpenter, Bridge told Britten’s parents that Berg was a notorious homosexual and would seduce young Ben; according to Kildea nobody knew much about Berg but being English of that era they assumed the worst and the consensus reached was that Ben was too young to be on his own. (Berg, of course, was a rampaging heterosexual.) Ben’s composition teacher at RCM, John Ireland, who didn’t have private money or a generous patron, a typical professional, exhausted himself taking every engagement he could, no matter how soul destroying. In the wider culture, there was a glorification of the talented amateur, the gifted hobbyist, a feeling that there was something unseemly about those who identified themselves as professionals and expected to be respected, and worse, paid.

Benjamin Britten, a middle class boy from an undistinguished family in the provinces faced a steep mountain to climb. Stardom is another label. Britten died world famous and wealthy, as that most impossible thing in the 20th century, a composer of operas. By his last few years, seven of his full length operas, Peter Grimes, Albert Herring, The Rape of Lucretia, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Death in Venice, were being produced internationally and often. Almost all of Britten’s work had been recorded, composer conducting or playing the piano, and heavily promoted by a major firm, Decca (for many years known as London in America ). That those recordings were so well made, widely distributed and taken so seriously was in itself a tribute to his success; most are still in print. His smaller operas, The Church Parables, starting with Curlew River , were also done widely. His operas for children – there were many – showed up in surprising places.

One might see the amusing Noye’s Flood in suburban New Jersey , or encounter a small company shaking a fist at Let’s Make an Opera/The Little Sweep in Berkeley , with sophisticated people coming over from San Francisco . And all this has continued. Even his opera for television, not liked by many people when new, Owen Wingrave, is being mounted in theaters, and it’s a rare opera workshop in conservatory or University that hasn’t done several of the smaller works. One of Britten’s big bombs, the coronation opera for Elizabeth II, Gloriana, has been rehabilitated, recorded and released on DVD, seen not as a limp biscuit but as a throw back to the grand operas of yore. But questions have been raised (from the beginning) about Britten – not about his virtuosity -- but about his career path.

Carpenter tends to make Sir Peter Pears the villain: all of Britten’s operas were chosen because they had an important (usually starring) role for this tenor with an odd voice and a distinctive style (according to Carpenter, one of Britten’s friends in his childhood, described Pears as sounding just like Britten’s worshipful mother, and Britten’s sister, Beth, concurred!). Most of his great song cycles were written for Pears. Did Pears have some unholy hold on Britten? Before Pears, young Britten composed in record time a remarkable work for small orchestra called Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. Early in his relationship with Pears, Britten wrote a Berg besotted but tremendously effective orchestral piece called Sinfonia da Requiem. A little later, he created the irresistible The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. But thereafter, most of his non-operatic works were for tenor alone or with additional voices (the Spring Symphony not only has a trio of soloists and big chorus, but boys’ chorus).

Later, for Mstislav Rostropovich, the great Russian cellist (who Kildea claims became a Pears substitute, not sexually – though he doesn’t believe there was much of a sexual connection between Pears and Britten after the mid-fifties – but as muse and chief believer) there was a Cello Symphony (asked about it in an interview near its world premiere, Pears sniffed, “I haven’t heard it”), and there were piano and violin concerti, much revised, and quite a lot of chamber music, especially after his devastating operation to replace a defective valve in his heart. But always there were operas, written with an odd tenor voice in mind. Of course there was the highly promoted War Requiem for tenor, baritone, massive orchestra, chamber orchestra, chorus – and boys – but didn’t Britten thereby become a sort of ceremonial composer, the kind of composer he affected to despise, such as Elgar? (This became one of the best selling classical recordings of its time.) Carpenter and others blame Pears for manipulating Britten into so much vocal work and into keeping his style for large theater works accessible.

Kildea is less interested in this aspect of their relationship and more in Pears as a manipulative, sometimes hurtful “power behind the throne”, self seeking with a strong control on their ventures into production. The late Robert Tear, a tenor younger than Pears, who was taken into the circle for a time, describes in his book, Tear Here, the atmosphere around Britten as a “royal court”. Pears was chief intriguer and Lord High Executioner. Nothing happened without Britten’s consent, but that was informed by Pears relaying everything from his own perspective (jealous of his position and worried about aging, he made war on Tear but not before the latter was witness to some ugly scenes – Tear’s is another view of Britten, very different in feel from either biographer, and since he was an employee who needed the jobs, arguably more “authentic”.) However, Tear was axed by the enraged composer. His camping up the Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia (a solo part) to relieve tension backstage was caught by Britten and that was that.

Kildea documents Pears’ sexual promiscuity, quite memorably describing the “cruising” scene in London during World War Two. Despite the laws, and the undercover police, a city jammed with horny young men became a kind of paradise for the easily aroused, in which group Kildea includes Pears. Whatever their pre or post war notions of homosexuality, these young fellows found that “puffs” were easy, safe, good for dinner and a tip, and after all, pleasure is pleasure. As Pears became famous in his own right he booked incessant tours, leaving Britten alone by the sea. They fought a lot, sometimes bitterly, but it was Britten who always gave in. “I know that Peter is sometimes unfaithful,” Kildea quotes one of his still living sources about a confidence of Ben’s, “but as long as I don’t know the particulars I overlook it” Kildea notes that Pears booked an American tour in the last month of the composer’s life, fully aware that he could die at any time. “He died in my arms,” Pears says sweetly in A Time there Was. Barely, might be Kildea’s response.

Kildea claims that during Britten’s operation to replace a heart valve the surgeon discovered that he was suffering from tertiary syphilis. This made news. Pears would have infected Britten. Kildea, in one sentence, mentions a doctor who is skeptical; suggesting that with all of the blood tests Britten would have had in his illnesses, a serious venereal disease would have been detected. Kildea isn’t convinced and yet – is this another example of fictionalizing a life? (Articles challenging this diagnosis have been written). For a kinder view of Pears (though it’s not a whitewash) one can read Christopher Headington's biography (he also wrote a mild biography of Britten). Nor do all the letters support an unequivocal reading of Pears as a bad influence. Thus we see story telling in place, for every fairy tale needs an evil queen. Both Carpenter and Kildea offer readable analyses of the music, though neither is as compendious as Peter Evans in The Music of Benjamin Britten (University of Minnesota Press). Carpenter seems to me to be stronger on the operas, more skeptical about the later ones.

Britten suffered the usual fate of someone who has an enormous early triumph (he was 31 when Peter Grimes, produced against heavy odds, took London by storm, having an almost incredible success), subsequent works were found wanting in some way. It’s true that Peter Grimes has a sweeping intensity, a creative abandon that carries its own electricity. It doesn’t much matter – as Kildea avers -- that the story doesn’t make complete sense, that aside from Peter Grimes, the characters are stereotypes --- the opera, or perhaps it is mostly Britten’s music -- grabs a listener by the throat and won’t let go. Britten certainly comes close to that power in Billy Budd, more so in its revision than in its original version, and surely he was allowed a delicious comic romp, Albert Herring. But it wasn’t until The Turn of the Screw, nine years after Peter Grimes and much smaller, using a different musical vocabulary and style, that the same intensity is reached, and its libretto is better. But after Screw, the operas are sometimes unconvincing, though they are always beautifully made.

It’s only with Death in Venice, written against a tough deadline (Britten’s operation was looming), that he again approaches the emotional power of Peter Grimes, though with some miscalculations he would have corrected had he had the strength after the operation. Kildea is something of a cheerleader, even raving about that piece of well made twaddle, Owen Wingrave. But he is very strong on what he has conducted, the many works for choir, the orchestral pieces – it’s good to read high praise for the once dismissed The Cello Symphony, a work I adore -- but Kildea does not make the connection of certain themes and harmonic gestures there with Death in Venice. He is also a compelling advocate for the often overlooked chamber music. Then there is Britten’s pederasty. Both biographers acknowledge it, though typically, Carpenter goes into far more detail about each of the boys Britten “fell in love” with, including their parents’ reactions and the degree of gossip each involvement generated.

Kildea spends only a short time and focuses mostly on David Hemmings (who was to become a movie star as an adult, famous for Blow Up by Antonioni), the creator of the role of Miles in The Turn of the Screw. Hemmings, 10 when he met the composer, gave reportedly an astonishing performance (he is wonderful on the stunning recording). He plays the haunted boy – haunted either by a real ghost, the dead pervert Quint, or the insane governess, who might be making the whole thing up. Hemmings lived with Britten by the sea in Aldeburgh where the entire company of Turn of the Screw learned and interpreted the opera as Britten completed it. Everyone detested Hemmings. He was ten going on forty; nasty, manipulative and cruel. But Britten’s adoration was so intense it shocked the company, even those used to his crushes. They saw “their Hemmings”, a sly brat; transform into “Ben’s David” an angel of sweetness and eternal vulnerability, with just a light brush of sexual allure.

Though there’s no evidence that Britten behaved inappropriately with any of “his boys” and Hemmings went through the rest of his life denying that anything improper had happened even when he and Ben shared a bed. There were those who didn’t believe him. Pears was one, it seems. “I frightened Peter,” Hemmings says, somewhat mysteriously in Britten’s Children. According to Kildea, Hemmings was the first person to come between them, creating a rift only resolved gradually and with difficulty. Whether or not Pears was certain that Britten had “made free” with Hemmings, as Quint (the part Pears created) is said to have “made free” with young Miles in an early draft of the libretto, he had suddenly seen the danger of Britten’s attachments. A manipulative con artist like Hemmings could easily (perhaps) have taken advantage of Ben’s susceptibilities, regardless of the composer’s iron self discipline. “Eros is in the air,” says Aschenbach, in Death in Venice, as this prim, heterosexual intellectual, unable to curb his obsession with the boy Tadzio, understands that the erotic always and everywhere will not be denied or controlled.

A scandal would have destroyed Britten and Pears with him, wiped out all they had achieved. No such scandal ever happened. In one version of the fiction that was Benjamin Britten (for who will ever know for certain save the relative few involved?) he was completely innocent of anything but an intense response to certain boys that stopped well short of the erotic. In another version of that fiction, perhaps, now and then, Ben “made free” with a willing lad or two, and no one the wiser. In dealing with anyone’s life, one can never know for certain – anything -- really. We have evidence of Ben’s enormous talent and will to create, right up to his death, when he could barely lift his arms. Beyond that…? Of the two biographies Kildea’s is the tougher minded and more rigorously sourced – that syphilis claim aside.

His precise reckoning of Britten’s earnings year to year is fascinating and so is his relating Britten’s public persona to the politics of his time, both of England and of the British musical establishment where Britten was the subject of quiet loathing and various plots, most ineffective (the worst was the Arts Council, the then new arts subsidy board, killing the recording of the world premiere of Peter Grimes. On the committee then was another famous composer, Sir William Walton. Though they cordially despised one another’s work, he and Ben remained friends superficially. But Walton got in quite a blow). Kildea’s tracing of the world tour Britten and Pears took, and the tremendous impact the music of Bali made on the composer (it shows up in many of his later works) and the force of the Noh dramas they saw in Japan is expert. But Carpenter’s book is like a novel by Dickens. Britten’s life unfolds with enormous energy, an unpredictable version of “Great Expectations”, starting with a very provincial boy with accent to match, his obsessed mother, unshakably convinced she had given birth to at least the equal of J. S. Bach.

There are colorful and crazy characters, coincidences and contrivances, tremendous successes and occasional disasters, villains and angels (Ben was both depending on the situation), the blessings of the queen, her mother, even her reportedly philistine consort, with dark detours but true love, however hedged, triumphing eventually. All met with the intonations and impeccable rounded vowels of the aristocracy that Ben adopted with fame. I’ve enjoyed re-reading it. Of course it’s no truer to Britten than Kildea’s tidier and colder work. The public force of the person, when he chose, the private grief and strangeness, the remarkable drive to create against even death itself – none of those things can be caught in prose, or in deeds and contracts, or in pictures and poses. Thirty eight years on from his death, Britten is still celebrated, early work is still uncovered, performed and recorded, failures are reconsidered.

No other English composer of the 20th century has fared so well (except, ironically, Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose work Britten detested, and who he didn’t like personally, despite or perhaps because “Rafe” admitted Britten to the RCM when he was 16, awarded him a scholarship and at school and importantly, later, did him kindnesses and favors.). And one might argue that RVW, born before Tristan and Isolde was finished, always, perforce, kept one large foot in Victorian England. We can’t “know” Ben, but he could reveal something. His music isn’t the whole story and clears up no mysteries. But in his final opera, Death in Venice, there is not the sarcastic irony of Mann, nor is there the titillation to be had in the beautiful Visconti movie, there is a devastating longing and an annihilating loneliness. Aschenbach dies of cholera, painted and roughed, his hair dyed, watching his adored Tadzio walk out into the endless sea. It’s redemption of sorts, but an icy one. Death’s music is hard, chilly, high and inhuman.

Aschenbach is vouchsafed a second of serenity in the city known as La Serenissima, but has never lived, never been loved, never expressed his true self. Admired and wealthy, he is at the moment of his death the lonely fraud who gives the lie to all that fame. “Just live!” is the command to all creatures at first awareness on this planet; Aschenbach who has written and analyzed and created, has not lived, but very late he has learned how glorious life is, and how fleeting. It’s not Mann; it is Britten. You may weep at poor Mimi’s death, or at Madame Butterfly’s seppuku but I think this is the saddest finale I know of in opera. And maybe that is the closest we can come to the “real” Ben Britten. Posted by Benjamin_Britten '''Benjamin Britten''' (born [[Lowestoft]], [[22 November]] [[1913]]; died [[Aldeburgh]], [[4 December]] [[1976]]) was probably the greatest [[England|English]] [[composer]] of his time.

He came from East Anglia (a region in the south east of England) and he often thought about the East Anglian landscape and the sea when writing his [[music]]. He wrote a lot of music for his friend, the [[tenor]] [[Peter Pears]]. His [[opera]]s include ''[[Peter Grimes]]'', ''[[Billy Budd]]'', ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera)|A Midsummer Night’s Dream]]'', and ''[[Death in Venice (opera)|Death in Venice]]''. His ''[[War Requiem]]'' was performed in [[Coventry Cathedral]] in [[1962]] after it had been rebuilt because the old cathedral had been destroyed in the war. He wrote music for children which sounds like proper, adult music. Britten started the [[Aldeburgh Festival]]. He was an excellent [[piano|pianist]] and [[conductor]]. ==Life== ===Early years=== Britten started composing music at the age of five although he had no one to help him. When he was ten years old he took part in an [[amateur]] music festival in [[Norwich, England|Norwich]].

A composer called [[Frank Bridge]] heard him and was so impressed that he offered to teach him [[composition]]. He helped Britten to compose using proper musical techniques. Britten started to get to know music by a lot of important modern composers including [[Schoenberg]] and [[Bartók]]. In [[1930]] he went to the [[Royal College of Music]]. He had excellent [[piano]] teachers but he did not learn much from his composition teacher [[John Ireland]] and most of the music he wrote was never performed. Britten was more interested in music from abroad than in English music. In [[1934]] he heard the opera ''[[Wozzeck (opera)|Wozzeck]]'' by [[Alban Berg]]. He wanted to go to [[Austria]] to study with Berg but he was not allowed to. Meanwhile some of his first proper compositions started to be performed. He wrote some music for [[movie]]s that were being made by the General Post Office, including one about a [[Railway|train]] delivering [[mail]]. The music describes the rhythm of the train rushing along. ===USA=== While working on the movie music he met the [[writer]] [[W. H.

Auden]]. He started to be interested in [[political]] ideas. These can be heard in some works he wrote at this time such as ''Our Hunting Fathers'' ([[1936]]) and ''Ballad of Heroes'' ([[1939]]). When Auden [[emigration|emigrated]] to the [[United States]] Britten followed him. With him was the tenor Peter Pears who was to become a lifelong friend and partner, and who was to be the inspiration for many songs and operas. Britten wrote several compositions in the USA including ''Sinfonia da Requiem'' ([[1940]]) and his ''First [[String Quartet]]'' ([[1941]]). The following year he was reading about the poet [[John Crabbe]] who came from [[Suffolk]], the same part of England where Britten had grown up. Britten suddenly became [[wikt: homesick|homesick]]. He realized that he could not work and be himself in a foreign country. So he returned with Pears to England. ===Aldeburgh Festival=== As soon as he was on the [[boat]] sailing back to England he started work on ''Ceremony of Carols''.

Back in England, Britten and Pears gave concerts to [[audience]]s of all kinds and took part in opera productions of [[Sadler’s Wells]] Opera Company, which was having a new theatre built. On the [[7 June]] [[1945]] the new theatre was opened with a performance of Britten’s opera ''Peter Grimes''. This opera was to make Britten into the most famous English composer of his time. It was soon being performed abroad as well as in England. Britten was now composing lots of music: songs, [[chamber music]] and a very popular piece called ''[[Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra]]'' (also known as ''Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell''). This piece shows off each instrument of the orchestra in turn so that young people can get to know the sound of the musical instruments. It is based on a tune written by [[Henry Purcell]] 300 years ago. There were more popular works: St Nicolas and the Spring Symphony. There were not many opportunities for big operas to be performed, so he wrote some “chamber operas” which only needed small orchestras and a small number of singers.

These were performed in places such as local churches by a group which called themselves English Opera Group. He wrote ''The Rape of Lucretia'' ([[1946]]) and ''Albert Herring'' ([[1947]]). In [[1948]] the group helped to start a music festival in Aldeburgh. Benjamin Britten spent the rest of his life mainly working on music which was to be performed at the Aldeburgh Festival. He composed some of his greatest works for the festival, and he took part in the performances as conductor and pianist. ===The 1950s=== One of Britten’s most popular pieces of music for amateurs including [[children]] was ''[[Noye’s Fludde]]'' ([[1957]]). He wrote three “church parables”. His large operas include ''Billy Budd'' ([[1951]]) which was soon produced in [[Royal Opera House|Covent Garden]]. In [[June]] [[1953]] he wrote ''Gloriana'', an opera about [[Elizabeth I of England|Queen Elizabeth I]], written for the [[coronation]] celebrations of [[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Elizabeth II]].

When he travelled with Peter Pears to the Far East he was influenced by the music of [[Bali]] and he composed a [[ballet]] called ''The Prince of the Pagodas'', performed in Covent Garden in 1957. Another great work inspired by the East was the parable ''Curlew River'' (1964). The opera ''A Midsummer Night’s Dream'' was written for the Aldeburgh Festival in [[1960]]. In 1962 he wrote the ''War Requiem'' to celebrate the new Coventry Cathedral. This is one of the greatest musical works of the [[20th century]]. ==His last years== In [[1961]] he became friends with the great [[Russia]]n [[violoncello|cellist]] [[Mstislav Rostropovich]]. He composed a ''Cello Sonata'' and a ''Cello Symphony'' ([[1963]]) (a kind of cello [[concerto]]), as well as three [[suite]]s for solo cello. He travelled with Pears to the [[Soviet Union]].

In [[1967]] the Aldeburgh Festival had a new [[concert hall]], the [[Snape Maltings|Maltings at Snape]]. His next opera was ''Owen Wingrave'' ([[1970]])), written for [[television]] but soon produced in Covent Garden. In June [[1973]] Britten produced another great opera ''Death in Venice''. The main character, called Aschenbach, was perhaps the best music he ever wrote for Peter Pears. It was performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, but Britten was ill by this time and unable to be at the performance. His [[heart]] condition made it impossible to work on any more large works, but he still wrote some [[harp]] music for the harpist Ossian Ellis, a song called ''Phaedra'' for [[Janet Baker]], and a ''Third String Quartet''. He died in Aldeburgh on [[4 December]] 1976. Britten received many honours both in Britain and in other countries.

He became a [[Companion of Honour]] in [[1952]] a member of the [[Order of Merit]] in [[1965]] and, in the year he died, he was the first [[musician]] ever to receive a life peer (the title Lord Britten). ==His music== Britten’s early works were often written for instruments. His ''Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge'' ([[1937]]) for [[string orchestra]] is a very popular work today. He often borrowed and reinvented themes by other composers (this is called “parody” technique). During his last years he again gave much attention to instrumental music, mainly chamber music. After he met Peter Pears much of his music was [[vocal]]. This includes more than 100 songs, a number of operas, chamber operas as well as three works for tenor solo and orchestra: ''Les Illuminations'', the ''Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings'' and the ''Nocturne''. His songs are often grouped in [[song cycle|cycles]]. He also wrote many folksong settings.

These were very popular as [[encore (concert)|encore]] pieces when he [[accompaniment (music)|accompanied]] Peter Pears in song [[recital]]s. Britten wrote music for choirs, including ''Hymn to St Cecilia'' (Britten was proud of having been born on [[St Cecilia]]’s day: 22 November). The ''War Requiem'' is his greatest work which combines writing for choir and orchestra. It describes the horrors of war (Britten had refused to fight in [[World War II]]). He wrote a lot of work for children. There are even parts for children in some of his grand operas, e.g. ''Peter Grimes'', ''Turn of the Screw'' and ''Owen Wingrave''. He even wrote an opera in which all the main parts are sung by children: ''The Little Sweep'' ([[1949]]). Many of his great operatic roles, from Peter Grimes to Aschenbach in ''Death in Venice'', deal with the theme of the outsider, the person who does not quite fit into society, or who is misunderstood.

Britten’s [[gay]] character (which was something that was never discussed in his lifetime) may have something to do with this. He also knew what it was like to be an outsider when he tried to live in the United States, and his refusal to fight in the war may have distanced him from some people. The Aldeburgh Festival at the Maltings in Snape (a village near Aldeburgh) continue to be a focus for Britten’s music. Every year the Brittens-Pears School of Music organizes lessons and performance opportunities for young musicians. A series of “Prom” concerts is held there every year in August. {{BD|1913|1976|Britten,Benjamin}} Saint Nicholas, cantata for tenor,… | Details | AllMusic google+ Description by Chris Boyes Benjamin Britten 's cantata, Saint Nicholas (1948), is a unique composition blending elements of church music and elements of opera and the theater. Saint Nicholas was composed for a commission from Lancing College in Sussex for its 100th anniversary. Peter Pears , the famous tenor and longtime companion of Britten 's, attended school at Lancing College.

The music was composed during the winter of 1947, and the full score was completed on May 31, 1948. The cantata was actually premiered, though, at the first Aldeburgh Festival in June 1948, with approval from Lancing College, of course. Musical critics were asked to withhold comment on the piece until the performance at the college, July 24, 1948. The libretto, based on the life of Saint Nicholas, the fourth-century Bishop of Myra, was written by Eric Crozier . Along with Pears , Crozier founded the English Opera Group in 1946. Crozier had a productive partnership with Britten through his operas. He was the original producer of Peter Grimes (1945) and The Rape of Lucretia (1946). Crozier wrote his first libretto for Britten for the opera, Albert Herring (1947). The libretto for Saint Nicholas was the next collaboration between the pair, followed by The Little Sweep (1949), the opera for children.

A very interesting aspect of Saint Nicholas is the performing force for which the piece is written. The cantata is for tenor solo, chorus, women's semi-chorus, four boy singers, strings, piano duet, percussion, and organ. Britten faced the unusual challenge of composing for both professional and amateur musicians in the same piece and making the parts mesh. The vocal parts are all written so that amateur musicians can adequately present them. Saint Nicholas even goes so far as to include the audience in the singing of hymns. Britten felt that he was part of the community, having an important role as composer, and that all people should be able to take part in music. The cantata is in nine sections, each relaying a different part of the life of Saint Nicholas. The birth of Nicholas is the first section, displayed by extremely simple, unassuming music. An important moment is when the role of Nicholas is passed from one of the boy singers to the tenor soloist, signifying his coming of age. Nicholas performs a miracle by reviving a group of boys, and travels to Palestine on stormy waters. The last section is the death of Nicholas.

Parts/Movements Nicolas devotes himself to God He journeys to Palestine Nicolas comes to Myra and is chosen Bishop Nicolas from Prison Nicolas and the Pickled Boys His Piety and Marvellous Works The Death of Nicolas

Question: Which tenor created the title roles in Benjamin Britten's operas 'Peter Grimes' and 'Albert Herring'?
Answer: Peter Pears