Britten, (Edward) Benjamin

(b Lowestoft, 22 Nov 1913; d Aldeburgh, 4 Dec 1976). English

composer, conductor and pianist. He and his contemporary Michael
Tippett are among several pairs of composers who dominated
English art music in the 20th century. Of their music, Britten’s early on
achieved, and has maintained, wider international circulation. An
exceedingly practical and resourceful musician, Britten worked with
increasing determination to recreate the role of leading national
composer held during much of his own life by Vaughan Williams, from
whom he consciously distanced himself. Notable among his musical
and professional achievements are the revival of English opera,
initiated by the success of Peter Grimes in 1945; the building of
institutions to ensure the continuing viability of musical drama; and
outreach to a wider audience, particularly children, in an effort to
increase national musical literacy and awareness. Equally important
in this was his remaining accessible as a composer, rejecting the
modernist ideology of evolution towards a ‘necessary’ obscurity and
developing a distinctive tonal language that allowed amateurs and
professionals alike to love his work and to enjoy performing and
listening to it. Above all, he imbued his works with his own personal
concerns, some of them hidden, principally those having to do with
his love of men and boys, some more public, like his fiercely held
pacifist beliefs, in ways that allowed people to sense the passion and
conviction behind them even if unaware of their full implication. He
also performed a fascinating, as well as problematic, assimilation of
(or rapprochement with) the artistic spoils of the East, attempting an
unusual integration of various non-Western musical traditions with his
own increasingly linear style.
1. Childhood, adolescence, 1913–30.
2. College and the profession, 1930–39.
3. North America, 1939–42.
4. Return to England, 1942–50.
5. Success and authority, 1951–5.
6. Transition and triumph, 1955–62.
7. Further travels, 1963–9.
8. Final testaments, 1970–76.
9. Reception, influence, significance.
WORKS
ARRANGEMENTS BY BRITTEN
ARRANGEMENTS BY OTHERS OF BRITTEN WORKS
WRITINGS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PHILIP BRETT (text), JENNIFER DOCTOR, JUDITH LeGROVE,
PAUL BANKS (works), JUDITH LeGROVE (bibliography)
Britten, Benjamin
1. Childhood, adolescence, 1913–30.
Britten was the youngest of four children born into a middle-class
family in Lowestoft, on the Suffolk coast. The family house was a
substantial villa overlooking the sea. His father, a dentist, appears to
have been a bit severe, even ‘hard’, and not a contributor to the
family's extensive musical life, though charming and supportive in
letters to his son. Benjamin received encouragement from his mother
Edith, herself a singer and pianist. She was determined that he
should succeed and controlled his life rigorously until his death in
1937. She was clearly the centre of his emotional world. The
coincidence of his birthday with St Cecilia's day must have seemed a
good omen for her ambitious dream of his becoming ‘the fourth B’:
like many aspects of the composer's childhood, it has been
celebrated in Britten lore and literature. An early attempt at play
writing and fervent exploration of the piano as well as a substantial
number of compositions written before he was ten have been taken to
suggest an almost Mozartian precocity in his otherwise standard
progress to preparatory school, a small local day school which he
entered at eight.
At school, he appears to have diverted any adult disapproval and
schoolboy bullying occasioned by his music and sensitive nature by
proficiency at sports (he was a keen cricketer) and a certain
toughness. He had piano lessons with Edith Astle, passing the
Associated Board Grade 8 at 13, and began viola lessons at ten with
Audrey Alston, who encouraged him to attend concerts in Norwich. It
was through her he met the composer Frank Bridge. Mrs Britten had
failed in attempts to draw wider attention to the prolific output of her
son, who at 14 had 100 opus numbers to his credit (several have
been published, mostly since his death; see Mark in Cooke, D1999).
But Bridge was impressed, and persuaded Britten's parents to allow
him to travel to London for composition lessons. These may have
injured his ego, but they also helped Britten to introduce a certain
rigour into his composition. The cardinal principles of Bridge’s
teaching were ‘that you should find yourself and be true to what you
found. The other … was his scrupulous attention to good technique’
(Britten, Sunday Telegraph, 17 Nov 1963). The String Quartet in F,
completed in April 1928, is among the first substantial works written
under Bridge, whose influence is also evident in a song cycle with
orchestra, Quatre chansons françaises, composed that summer for
the older Brittens’ 27th wedding anniversary. These settings of Hugo
and Verlaine allude to Wagner filtered through Gallic gestures, but the
diatonic nursery-like tune for the sad boy with the consumptive
mother in L'enfance is entirely characteristic.
In September 1928 Britten entered Gresham's, a public school at Holt
in north Norfolk. This was a difficult and belittling experience, for the
music master disparaged his composition, and the bullying (of other
boys, not himself) outraged his always incendiary sense of justice. He
felt keenly his first separation from home. One outlet was intensely
passionate letters to his mother, another talk of suicide in his diary,
yet another lapsing into psychosomatic illness, an involuntary defence
that continued as a safety valve throughout his life. The music master
eventually came round, at least to the extent of performing his
Bagatelle for violin, viola and piano in a school concert in March
1930. But the family allowed him to leave after two years when he
unexpectedly passed his School Certificate in 1930.
The lessons with Bridge continued to stimulate and direct his need to
compose. The single-movement Rhapsody for string quartet of March
1929 looks forward to the two Phantasy compositions of the early
1930s. The following year came the Quartettino, with its
conscientious if garrulous motivic working out of a five-note motto;
and there were several works featuring the viola, including a solo
piece (published posthumously as Elegy), written just after Britten left
Gresham's and perhaps hinting at his unhappiness there. It was
followed by two sketches (published posthumously as Two Portraits),
the first a vigorous movement for strings depicting his school friend
David Layton (whom Britten described in his diary as ‘clean, healthy
thinking & balanced’, Carpenter, C1992, p.75) and the second entitled
‘E.B.B.’, with solo viola playing a melancholic folklike tune, evidently a
self-portrait. The well-known Hymn to the Virgin, composed during his
last term at Gresham's, was long one of the two earliest compositions
in his published catalogue of works, together with the setting of Hilaire
Belloc's The Birds composed a year earlier.
Britten, Benjamin
2. College and the profession, 1930–39.
The Birds, A Wealden Trio (a carol for women's voices) and several
instrumental pieces had been sent off as part of a successful
application for a scholarship to the RCM. Although this was an
improvement over Gresham's, Britten did not in later years conceal
his dismay at the ‘amateurish and folksy’ atmosphere he encountered
among the students. Arthur Benjamin was his piano teacher, and he
went to John Ireland for composition lessons, though Bridge
remained more influential. Britten seems to have aroused
defensiveness (and perhaps seductiveness) in the erratic Ireland, and
the lessons have often been portrayed as a dismal failure. Later,
Britten admitted to Joseph Cooper that ‘Ireland nursed me very gently
through a very, very difficult musical adolescence’ (Letters from a
Life, A1991, p.147).
Living in London, however, gave the young composer the opportunity
to widen his knowledge of the repertory. Although Bridge had steered
his interests in the direction of modernism (he would not have
encountered Schoenberg at the RCM, as Henry Boys later noted:
Letters, 397), the young Britten was still in love with Beethoven and
Brahms during his early years there and showed little of his later
hostility to the English ‘pastoral school’. His diary entries from
January 1931, however, chronicle a fascinating array of performances
and reactions to them: he ‘could not make head or tail’ of
Schoenberg's Erwartung; found Stravinsky's Rite of Spring
‘bewildering & terrifying’ but his Petrushka ‘an inspiration from
beginning to end’; and the Symphony of Psalms quickly became a
classic for Britten. Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen was ‘a
lesson to all the Elgars & Strausses in the world’ – Mahler was of
course to become a major influence on his orchestral technique and
sense of compositional irony, and in 1943 he wrote about the Fourth
Symphony that ‘I have almost more affection for that piece than for
any I know’. Britten found himself ‘absolutely incapable of enjoying
Elgar, for more than 2 minutes’. He later told Walton that hearing his
Viola Concerto and overture Portsmouth Point at that time ‘was a
great turning point in my musical life … you showed me the way of
being relaxed and fresh, & intensely personal & yet still with the terms
of reference which I had to have’. Many of the observations have to
do with individual performers, not just conductors and soloists, but
also players in the orchestra. After a performance by the Berlin PO
under Furtwängler in 1932 he wrote: ‘F's readings were exaggerated
& sentimentalised (esp. so in last item [Tchaikovsky's Symphony
no.6] – no wonder a member of the audience was sick!! The orch, is a
magnificent body, tho’ slightly off colour to-day (e.g. wind intonation,
1st clar. & 1st Horn) Strings are marvellous. Timpanist great.
Marvellous ensemble and discipline’.
By 1933 his attitudes were clarifying. From 3 March dates his
comment on ‘two brilliant folk-song arrangements of Percy Grainger
… knocking all the V. Williams and R.O. Morris arrangements into a
cocked-hat’. Early in 1935 he complained to the composer Grace
Williams about the ‘“pi” and artificial mysticism combined with …
technical incompetence’ in Vaughan Williams's Five Mystical Songs,
and later in the year he lamented to Marjorie Fass, a quaint intimate
of the Bridges, the news of Berg's death: ‘The real musicians are so
few & far between, arn't they? Apart from the Bergs, Stravinskys,
Schönbergs & Bridges one is a bit stumped for names, isn't one?
Markievitch may be – but personally I feel that he's not got there yet.
Shostakovitch – perhaps – possibly’. In October 1936 Britten
condemned the Sibelius in Moeran's G minor Symphony: ‘This is
going to be almost as bad as the Brahms influence on English music I
fear’. By 1952 Britten admitted that ‘I play through all his [Brahms's]
music every so often to see if I am right about him; I usually find that I
underestimated last time how bad it was!’. That quotation comes from
the frankly canonizing anthology edited by Donald Mitchell and Hans
Keller in which Lord Harewood presented what is tantamount to an
official lineage: Monteverdi, Purcell, Bach, Gluck, Mozart, Weber,
Schubert, Verdi, Mahler, ‘even Tchaikovsky, if he is played in a
restrained, though vital way’, Berg and Stravinsky.
At the end of the second year at the RCM Britten won the Cobbett
Chamber Music Prize with his Phantasy in F minor for string quintet. It
received its first professional performance at a Macnaghten-Lemare
concert in 1932 together with three two-part songs on poems of de la
Mare (his first published works). The Phantasy is more adventurous
and focussed than the String Quartet in D of the first year and shows
a tug of war between Ireland, who appears to have been pushing
Britten to the vocal-pastoral version of Englishness (he wrote mainly
vocal music during his first year with Ireland), and Bridge.
More remarkable is the Sinfonietta, his op.1, written in three weeks
during summer 1932 and first performed at another Macnaghten-
Lemare concert in January 1933, with Britten himself conducting it at
the RCM in March (the Mendelssohn prize for which it was submitted
went to another student, though Britten received a consolatory £50).
Its opening A–B dissonance and adventurous scoring aggressively
advertises an allegiance to European modernism, and even when it
lapses into English rhapsodic lyricism in the slow movement the
tautness of the ensuing violin duo rescues it from any debility. The
debt to Schoenberg's first Kammersymphonie (pointed out by Erwin
Stein in Mitchell and Keller, D1952), ultimately extends perhaps to the
manner of thematic derivation that Peter Evans has argued as central
to Britten's technique. The careful working out of themes and
contrasts also dominates the Phantasy Quartet for oboe and strings,
also written in 1932, and first performed in August 1933 on the BBC.
As remarkable as either is an ambitious Double Concerto in B minor
for violin and viola begun in May 1932 and interrupted for the
composition of the Sinfonietta. It shares features with op.1, such as
the three-movement plan, the rhapsodic middle movement leading
directly into the tarantella-like finale. Though perhaps less self-
consciously modern, with its virtuoso solo writing, it is longer than the
Sinfonietta and equally well sustained and argued. (It has been
realized from Britten's annotated composition sketch, his customary
original short score written in pencil.)
In December 1932 Britten graduated and garnered a £100 travel
grant. He returned to Lowestoft after a further Macnaghten-Lemare
concert which included the unfinished quartet Alla quartetto serioso:
‘Go play, boy, play’. He intended to use the money to go to study with
Berg, but his parents, to whom the RCM authorities had suggested
that Berg was in some way ‘immoral’ and ‘not a good influence’,
scotched the plan.
So he stayed at home, riffling through his voluminous juvenilia for
material for his Simple Symphony and getting the first performance
on the BBC of A Boy was Born, an ambitious set of choral variations
in which his hard-won instrumental technique was problematically
assigned to voices. Even here, though, the unusual juxtaposition of
an accompanimental texture built on the ‘snow on snow’ image in
Christina Rossetti's ‘In the bleak midwinter’ and the regular strophes
of the Corpus Christi carol sung by a boys' chorus is characteristic of
later Britten. In March 1934 he visited Florence for a performance of
his Phantasy oboe quartet at the ISCM festival, which brought him to
the notice of the international new music community. Later in the year
came the Te Deum in C and the Jubilate Deo in E for St Mark's,
North Audley Street, London, whose choir furnished the boys for the
BBC performance of A Boy was Born. Apart from his father's death in
April 1934, things were beginning to turn out well for Britten's 21st
birthday: the BBC performed the Sinfonietta; OUP decided to publish
more works (Boosey & Hawkes were to step in barely a year later
with an exclusive contract and, slightly later, a regular stipend); and
he finally visited Vienna – though with his mother as chaperone and
without meeting Berg – where he began work on the Suite for violin
and piano.
At this point Britten started job hunting, and in May 1935 found ideal
employment under Albert Cavalcanti in John Grierson's General Post
Office Film Unit, working on the documentary The King's Stamp. It
offered the challenge of writing to order at high speed, devising
sound-effects and matching aspects of film technique that had a
lasting impact on his composition. More important, it gave him entry
into an artistic and intellectual world as liberating for him as the
Diaghilev circle had been for Stravinsky. At its centre, and the most
influential of all Britten's close friends, was the poet W.H. Auden, who
quickly gave him the vacant post of composer in his ‘gang’ of artists
and writers (Carpenter, 69). It included those associated with the
GPO Film Unit, including Christopher Isherwood, and with the
experimental Group Theatre, for which Britten wrote incidental music,
including that to the Auden-Isherwood The Ascent of F6. Also
involved in the GPO films was Montagu Slater, eventually the librettist
of Peter Grimes, for several of whose plays Britten wrote the music.
Films that involved an Auden-Britten collaboration, such as Coal Face
and Night Mail, though celebrated, are only a small proportion of his
projects, which included Lotte Reiniger's film about the Post Office
Savings Bank, The Tocher, from which in 1935–6 was drawn material
for the choral and orchestral suites based on Rossini. Britten's facility
in this field led to work with other film companies and to an even
longer association with the BBC (1937–47) on feature programmes
and radio dramas whose music is only now beginning to reveal latent
trends as well as a wide range of parody. If the clever cabaret songs
(some to words by Auden) written for Hedli Andersen cause no
surprise, the pseudo-Bach arias in one of R. Ellis Roberts's
pretentious BBC religious features, ‘The World of the Spirit’, show
how easily Britten could have fallen into a more conventional ‘neo-
classicism’.
Britten's political awakening was much accelerated by his fresh
circumstances. Dazzled by his new friends, he embraced their values
and politics, which allowed him the ‘outsider’ status and rebellious
stance he needed to jettison the safety of Lowestoft: he must have
enjoyed, and been pained by, arguing about communism with his
mother and refusing to go to Communion with her, as well as the
slight disapproval of the ‘Brits’ (the Bridge ménage à trois) towards
his clever new friends. Politics went hand in hand with a growing
awareness of his sexuality and its social implications. He had carried
off the asexual British schoolboy role rather well – for one thing, it
concealed the obscure wounds also revealed in the stories, probably
fictional, of early sexual abuse from a schoolmaster and his father's
liking for boys, told to Eric Crozier and Myfanwy Piper (Carpenter,
19–25) – but his undoubted desire for ‘his own kind’ was beginning to
break through. Many of his new friends, including Auden, who
imparted a carpe diem message and undoubtedly lectured Britten on
the topic, were almost openly gay, at least among themselves, and he
must have realized that the left-wing, pacifist, agnostic and queer
model they offered him provided a suitable identity niche in which to
lodge his particular personal concerns, though few of his friends
believed that he was ever entirely comfortable with it.
The immediate result of the friendship with Auden, apart from the
flood of film scores, was a large orchestral song cycle on human
relations to animals that would both attack the fox-hunting set at
home and act as a parable for the worsening political situation
abroad. Early in 1936, Auden chose three poems and wrote a
prologue and an epilogue. In April Britten attended the ISCM festival
in Barcelona, where he played his Suite with Antonio Brosa and
heard Berg's Violin Concerto. The important new work, Our Hunting
Fathers, went forward during the summer, and predictably met some
disapproval at its first performance at the Norwich Triennial Festival in
September. Later even Britten himself treated it as something of an
embarrassment. Perhaps Auden's voice ventriloquizes too insistently;
yet it is Britten's first major work to encapsulate a social or political
issue in a way calculated to challenge received opinion because of
the unusual combination of high drama and biting irony in an up-to-
date eclectic score brilliantly orchestrated. If this way of thinking about
music and art were all that Auden gave Britten, it was ultimately the
gift that turned him into a composer of lasting impact. On this aspect
of his work, Britten later wrote (in connection with Sinfonia da
Requiem), ‘I don't believe you can express social or political or
economic theories in music, but by coupling new music with certain
well known musical phrases, I think it's possible to get over certain
ideas’ (Letters, 705).
In January 1937, Edith Britten died unexpectedly after on illness.
Britten was both devastated and, at a level just beginning to find
expression in his diary, relieved to be free from her controlling
influence. An immediate result was an exploration of those
submerged sexual feelings that Auden, Isherwood and others had
attempted to urge to the surface. On 6 March, at lunch with the
conductor Trevor Harvey, he met a tenor, named in his diary as ‘Peter
Piers’. A year later they were sharing a London flat. For some time
there was a parental element in Pears's relation to Britten preventing
a complete union, which only came about as a result of happy sexual
experiences early in their time in North America (1939–42). It was a
fortunate match for Britten on account of his real need for protection.
On a cultural level it was unusual for being between two individuals of
the same race, class and age, each with commensurable and
connected talents that led to their spurring one another on.
In 1937 and for some time after, Britten was still trying out potential
liaisons of a similar kind. But much of his own affectional and sexual
imagination he invested in people younger than himself. In summer
1938 he renewed contact with Wulff Scherchen (son of the conductor
Hermann), who had made an impression four years earlier in
Florence. Scherchen, now 18, responded with alacrity and an affair
appears to have ensued. Piers Dunkerley, a slightly younger boy
whom Britten had met in 1934 while visiting his old preparatory
school, brought out a typically parental, advisory streak in the
composer: ‘I am very fond of him – thank heaven not sexually’, he
wrote, ‘but I am getting to such a condition that I am lost without some
children (of either sex) near me’ (Letters, 403).
So it was prove: the ease with which he could enter into children's
worlds, as well as the precipitous moments in his encounters with
young boys, are outlined in some detail by Carpenter (especially 341–
54). It seems that Britten was captured at many levels by the notion of
return to a perfect state symbolized by childhood – it has been called
‘innocence’, but a more useful concept is that of the ‘pre-symbolic’
explored by disciples of Lacan or of ‘nescience’ in the words of
Hardy's poem ‘A time there was’ (set in Winter Words). The entry into
the ‘symbolic’ (language) and the patriarchal order make this state
impossible to recapture, and much of Britten's music is about the
difficulty and pain of separation from it, but it is arguably his principal
fount of non-verbal inspiration. Lack produces desire (in the already
lost adult); and the sexual element that occasionally obtrudes, and
can never satisfy or be satisfied, is a symptom of that lack. What
Britten discovered – possibly aided by his constant invocation of pre-
symbolic elements such as the mother's voice (many noted that
Pears's voice strongly resembled his mother's) – was a way of
accessing powerful messages from beyond the pre-verbal barrier,
even perhaps occasionally of breaking that barrier, at a time when
musical modernism was setting up barbed wire fences everywhere
and driving ‘art’ music increasingly into the cold unfeeling camps of
masculine intellect and order.
Meanwhile, the stream of film and incidental music was augmented
by some important events, such as the amazingly rapid completion of
a major new work, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, for the
Boyd Neel Orchestra to play at the Salzburg Festival in August 1937.
With its penetrating and unexpected parodies of genres and styles,
and magnificent fugue and finale containing other references to
Bridge's music, this work became for a time a standard against which
other Britten works were judged. His adopting the congenial variation
form had been foreshadowed in the slight Temporal Variations for
oboe and piano written and performed at the end of 1936 and
abandoned – the Times critic's reaction was to become a standard
refrain: ‘It is the kind of music that is commonly called “clever”’
(Letters, 784). The same might have been said of the Auden song
collection that followed the Bridge Variations. On this Island open with
a Baroque flourish and Purcellian melisma that no sensitive English
songwriter of the previous 50 years would have countenanced, and
ends with a throwaway dance-hall tune to match Auden's parody of
bourgeois materialistic existence. December 1937 saw the
completion of the suite of Catalan dances, Mont Juic, written in
collaboration with Lennox Berkeley in memory of Peter Burra, a close
friend of Pears's. Berkeley was to move to the Old Mill at Snape that
Britten had bought using his inheritance from his mother.
The following year brought an unusual triumph when on 18 August
1938 Britten played the first performance of his Piano Concerto, a
display piece dedicated to Berkeley, at the BBC Promenade Concerts
under Sir Henry Wood. An eloquent passacaglia-style Impromptu
supplanted the weakest movement, the cheekier Recitative and Aria,
in a 1945 revision. But the original slow movement belongs more fully
to a work that is as much a milestone as the Bridge variations. After
the responsible, serious instrumental pieces of the 1930s, this display
of high spirits touched with sentimentality indicates a willingness to
abandon a too-limiting decorum and give in to sensuality. The
reference in this simply joyous, often almost campy work is Poulenc
rather than Shostakovich, Prokofiev or any more approved master.
No wonder Britten's friends and chief defenders, as well as the
avuncular journalistic critics, deplored it: according to Marjorie Fass,
the Brits ‘all utterly agree with the drastic criticisms of The Times &
Sunday Times & Observer & Telegraph’ (Letters, 577), and even
Peter Evans refers to ‘the irritatingly smart vulgarity of the final march’
(D1979, p.47). Britten himself could not ‘see anything problematic
about the work. I should have thought that it is the kind of music that
either one liked or disliked – it is so simple’ (Letters, 576).
After this, apart from incidental music for a big Basil Dean production
(J.B. Priestley's Johnson over Jordan) opening in February 1939,
there were several parting salutes to Britten's radical affiliations:
incidental music for the Group Theatre production of the Auden-
Isherwood play On the Frontier, and a partsong Advance Democracy,
written for the Co-operative movement to words by the editor of Left
Review, Randall Swingler (both in November, 1938); and in
February–March 1939 an orchestral cantata, Ballad of Heroes, to
words by Swingler and Auden in commemoration of the British
members of the International Brigade who fell fighting the fascists in
Spain.
Britten, Benjamin
3. North America, 1939–42.
Britten left for North America in April 1939. There were many reasons
for him to try his hand abroad: the growing cloud of fascism over
Europe; the plight of pacifists in the war that seemed inevitable; the
departure of Auden and Isherwood in January; the frantic pace of his
career and the need to determine his own direction; discouragement
from patronizing or hostile reviews (to which the thin-skinned
composer had already begun to show sensitivity); the opening up of
new opportunities; and the curtailing of difficult emotional and sexual
situations from which, from his letters, he appears to be trying to
rescue himself – with Scherchen, Berkeley and perhaps others. The
way was now clear for a commitment to Pears, and the union of the
two men took place early in the visit, which began in Canada. After a
trip to New York, they visited Copland at Woodstock in the Catskills
and rented accommodation there for part of the summer. They then
went to Amityville on Long Island to visit Pears's friend Elizabeth
Mayer, who accommodated them and also provided a surrogate
mother for Britten.
The music of Britten's American years reflects his emotional turmoil.
Young Apollo, written in summer 1939 for a CBC broadcast with the
composer as piano soloist, was inspired not only by the last lines of
Keats's Hyperion but also by Scherchen; originally designated op.16,
it was withdrawn and not heard again until after Britten died, either
because of the personal association, or (more likely) because of its
dependence, musically, on an elaboration of the A major triad, a kind
of musical minimalism that was not the order of the day. Les
illuminations, completed in October, presents a fuller and more
complicated picture of (homo)eroticism, focussed on the inevitably
confused subject who ‘alone holds the key to this savage parade’. It
incorporates a typical double focus on the major triads on B and E
which is used not only to sustain ambiguity over long musical
stretches but also (as in the opening fanfare) to express
simultaneously exhilaration and confusion. Whatever one makes of
the dedication of Antique to Scherchen and Being Beauteous to
Pears, or of the direct sexual imagery with which the latter ends, or
indeed the cruising depicted in Parade (its theme taken from the
abortive Go play, boy, play suite), it is difficult to avoid the conclusion
that the piece as a whole encapsulates a certain hard-won victory
over the distancing effect from the purely corporeal to which British
middle-class education was dedicated. It joyously and unashamedly
reclaims music as an immediate, physical act. It is ironic that the
decade of technical struggle towards professionalism should have led
to the moment at the end of Phrase, after the transfigured
exclamation ‘et je danse’ on a top B , where the string orchestra turns
into a giant guitar to accompany a delirious diatonic melody
supported by root position major chords. Copland – surely the ‘older
American composer’ who said of Antique that he ‘did not know how
Britten dared to write the melody’ – was shocked; even Pears labelled
this incandescent work ‘a trifle too pat’ (Mitchell and Keller, D1952,
pp.65–6): it is difficult to trust erotic joy on hearing it (at least, when it
is unclouded by chromaticism), and musical solutions of personal
problems are suspect. It is for reasons like this that one can see the
Britten of this period castigated by friends and enemies alike for being
too ‘clever’ and why even Copland ‘picked certain things in Ben to
pieces’, as Colin McPhee put it, adding that ‘he must search deeper
for a more personal, more interesting idiom … good craftsmanship is
not enough’ (Brett, E1994, p.237).
The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, completed almost exactly a year
later and written for and dedicated to Pears, can be taken as a further
gesture towards this reclamation of the physical (as before, through
another language and culture) and the official inception of their
partnership. Among the other works, Sinfonia da Requiem,
‘combining my ideas on war & a memorial for Mum & Pop’ (Letters,
803), is a culmination of much of the earlier symphonically conceived
music and is characteristic of later works in combining personal and
social concerns. The Japanese government, who paid for it, would
not perform it at the festival celebrating their empire's 2600th
anniversary; one can only wonder at Britten's naivety in accepting the
commission.
1939–42 was a prolific period, for Britten also completed the Violin
Concerto in the summer and autumn of 1939 when Britain declared
war. The work opens in a suitably foreboding manner and ends in
melancholy and nostalgia – so different from the ebullient Piano
Concerto of little more than a year earlier. There was also the rather
homespun Canadian Carnival, a Sonatina romantica to wean a keen
amateur pianist host from Weber, Diversions for piano (left hand) and
orchestra, two two-piano works, a second Rossini suite, to be used by
Balanchine in a work for Lincoln Kirstein's American Ballet Company,
String Quartet no.1 and the eccentric-sounding Scottish Ballad for two
pianos and orchestra. Among works completed early in the visit,
besides the Violin Concerto and incidental music for a further BBC
play, was a setting of seven poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins,
intended for Pears's Round Table Singers, but abandoned. In late
1941 came another occasional piece (now called An American
Overture) heavily indebted to Copland and written for Rodzinski and
the Cleveland Orchestra; when it came to light in the early 1970s,
Britten commented that his ‘recollection of that time was of complete
incapacity to work; my only achievements being a few Folk-song
arrangements and some realisations of Henry Purcell’ (Letters, 985).
One important project of the American period, Paul Bunyan, was also
one of its most problematic, a patronizing attempt by W.H. Auden to
evoke the spirit of a nation not his own in which Britten was a
somewhat dazzled accomplice – he was vague about the nature of
the title role's manifestation and staging only six months before it
opened. A bruising response from ‘old stinker Virgil Thompson’ [sic]
and the other New York critics did not help matters. The work was
withdrawn and reinstated as op.17 only when Britten took it up near
the end of his life (a good overture, wisely abandoned as too long,
was subsequently orchestrated and published). The composition and
production of Bunyan involved Britten and Pears in exchanging the
luxury of the Mayer Long Island household for Auden's louche and
alcoholic lifestyle in a Brooklyn Heights villa; from this bohemian
atmosphere they fled soon after the production of Bunyan at
Columbia University in May 1941. They took up an invitation to stay
with the duo pianists Rae Robertson and his wife Ethel Bartlett at
Escondido in California (where the Scottish Ballad, dedicated to them,
was mostly written); there they came across the radio talk by E.M.
Forster printed in The Listener that began: ‘To talk about Crabbe is to
talk about England’. Dissatisfaction with American life had already
surfaced in Britten's letters (‘the country has all the faults of Europe
and none of its attractions’, he wrote to a friend: Letters, 797), as well
as in one of those illnesses that often signalled his dissociation from
his surroundings. Forster's article served as a catalyst to initiate the
next stage in Britten's progress.
The flight to North America had enabled Britten to find out more about
himself in general, to mature as an artist and person, and to find a
certain level of acceptance among others and, more important, in
himself about his sexual orientation (although many people recall
continuing signs of shame). It had also given him an opportunity to
reflect on his direction. The epiphany brought about by Forster's
article not only sent him and Pears to Crabbe for the extraordinary
subject of his first real opera but also may have given him the idea
that if he did return it should be with the intention of becoming the
central ‘classical music’ figure in Britain (as Copland was struggling to
do in the far more diffuse culture of the USA).
Whether or not this was a fully conscious process, Britten began to
define his relation to the British musical tradition during the American
years. There was, for example, the need to release aggression
towards it, palpable in the 1941 essay ‘England and the Folk-Art
Problem’, a statement so angry that it studiously avoids mentioning
Vaughan Williams or Holst; Parry and Elgar are projected as the
binary opposition haunting English composition, the one favouring
‘the amateur idea and … folk-art’, the other somewhat surprisingly
seen as emphasizing ‘the importance of technical efficiency and
[welcoming] any foreign influences that can be profitably assimilated’.
The authenticity of folksong is intelligently attacked, and composers'
dependence on it as raw material is deemed either unsatisfactory or
the sign of a need for discipline which the second rate cannot find in
themselves. Actual English folktunes are allowed a certain ‘quiet,
uneventful charm’ but ‘seldom have any striking rhythms or
memorable melodic features’. Yet the ambivalence, reflected in so
many aspects of his life, did not prevent Britten from making a
considerable investment in arranging them – ostensibly for himself
and Pears to perform, though as time went on and volume after
volume succeeded the first (printed in 1943) ulterior motives might be
suspected. They gave Britten the chance, for example, to declare his
independence from the ‘Pastoral School’ by conceiving the exercise
of arrangement very differently. Unlike Cecil Sharp and Vaughan
Williams, who assigned an idealized, essential artistic quality to the
melodies which their accompaniments were thought to reflect, Britten
recognized that the venue changed the genre and turned them in
effect into lieder or art-song, and proceeded brilliantly on that
premise. To see how far he got one should turn from the easy
seductiveness of The Salley Gardens and the psychological
perceptiveness of The Ash Grove to the exquisite and exhilarating
settings of Moore's Irish Melodies published in 1957.
Equally important in this redefinition of himself are Britten's
‘realizations’ of the music of Purcell and his contemporaries – the
Tudor composers (except for Dowland) were out of bounds because
of their adoption by Vaughan Williams and the pastoralists. Two song
arrangements date from at least 1939, several were done in the USA,
and a much larger number were prompted by the 1945 celebrations
of the 250th anniversary of Purcell's death. The choice was in tune
with Britten's aesthetic as an aspiring dramatic composer: he had
already adopted a rhetorical style far beyond the parameters of
contemporary English songwriters with their devotion to speech-
rhythm, and was later in the booklet accompanying Peter Grimes to
make a manifesto-like statement about restoring ‘to the musical
setting of the English language a brilliance, freedom and vitality that
have been curiously rare since the death of Purcell’ (Brett, E1983,
p.149). The results are not so easy to assess as the folksong
arrangements. Partly it is a matter of culture and epoch: ‘realization’,
prevalent up to the 1950s, became extinct in the light of
understanding of the appropriate delivery of 17th-century song. To
historically informed taste, Britten's contribution appears to vie for
attention with Purcell's melodies or declamatory gestures, and the
bifocal effect inevitably becomes distracting. Britten is at his best
when Purcell's music is at its strangest: Saul and the Witch at Endor,
for instance, is inspired in its use of piano sonorities to re-compose
the work. The character and extent of these pieces (which number
40, far greater than the demand for mere recital fodder) raise another
issue, however, about whether the process is more to do with
appropriation or competition than homage, not a simple musical act
enabling Purcell to be ‘heard’ but rather another Oedipal episode in
Britten’s complicated trajectory.
With a relation to indigenous and historical music more clearly
defined, one further element of the British tradition demanded
attention. As if to think of England were to think of choral music, on
the journey home Britten wrote two substantial pieces, the
unaccompanied Hymn to Saint Cecilia and A Ceremony of Carols for
boys' voices and harp. These pieces combine a secure technique and
an exquisite sound palette, a modernistic coolness in expression with
a plentiful supply of emotional intensity, a musical language
distinguished at once by its pronounced character as well as its
restraint: all the marks of a classicism that cannot easily be discerned
in earlier British music of the century.
Britten, Benjamin
4. Return to England, 1942–50.
Any bid for pre-eminence, as Britten must have realized on arriving
back in England in April 1942, was a matter not simply of matching
Vaughan Williams's achievement but of contributing something new
and powerful to British musical life. The choice was opera. Vaughan
Williams had been unsuccessful in this sphere and, further, no
English opera had made its way into the standard repertory. But the
risk of failure was greater, as Britten was aware. He still played
childlike superstitious games to bolster his confidence as a composer
(Carpenter, 239–40), and made comments like the one remembered
by Tippett, with whom Britten and Pears struck up a close friendship:
‘I am possibly an anachronism. I am a composer of opera, and that is
what I am going to be, throughout’ (Carpenter, 193–4).
Pears had worked on the scenario of Peter Grimes, the story that the
two had culled from Crabbe's The Borough after reading Forster's
article. It was an unlikely and unpromising tale of a rough fisherman
who beat and lost his apprentices, went mad and died. Isherwood,
who turned down the job of librettist, was ‘absolutely convinced that it
wouldn't work’ (Brett, E1983, p.36). But they persevered, turning
Grimes into a more sympathetic figure of ‘difference’, a
misunderstood dreamer. Montagu Slater, whom they now contacted,
further shaped the libretto in a way that uncannily connected the
private concerns of a couple of left-wing, pacifist lovers to public
concerns to which almost anyone could relate.
The author Colin MacInnes confided to his private diary in the late
1940s that ‘Grimes is the homosexual hero. The melancholy of the
opera is the melancholy of homosexuality’ (Tony Gould, Inside
Outsider: the Life and Times of Colin MacInnes, London, 1983, p.82).
Its theme of the individual persecuted by the community for no other
reason than his difference cried out to be interpreted in this way, but
could not then be publicly articulated. A more remarkable aspect of
the allegory, however, had to do with ‘internalization’, the classic form
of oppression. Those who do not have full status in society come to
believe the low opinion others have of them: Grimes's fate is
ultimately determined not simply by his isolation but by his
capitulation to Borough opinion at the climax of Act 2 scene i, a much
delayed, extremely powerful cadence on to B , the Borough's own
key. On striking his friend Ellen in response to her ‘We've failed!’,
Grimes takes up the offstage church congregation's ‘Amen’ in his ‘So
be it’, proceeding to the long-awaited full cadence with ‘and God have
mercy upon on me’ set to a motif that dominates the rest of the opera;
the four triadic chords that define its limits and the angry brass canon
it prompts both indicate that there can be no escape. Here Grimes
internalizes society's judgment of him and enters the self-destructive
cycle that inevitably concludes with his suicide. The two terrifying
manhunts may have served as catharsis for Britten's own fear of
persecution on returning to England as homosexual and pacifist and
intensified the social message about internalization. The remaining
problem, which apparently held up the opera for almost a year, was
how to combat society's tendency to pathologize deviant behaviour
such as Grimes's. To emphasize the social theme of the individual's
tragic internalization of community values, the references to a
domineering father in earlier versions of the libretto, for instance, had
to be erased. The result was a brilliant appeal, made more palpable
and convincing through music, to the alienation of every member of
the audience: ‘In each of us there is something of a Grimes’ (Keller, in
Brett, E1983, p.105).
It was a feat to get the audience to identify with an allegorical figure
(easily interpreted as ‘the homosexual’) and to locate the problem as
one of society's vicious treatment of difference. The opera also laid
bare the paranoid nature of society's scapegoating someone wrongly
felt to be threatening, and it questioned the operation of violence in
which everyone is brutalized, not merely aggressor and victim. It also
raised the issue of responsibility in the relation of individual and state
in modern democracies, brought to the fore by the focus on the
deviant as an ordinary working man. The authors' passionately held
views on these topics, realized in music of enormous persuasiveness,
led to success from the moment of the opera's first performance at
Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, on 7 June 1945 (see Opera , fig.27).
It was quickly taken up by other companies in Europe and the USA,
and in due course became one of the rare 20th-century operas to
enter the repertory.
Britten's actual return to England had been anticlimactic. Although the
tribunal he faced, as a conscientious objector, called him up for non-
combatant duties, he was allowed on appeal to go free. This was also
true of Pears. Their giving recitals all over the country for CEMA
probably counted in their favour, as did Britten's continuing work for
the BBC. Pears meanwhile branched out into opera and was taken
into the Sadler's Wells Opera Company; seeing him in this new
context evidently persuaded Britten that he should take the part of
Grimes, originally planned for a baritone. Through Pears, Britten met
such people as Eric Crozier, the staff producer who was to direct
Grimes, and Joan Cross, artistic director of Sadler's Wells, which led
to the company's giving the first performance.
There was a lull in Britten's flow of composition around this time,
owing partly to a serious attack of measles for which he was in
hospital and then off work in March and April 1943. Several projects
were abandoned, but during the months he was resting he
composed, at Snape, the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings. In this
work he invented his own kind of shadowed pastoralism, not the ideal
England of the folksong composers but a place in which the worm
finds the bud and a darker side of medieval experience is explored (in
the Lyke Wake Dirge); the high ostinato that is also the strophic vocal
line enabled a particularly fruitful orchestral dialogue to suggest
deeper levels to this poem. The Serenade was followed by the
Prelude and Fugue for strings, written for the tenth anniversary of the
Boyd Neel Orchestra, with a part for each of the 18 players in the
fugue. More important was a commission from a clerical visionary in
the arts, Walter Hussey, which afforded Britten the opportunity to set
lines from Jubilate Agno by the 18th-century poet Christopher Smart,
who himself had a persecution complex. At the heart of Rejoice in the
Lamb, framed by a Purcellian prelude and postlude and cheerful
choruses and solos, lies a chilling choral recitative rehearsing the
theme of oppression that was to boil over in Peter Grimes, and a
spiritual resolution (‘But he that was born of a Virgin shall deliver me’)
that looks forward to the very different scenario of The Rape of
Lucretia. The Serenade was dedicated to Edward Sackville-West, an
elegant new gay admirer who had helped with the choice of poems.
He was working on a radio version of The Odyssey called The
Rescue (broadcast in November 1943) for which Britten wrote
extensive incidental music. The year ended with a setting of The
Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard for a music festival
organized by a British soldier in a German prison camp. The delayed
composition of Peter Grimes began in 1944, which otherwise
produced only a Festival Te Deum and two carols for Sackville-West's
BBC programme ‘A Poet's Christmas’, one of them a setting of
Auden's ‘Shepherd's Carol’.
The success of Peter Grimes led to a fresh outburst of compositional
activity. The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, another cycle written for
Pears, much of it during illness, is among Britten's darkest works,
couched in a severely modernist musical language incorporating what
he had learnt from Purcell's declamatory style and (in the last song)
ground bass technique. He himself attributed its despairing and angry
mood to a visit to the Belsen camp where he and Yehudi Menuhin
played for survivors during a ten-day tour of Germany in July 1945
immediately preceding composition. Purcell is also a presence in two
other major non-operatic works: the third, final movement of the
String Quartet no.2, entitled ‘Chacony’, is built on statements of a
ground bass grouped in sets and separated by solo cadenzas for
three of the instruments. The first movement is among Britten's most
radical experiments with sonata form, both in the enormously
extended exposition and the condensed recapitulation, in which the
three successive phrases of the first theme are superimposed. He
wrote to Mary Behrend, who commissioned it, that ‘to my mind it is
the greatest advance I have yet made’. The third work, a set of
variations on a very good dance-tune by Purcell, came about as the
result of a film commission from Basil Wright (now with the Crown
Film Unit, the successor to the original GPO unit) for the Ministry of
Education. The film, with a commentary (by Slater) spoken stiffly by
Malcolm Sargent, now seems dated, but the clarity and directness of
Britten's score shines through in the concert version, entitled The
Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.
A revolt within Sadler's Wells (several singers refused to take part in a
recording of Peter Grimes) might have impeded further success in
opera. But Britten had already begun planning, in summer 1945, a
season at Dartington with an independent company giving opera on a
small scale. In the event, Crozier and Cross broke away from Sadler's
Wells, and Glyndebourne took over from Dartington. Crozier's
enthusiasm for a French troupe, La Compagnie des Quinze, provided
a model for the new Glyndebourne English Opera Company and led
to his translating one of their plays, André Obey's Le viol de Lucrèce.
Meanwhile, Britten had been in touch with the Rhodesian poet Ronald
Duncan – they had collaborated over a Pacifist March in 1936–7, he
had helped Britten change Slater's mad scene in Act 3 of Peter
Grimes, and Britten was writing music for his play This Way to the
Tomb in late 1945. Duncan put aside his planned libretto on
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and set to work on Obey's play,
preserving his narrators as Male and Female Chorus, to be sung by
Pears and Cross. The result is not without problems. Instead of
Slater's relatively workmanlike language, Britten was faced with an
overwritten verse drama of the kind that T.S. Eliot had made
fashionable. But the opera works well as a treatment of oppression,
with gender as the mark of difference. Like Grimes, Lucretia is a
victim. Roman society is also portrayed as corrupt and oppressive,
and she is raped by an Etruscan prince, Tarquinius, who embodies its
worst features. But there is nothing alienated about her. Whereas
Grimes, implicated in his apprentice's deaths, is musically
represented as a tarnished yet innocent victim of society, Lucretia is
truly innocent, a victim of a vicious patriarchal order. Equally a victim
of internalization, she is forced (in a manner familiar to rape victims)
to create her own guilt out of the aggressor's crime. This cruel act is
accomplished musically by the recall of his ‘Yet the linnet in your eyes
/ Lifts with desire’ during her ‘confession’. The introduction of a
specifically Christian perspective, especially in the conclusion, leads
to difficulties because, although a religion fully addressed to
victimization and sacrifice, it sees suicide as sin, not noble sacrifice. It
is easy enough to dispel these doubts, however, while listening to the
E major finale, another brilliant passacaglia; and the opera also
develops a distinctly Purcellian recitative style that matches the
Baroque quality of Duncan's lines. Its scoring and pacing, too, mark a
distinct advance over Peter Grimes.
In spite of a double cast of fine singers (one included as Lucretia the
radiant Kathleen Ferrier in her operatic début), The Rape of Lucretia
played to poor houses on tour after its Glyndebourne performance in
July 1946. Britten and his supporters now founded the English Opera
Group, independent of Glyndebourne. After Duncan's idea of a
version of Mansfield Park was rejected, Crozier wrote a libretto for
Albert Herring, moving Maupassant's short story Le rosier de
Madame Husson from the French provinces to an imaginary Suffolk
town, ‘Loxford’. Among its weaknesses are pert caricatures of, and
condescending attitude towards, provincial working-class people. But
the Oedipal subject matter touched an English nerve: the point of
Maupassant's story lies in the subsequent ruin and degradation of the
hero, not his mother-domination. One reason why the opera disturbs,
why it can have the effect of Mozartian or Shakespearean tears
behind laughter, is that it presents an intensified version of a
complicated situation between mothers and sons. The sinister,
obsessive nature of the music for Mrs Herring – one of the best of
Britten's many predatory women – and the true musical pathos of
Albert, as well as his rising anger in the important aria in Act 1 scene
iii, create a viable central comic situation, close enough to the truth to
hurt.
It is also notable that Albert does not ‘become a man’. He becomes
himself, in his own way, without having subscribed to society's pattern
of initiation: he returns without any trophy (the crumpled lost wreath
thrown into the audience at the end a suitable symbol of his virginity).
What Albert does sing in dismissing his mother and the rest of those
arrayed against him is a splendid new integration of ‘light music’ into
Britten's style, not simply the enjoyable pastiche of Paul Bunyan and
the cabaret songs. Those whom he confronts and confounds on his
return have just sung the Threnody, one of the most striking of
Britten's many vocal passacaglias, one that invokes Verdi more
obviously than Purcell, and that earlier critics often felt overbalanced
the work. It is easy to see why they might from purely burlesque
productions (like Frederick Ashton's original, from all accounts)
without suggesting the sinister potential in characters like Lady
Billows and Mrs Herring as well as their absurdity. It should also be
noted that once again the physical plays an important part. Sid and
Nancy's sexual appetites, portrayed in music of extraordinary
excitement and allure, are as powerful as their spiked lemonade (and
the Wagnerian reference that accompanies it) in enabling Albert to
find himself.
During the English Opera Group's 1947 summer tour of Albert Herring
and The Rape of Lucretia, Pears proposed the idea of an Aldeburgh
Festival. It was an inspired response to Britten's vulnerability,
personally as well as musically, to the kind of hostility he had
experienced in his early operatic ventures. The festival also had the
advantage of institutionally personifying him and what he stood for
when he and Pears were about to move into Crag House, in the
centre of the town. Moreover, besides benefiting from Britten's
abilities as an accompanist of the highest rank, it offered a further
outlet and focus for his other performing abilities (not to mention his
astute grasp of finances). With Albert Herring, he had for the first time
conducted one of his own operas. Apparently he never fully enjoyed
the role, yet he won the devotion of almost every musician who
performed under his direction and became a notable interpreter of
other composers' works. The London critics were pointedly not invited
to the opening, and many of them suspected its potential for
cliquishness and provinciality. But by virtue of his abilities and his
principles Britten drew to Aldeburgh the foremost international
musicians of the age, whether composers or performers, after forming
partnerships with them (such as his Schubert duet performances with
Richter or his recitals with Rostropovich) in such a way as figuratively
to invert the relation of country town to capital. The closeness of the
Aldeburgh family (or clique) was often, and sometimes brutally,
disturbed when members were suspected of giving less than their
best. To have a literal family to whom to attach himself was always a
prerequisite for Britten; having colleagues whom he trusted in a place
that he knew was an extension of that. Like all unhappy families, it
became increasingly unhappy in its own particular way and for a
variety of reasons (explored particularly by Carpenter, 319–21, 368–
70, 376–7, 520–29 and passim), including Britten's continuing
insecurity. But, it was a positive force in British music, and
encouraged Britten's work immensely.
A trio of joyful works followed in 1947, the first such outpouring since
the lull before the composition of Peter Grimes (1946 had seen
merely the Occasional Overture, commissioned to celebrate the
opening of the BBC Third Programme and later withdrawn by Britten,
and a slight organ work). The 17th-century cantata form exemplified
in Purcell's longer songs impressed Britten into adopting it for
Canticle I, a setting of Francis Quarles's poem ‘My beloved is mine’,
inspired by passages from The Song of Solomon. In contrast to this
serious and full-hearted work for his tenor, A Charm of Lullabies was
a pleasant cycle written for a favourite mezzo-soprano, Nancy Evans,
recently married to Eric Crozier. The third was a cantata for the
opening of the first Aldeburgh Festival on 5 June 1948, with an official
première a few weeks later (24 July) to celebrate the centenary of
Lancing College (Pears's old school). Britten must have been by this
time secure enough in his underlying convictions as a composer to
ignore the undoubted disapproval of modernist taste for any
endeavour involving a large number of amateur musicians. Apart from
Peter Pears as the adult saint, Saint Nicolas required only a
professional string quartet and percussionist, with a proficient organist
and duo pianists. The school choir was supplemented at Lancing by
parts for choirs of other linked schools, and the work included two
hymns for the audience. This was not among Britten's most
adventurous or even most accomplished works, and would have
appeared ludicrous to the postwar avant garde. But from the lilting A
major-Lydian waltz to which the story of Nicolas's birth and growth to
adolescence is told to the broader issues of both involvement in
Christian history and shared experience, it seems now as courageous
and adventurous as the experimental music of the time. Forster, who
had met and admired Britten and Pears, and was attending the first
Aldeburgh Festival as lecturer, called it ‘one of those triumphs outside
the rules of art’ (The Listener, 24 June 1948) and reported with
enormous enthusiasm about the entire festival.
Meanwhile, the English Opera Group needed new material to keep
going, and Britten had promised a version of The Beggar's Opera for
their 1948 season, to be directed by Tyrone Guthrie (who had
recently produced Peter Grimes at Covent Garden). Fortunately,
Britten worked from an early edition of the original in which the tunes
lack Pepusch's bass lines. He could therefore abandon the
constraints of the Purcell realizations and construct both harmony and
orchestration; he even brought numbers together in interesting
cumulative sequences. The project signifies the culmination of a
process of selfconscious rapprochement with history and national
identity, part of what Britten thought necessary, as a newly connected
and ‘located’ artist, to fulfil his role. Today, the work seems over-
elaborate, trading immediacy for musical invention: the music goes
upscale, like the accents of the opera singers who generally take the
roles, and compared with the Brecht-Weill Die Dreigroschenoper it
sounds musically tame and lacking in bite. The drama is in line with
the critique of society, religion, the law, family and social order that
Britten's works notably encompass. But the tone, as in Albert Herring,
often veers towards cosiness in a way that undercuts the portrayal of
brutality and mendaciousness that Britten would earlier have
condemned more roundly in musical terms. The process is best
understood with reference to Britten's own ambivalent position as a
‘discreet homosexual’ (Alan Sinfield's term), which encouraged both
protest or subversion but also accommodation to the status quo. The
particular consistency of that mix at any given time is a key to a
deeper understanding of his career.
For the 1949 season, Crozier again worked on a project involving
audience participation, the ‘entertainment for young people’ Let's
Make an Opera, which included four audience songs. The opera that
formed the second half of the event was The Little Sweep, a scaled-
down version of the oppression theme in which the middle-class
audience can identify with the stage children, who help poor
mistreated working-class Sam, the chimney-sweep, to freedom. This
constituted genuine release and fulfilment for Britten even if
Carpenter (p.176) is right to comment on its regressive psychology.
Britten was deliriously happy while writing the opera in spring 1949;
less so with the project it interrupted, the Spring Symphony. He
described his ‘doubts and miseries’ over it to Serge Koussevitzky,
who commissioned it. The doubts must have been largely about
projecting an orchestral song cycle as a symphony. He explained the
symphony as ‘not only dealing with the Spring itself but with the
progress of Winter to Spring and the reawakening of the earth and of
life’, and its form as ‘in the traditional four-movement shape of a
symphony, but with the movements divided into shorter sections
bound together by a similar mood or point of view’ (Britten, 1949–50,
p.237); he saw no need to produce a traditional symphonic ‘argument’
but rather wanted to project a series of controlled gestures in four
distinct parts, the second and third analogous to the slow movement
and scherzo of a symphony, and with a single poem for the more
extended, joyous finale. The separate settings have an effect
comparable to the series of discrete numbers through which Britten
had learnt in his operas to generate cumulative feeling and climactic
structures. The first invocatory movement is in ritornello form, and a
fairly strict thematics of instrumentation persists, suggesting Baroque
‘affects’ rather than Romantic arguments. In the finale, a celebratory
episode complete with rude blasts on the cowhorn, things are kept in
motion by a rousing waltz tune upon which is projected, in a climactic
peroration, the famous Sumer is icumen in cast in duple time. The
emotional centre of the work, however, lies in the final section of the
second part, a setting of W.H. Auden's Out on the Lawn. Britten
would have known the significance of this poem (from which he
selected four of the 16 stanzas) as a description of an actual spiritual
experience of June 1933 which the poet called a ‘Vision of Agape’
and which prefigured his later conversion to Christianity. Britten's
setting, which incorporates some of his most distinctive orchestral
and vocal effects, recalls for an anguished moment in its last stanza
the mood of the more radical Our Hunting Fathers, again providing a
reminder of the darker reality of life, a touch that balances and
therefore validates the ‘retrogressive’ search for ‘innocent’ states of
mind in other parts of the score.
In late 1949 Britten found time to write a wedding anthem, Amo ergo
sum, for his friends Lord Harewood and Marion Stein on a text by
Ronald Duncan, and in early 1950 a charming and classic set of
choral songs, the Five Flower Songs, for the Elmhirsts of Dartington
Hall.
Britten, Benjamin
5. Success and authority, 1951–5.
It was natural, in the light of Britten's success as a composer,
especially in opera and its performance, for the Arts Council to
commission a major opera from him for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
For his part, he must have realized that his first substantial work
written specifically for Covent Garden ought also to break new
ground, and in the event Billy Budd, besides representing a
considerable musical advance, also marks a distinct transition in
Britten's operatic output from a focus on oppression and its
internalization to an exploration of authority and its ramifications. The
issue of authority is of particular importance and also confusion to
homosexual people. Pertinent in Britten's case is the conflict over
parents, who are loved and adored on the one hand as encouraging
protectors and mistrusted on the other as figures of authority, as
uncomprehending as the rest of society in assuming universal
heterosexuality and censuring homoeroticism. A crisis on this issue
would predictably be generated as the composer moved into the
‘establishment’ (symbolized by his being created a Companion of
Honour in 1953).
Inviting a major literary figure like E.M. Forster to become his librettist
was possibly to risk a recurrence of the difficulties with Auden, but
Forster was a master of prose, not poetry, and the author of Howard's
End and A Passage to India held the promise of helping Britten move
beyond his preoccupations with the innocent and the oppressed. After
some discussion, the two settled unshakably on Melville's Billy Budd
(see P.N. Furbank, E.M. Forster: a Life, London, 1977–8, ii, 283–6).
In adapting the story, Forster wanted to ‘rescue Vere from Melville’
(that is, from the excessive respect for authority and discipline implicit
in Melville's account of him), to ‘make Billy, rather than Vere, the
hero’, and to suggest redemption through love, or at least eternal
hope, through the image of the ‘white sail’, mitigating and limiting
Melville's belief in Fate. But the Prelude–Epilogue frame in which the
aging Vere recalls the action places the dramatic emphasis firmly on
his moral choice and predicament. In this respect, one of Britten's
main achievements was to develop the ambiguity and uncertainty
implicit in Vere's actions and words through purely musical means.
Notable is the way the stratified texture at the opening of the Prologue
projects the conflict between B and B , which then persists as a
musical ‘problem’ reflecting what attracted Britten to the topic, ‘the
quality of conflict in Vere's mind’ (see Rupprecht, E1996). The famous
‘interview’ interlude in which, with triadic chords each harmonizing the
notes F, A or C but contrasted by dynamics, orchestration and
tessitura, Britten suggests the indeterminate nature of the private
moment in which Vere tells Billy that he has been condemned has
also been shown to promote an uneasy, unstable tonal dialectic
expressing an essentially equivocal mental state rather than any firm
triumph of F major (Whittall, E1990). Near the end of the Epilogue,
Britten appears to dissolve and dispel the forces of both good and evil
(the melody of Billy's farewell, a reference to the interview chords,
and the ominous brass motif associated with Claggart as evil) in a
final, radiant B chord. But that very epiphanic moment sets off once
again the hefty drum-beat motif that underpins the trial and ultimately
derives from the sea chase earlier in Act 2. The implication that Vere
is hopelessly contaminated by his role in killing men – as leader in
battle as well as naval disciplinarian – is powerful on the social as
well as personal level. The advance of Billy Budd on Peter Grimes in
both dramatic and musical terms is nowhere so telling as in this
culminating moment, but is also readily apparent in almost every
other aspect of the score.
The music of Billy Budd took over a year to write and months to
score, leaving time only for two small-scale instrumental pieces
written for individual soloists, Lachrymae, for viola (William Primrose)
and piano, and Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, for oboe solo (Joy
Boughton); the dedicatees played them at successive Aldeburgh
festivals in 1950 and 1951. In addition, there was the ‘realization’ of
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas for the English Opera Group's 1951
season. In the aftermath of Billy Budd Britten wrote the extraordinary
Canticle II, on the Chester Miracle Play version of the story of
Abraham and Isaac – a footnote to the theme of the opera, perhaps,
but arresting in its own right for the opening, in which the alto and
tenor voices combine to invoke the voice of God, punctuated by wide
piano arpeggios reminiscent of the opening of the first quartet.
The death of George VI in 1952 catapulted Britten into another large-
scale opera for Covent Garden. That year, Imogen Holst arrived at
Aldeburgh as amanuensis and devoted disciple: her presence at
festival concerts with Britten and Pears added status to Britten's
English lineage – her father's work was also admitted into the local
canon. Britten had been exploring various libretto ideas for some time
with Forster's friend, William Plomer, an able literary figure personally
less demanding than the novelist, when Lord Harewood began
negotiations that led to the commission of an opera on the coronation
of Elizabeth II in 1953. Elizabeth's Tudor predecessor seemed the
appropriate subject for what was intended as a quintessentially
‘national’ opera with a Verdian sweep about it. To base it on Lytton
Strachey's Elizabeth and Essex, however, was to put the image of the
Virgin Queen to as tough a test as Vere had undergone. His portrait
deploys Freudian psychology to underpin an anti-authoritarian view of
monarchy. Britten no doubt intended to create a portrait of monarchy,
warts and all, in which a cultured homosexual man could believe: the
brilliance of the celebratory style he devised (avoiding Elgarian
imperialistic overtones) as well as the subtlety of his response to
Elizabethan music in the songs and dances show that he was as
inspired by this project as by the challenge of Billy Budd. Plomer had
him read, as an antidote to Strachey, J.E. Neale's biography.
Elizabeth's own speeches lie behind the debated Norwich episode
that enshrines her ideal concept of authority rooted in humanity,
intelligence and generosity. To invoke the ‘conflict between public and
private’ to explain Gloriana, however, fails to get at the ultimate
confusion that is part of homosexual social experience, and
undermines the opera: if Britten imagined he was creating an Aida, or
more pertinently a Boris Godunov, in which the private, human and
vulnerable side of monarchy could be displayed in a healing manner,
the downbeat ending, in which the aging, bald heroine muses on her
mortality, only raised in the minds of a contemporary audience a
spectre of empty and meaningless authority. Gloriana touched a
national nerve-ending, and prompted not only its insecure dismissal
by the first-night gala audience but also intensified the increasingly
hostile response to Britten of the musical cognoscenti, disturbed by
the cult status accorded him in the Mitchell and Keller Commentary of
1952.
All the more remarkable, then, that the next opera, begun during the
preparations for Gloriana, should directly explore child sexuality and
homoeroticism through Henry James's The Turn of the Screw. The
horror of this gothic tale turns on the harrowing dilemma into which
the reader is forced between experiencing the children, Miles and
Flora, either as objects of depraved desires on the part of their dead
servant and governess, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, or as the victims
of the hysterical fantasies of their new Governess, whose instability is
hinted at by her frustrated desire for their distant guardian. The topic
was suggested to Britten by Myfanwy Piper, a member of his
‘extended family’ through her husband John, designer of most of the
opera productions after Peter Grimes. In her Britten found an ideal
librettist for the adaptation of literary works; her work is seen at its
best in the verbal images she produced for James's silent Quint,
suggesting the man's imaginative allure to a child rather than any
‘evil’. Making the ghosts palpable militated against James; but Britten,
aided by Piper, found other ways to reinforce the ambiguities and
claustrophobic atmosphere, such as the division into short scenes
separated by ‘variation’ interludes and a tonal scheme that mirrors the
title. The theme of these variations is moreover the upbeat opening
gesture of a bipartite theme, its first element comprising all 12 notes
through which, at its second plain statement, the ghosts voice their
power. The ‘downbeat’ second element – ingeniously derived by
inversion from the original series (Evans, D1979, p.214) – quickly
evaporates into the coach-ride of the opening interlude, but emerges
climatically at the beginning of Act 2 as the music for the ghosts'
inspired quotation from Yeats's The Second Coming, ‘the ceremony
of innocence is drowned’. Throughout the opera, it provides the
thematic material from which significant statements of both the
Governess and Quint are derived. No more powerful or appropriate
musical way could be found to match the dilemma of the original
story. Critical approaches, which differ widely, reflect the success of
this and other ambivalent musical symbols (such as the
orchestration). One feature of the opera is the development of Miles,
Britten's first extended role for boy treble. It was hauntingly sung in
the first production (and Britten's recording) by the young David
Hemmings (fig.6), whom the composer fell for. The evocative
mnemonic rhyme, ‘Malo’, set by Britten to curiously self-revolving,
abject music, managed acutely to symbolize the sexually active,
precocious and yet guilty child and provide a focus for the
Governess's final lament while undercutting her drive to resolution.
The Turn of the Screw is arguably Britten's aesthetically and
musically most satisfying work in the genre as well as the richest in
dramatic tension and personal allusion.
The composition of three operas in so short a time had left little time
for other music. What came between Gloriana and The Turn of the
Screw, however, was among the most important of the song cycles,
Winter Words, on lyrics and ballads of Thomas Hardy. A nostalgic
mood is set by the first song, with its evocation of November twilight
in the fused dominant and tonic chords resolving on to D (minor). It is
captured differently in the cantata-like account of The Choirmaster's
Burial, with its miraculous setting of an old hymn tune and evocation
of honest country musicianship. And finally, in Before Life and After,
accompanied by low-lying triads in the left hand that conflict
increasingly with the voice and piano right-hand's lyrical dialogue, the
lost world of nescience is hymned as the final D major is reached –
though the conflict has been intense enough to disturb any notion of
soothing resolution or fulfilment of any such goal.
What came after The Turn of the Screw was directly affected by its
schematic design. The vocal stanzas of Canticle III, Still Falls the
Rain, completed in November 1954, interact with the interspersed
variations for horn and piano in a manner recognizable from the
scenes and interludes in the opera. An allegory of Christ's passion
linked by the poet, Edith Sitwell, to the air raids of 1940, it was an
opportunity for the composer to test again the possibility of Christian
salvation on a conclusive B , this time purging the almost serial-style
chromaticism of the opening in expressive two-part counterpoint, and
finally resolving onto a vocal monotone both the airiness of the refrain
(‘Still falls the rain’) and the recitative-like stanzas (one of them with a
Sprechstimme interjection, unusual in Britten, to mark the quotation
from Marlowe's Dr Faustus in the poem).
Britten, Benjamin
6. Transition and triumph, 1955–62.
Having concluded a series of operas that offer as solid a claim to the
attention of operagoers as any other 20th-century works, Britten must
have been dimly aware of a need to fill in gaps in his total output as
well as to try out new things – he wrote to Edith Sitwell that ‘I am on
the threshold of a new musical world (for me, I am not pretentious
about it!)’ (Cooke, D1999, p.167). For the moment, however,
exhaustion set in, and the composition of a major work, the full-length
ballet The Prince of the Pagodas, a project with the choreographer
John Cranko for Covent Garden, was set aside for an extensive tour
with Pears from November 1955 to March 1956, much of it in Asia
(where they had as travelling companions their friends Prince Ludwig
and Princess Margaret of Hesse and the Rhine; fig.7). They appear to
have sought out indigenous, traditional dance, music and drama,
such as that of Japan (to bear fruit in the church parables). In
Indonesia, first Java and then, during a free two-week period, Bali,
Britten made a more detailed study of local musical styles. The
brassy, brilliant sound of the Balinese gamelan was predictably more
arresting to him than the less demonstrative Javanese. From Ubud,
where he heard the Peliatan gamelan, he wrote to Imogen Holst
extolling the music as ‘fantastically rich – melodically, rhythmically,
texture (such orchestration!!) & above all formally. … At last I’m
beginning to catch on to the technique, but it's about as complicated
as Schönberg’ (Cooke, D1998, p.70).
Gamelan music was not new to him; he had been introduced to it in
America by Colin McPhee, who spent much of the 1930s in Bali,
becoming an authority on its music, which he incorporated into his
own works. The sonorities received confirmation from a European
source when Britten played Poulenc's Concerto for two pianos with its
composer early in 1945 – the work contains substantial ‘gamelan’
passages in its mixture of styles (Brett, E1994, pp.238–9).
Furthermore, although McPhee's comments indicate Britten's initial
ambivalence, he soon latched on, using a heterophonic pseudo-
gamelan sound to characterize the moon turning blue in Paul Bunyan
and deriving the deep bell sounds in the ‘Sunday Morning’ interlude in
Peter Grimes from the representation of the gong in McPhee's two-
piano transcriptions of Balinese Ceremonial Music. Heterophonic
passages and pentatonic scales can be traced in many Britten
contexts (Cooke, D1998), but it was in The Turn of the Screw (see
Palmer, in Howard, E1985) that gamelan-like sounds seeped into the
colour of Britten's instrumentation to suggest not simply the ghosts
but also Quint's allure for Miles and the attendant danger.
The visit to Bali provided the material (in the form of sketches and
recordings) for a more literal reference to the gamelan in The Prince
of the Pagodas (which opened on New Year's Day 1957), although
the idea of employing such music may have occurred earlier in 1955
as the result of another performance of the Poulenc concerto. There
is a corresponding shift of dramatic emphasis. Cranko's scenario is a
Lear-inflected fairy tale. On being passed over in favour of her
haughty sister by their foolish father, the emperor, the beautiful
princess Belle Rose is carried off to Pagoda Land, where, to gamelan
music, the pagodas revolve or swell at her touch, offering her food
and finally blindfolding her. To another gamelan piece a green
salamander enters who turns into a handsome prince as the trumpet
plays a melody of Siegfried-like heroism and phallic intensity. Since
the princess is blindfolded, and the gamelan music is attached to the
pagodas (their captives are ultimately liberated) as well as to the
disguised prince, sexuality, if suggested at all, is literally
polymorphous. These are latent beings, waiting for the liberation that
Rose's love will effect, but surely connected through their music to a
vision that is either utopian or regressive: innocence or nescience,
pre-verbal, even pre-visual, depending only on touch. The score, shot
through with echoes of Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky,
gloriously opulent and uninhibited, might serve as a model of Britten's
orchestral brilliance. Ears now used to ‘world music’ swallow the
gamelan episodes without finding them extraneous; yet, like the
exotic references in The Turn of the Screw, they belong to the
phenomenon of ‘orientalism’, that is, Western projections onto
peoples thereby made Other.
Britten was to travel further in that direction: during summer 1957
Plomer suggested a libretto derived from the nō play Sumidagawa
that had so impressed the composer in Japan. Its gestation took
some time. Meanwhile, because of increasingly burdensome public
exposure, Britten and Pears moved out of Crag House, which they
exchanged in November 1957 for the Red House with the artist Mary
Potter (a member of their recorder group, for whom Alpine Suite was
written in 1955). Near a golf course on the road to Leiston, it now
houses the Britten-Pears Library. Britten was working at the time on
Songs from the Chinese, settings of translations by Arthur Waley for
Pears to sing to the accompaniment of Julian Bream. Although the
texts, which are largely about the transient nature of beauty and
youth, provide a basis for exoticism, Britten avoids it in favour of a
musical language that not only exploits the guitar's capabilities but
also suggests the spare, thematically orientated manner that was to
occupy him after 1961.
Meanwhile, the next large work, begun in late 1957 and given at the
1958 Aldeburgh Festival, claims a special place in Britten's output.
Begun as the result of a television commission that failed to
materialize, Noye's Fludde became the centrepiece of Britten's
investment in what has eventually become known as ‘outreach’, for it
involves children of all ages in its performance and includes the
audience who join in the hymns around which it is built. Brilliantly
managed is the physical involvement of the children, as violinists in
first position, buglers playing simple school-derived fanfares, recorder
players galore, a variety of percussionists (including the innovation of
the ‘slung mugs’ signifying the first raindrops; fig.8) and as a chorus
of child-animals with cries of ‘Kyrie eleison’ and ‘Alleluia’: everyone
can be included along with the few professionals, Britten appears to
be saying, in a score that is uncompromisingly interesting on all levels
and therefore with no patronizing air. As if to reinforce the point, the
storm is an extended passacaglia on a theme, like that of The Turn of
the Screw, both tonally anchored and comprising all 12 notes: this
ambivalent device is not surprisingly attached to the destruction and
abjection caused by the deity. Towards the end a handbell choir,
slightly reminiscent of Balinese metallophones, epitomizes the
rainbow, an image that melts into that of a newly recovered universe
signified by Tallis's canon, which is disturbed briefly by an organ
interlude that has not unreasonably been interpreted as a moment of
residual hostility to the church as an institution. The impression most
listener-participants carry away from this freshly conceived music-
theatre event, however, is one of great spiritual and musical
satisfaction.
If the Serenade can be seen as preparatory to Peter Grimes, the
Nocturne of August–September 1958 is even more closely linked with
A Midsummer Night's Dream, completed in 1960. In place of the
Serenade's virtuoso painting of atmosphere, the Nocturne explores
the dreaming state of mind to be conjured up so powerfully in the
opera. The cycle is continuous – here the poems tend to be
fragments of larger works rather than discrete lyrics – and it is held
together by a gossamer thread of recall, the soft breathing motif of the
opening string accompaniment and the rapturous melisma set to
‘nurslings of immortality’ in the opening song. This latter motif not only
signifies the poetic vision but points to the eventual outcome of the
work on a D chord. Dream-like, too, is the way the piece keeps
aspiring to a blissful, clear C major (as in the Keats poem at the
mention of ‘Sleep’) while continually being forced into stranger worlds
of experience symbolized on the one hand by the obbligato
instruments that join the basic string accompaniment (and in the
Keats setting take over from it) and on the other by the constant flux
of the harmony which explores areas scarcely imagined in the
Serenade. The cycle closes with a Shakespeare setting in which the
dichotomy of the self and the loved one is mirrored by the flux
between and eventual fusion of the worlds of C and D that have
inhabited the earlier songs. The orchestration, reminiscent of Mahler
(to whose widow Britten dedicated the work as if to acknowledge the
earlier composer’s influence), signals the seriousness and passionate
nature of this dialogue of the soul, an exploration in miniature of the
predicaments that were to extract such a rich response from Britten in
his opera.
The same summer saw the completion (as a 50th birthday offering to
Prince Ludwig, who drew Britten’s attention to the poems) of Sechs
Hölderlin-Fragmente, which take up again the themes of the Songs
from the Chinese in a fairly severe lieder-like style. At the heart of the
cycle lies a radiant answer to the unbelieving questioner of the nature
of Socrates’ love for Alcibiades in which the singer takes up the
chromatic piano melody now ‘naturalized’ by the plain triads of the
accompaniment. The concluding two songs, however, return to the
autumnal atmosphere of the earlier cycle. The rigorous motivic and
canonic workings of these songs prepare for the heterophonic yet
tonally centred procedures of the final decade. A more jesting
‘academic’ approach to Schoenbergian procedures is to be found in
the subsequent Cantata Academica, written in 1959 for the
quincentenary of Basle University. With its ‘Tema seriale con fuga’
and other academic trappings lightly worn, a ponderous Latin text,
and fairly unbuttoned manner (occasionally recalling Stravinsky’s
Oedipus Rex quite strongly), it is an occasional piece well calculated
for the average university music group. A more spectacular piece of
the same year, the Missa brevis, was written for George Malcolm and
the boys of Westminster Cathedral Choir, and well calculated for the
notably reedy tone of that group compared to the more usual white-
toned English boys’ choir. In the Sanctus the boys magically project
12-note collections over D major triads in the organ to exciting effect,
but Britten follows Bach in making the Agnus Dei a moment of
personal tension that disturbs the otherwise lofty atmosphere of this
tiny masterpiece.
A culminating work for the operatic stage of this period is A
Midsummer Night's Dream, written to celebrate the enlargement of
the Jubilee Hall at Aldeburgh. The idea occurred barely a year ahead
of the first performance (in the 1960 festival), and Britten and Pears
together cut and rearranged Shakespeare's play as a libretto. Britten
(The Observer, 5 June 1960) said that the play appealed to him as
the work of a very young man and as a story that involved three
distinct groups, the Lovers, the Rustics (as he called the
mechanicals) and the Fairies, which interact. More likely, after
exploring the ambiguity of relationships in a realistic setting in Billy
Budd and the fantasy of the unthinkable in the context of James's
ghost story, he found in this play, which literary critics were just
beginning to read as saturnalian rather than romantic, an ideal vehicle
for pursuing his interests in the difficulties and dangers in human
relationships. A crucial difference from Shakespeare occurs as the
curtain rises: it is plain from the heavy breathing in the orchestra that
we are already, in more senses than one, in the woods. Britten
dispenses with the social context of Athens and the background of
reality as an initiating device in favour of the darker world of the
Nocturne, and moves here the furthest distance from the realistic
borough of Peter Grimes into a private world, one of possibilities
rather than limitations. The folk-festival or May-games aspect of
Shakespeare's play, then, is matched by a contemporary notion of
misrule, the world of the libido.
As if to reinforce the unreality, operatic convention itself is part of the
subject, most obviously in the broad comedy of the mechanicals' play,
a wicked send-up of 19th-century styles. The chorus that opens the
opera is one of unbroken boys’ voices singing one of Britten's spiky
unison tunes, as different from the romantic notion of fairies (and
opera choruses) as could be imagined. On cue comes the expected
entry of the prima donna and male lead, but in this case he is far from
the ardent tenor of the Romantic era and as close as one can get to
the primo uomo of 18th-century opera seria, the castrato. Along with
the historical reference goes the association of unmanliness, and thus
of gender liminality, that haunts the modern image of the homosexual,
and the impression is enhanced by the Baroque style of his set
pieces and the pseudo-gamelan sounds that attend his magic herb. A
distant relation of Quint, he already has his Miles in Puck, not the
hero's baritone friend of grand opera but a lithe tumbler with an
adolescent voice who speaks rather than sings. The lovers sing lines
that are eternally syllabic, in even notes, a sure sign in Britten's
musical language that, though conventionally ‘good’, they are limited;
their litany-like set piece after waking from their dream fails to
separate their personalities, so that what is often seen as
Shakespeare's own gloomy prognosis for love and marriage in
patriarchal society finds an echo in Britten's pessimism. The only
really tender relationship, and the only one that crosses social
boundaries, is between the bewitched Tytania and the grotesque
Bottom: the latter even usurps Oberon's falsetto voice in recalling it.
But Bottom ends up back with his pals, and Tytania's radiant
coloratura is silenced. The one truly romantic moment, as we might
guess, is a regressive (and irresistible) transformation at the end of
Act 2: Puck's ‘Jack shall have Jill / Naught shall go ill’ rhyme, sung by
the fairy boys in 3rds against the ‘motto’ chords in a lush D major
context that bleeds Shakespeare's verse of every drop of its irony.
In summer 1960 Britten revised Billy Budd, compressing its four acts
into two. In September an invitation to a Shostakovich première led to
his meeting the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who highly
admired him, and with whom he immediately struck up a rich musical
friendship and partnership (engagingly described by Carpenter,
especially 397–404). This quickly led to a reawakening of abstract
instrumental composition, abandoned since 1951 but for a few pieces
for the Aldeburgh recorder group, a variation on Sellenger's Round for
a composite coronation-year composition and a Fanfare for a pageant
at Bury St Edmunds (1959). Too much has often been made of this
‘lapse’; Britten had no need of the ideology that demanded mastery in
absolute instrumental forms. His adopting the Vaughan Williams
model of national pre-eminence ruled out direct competition in
symphonic music but not writing for outstanding, friendly and admiring
performers – the impetus behind the ebullient Sonata in C for cello
and piano, as it was behind the solo works of a decade earlier. 1961
and 1962 were otherwise dedicated to choral music, where it was
necessary to stake a claim. A Hymn of St Columba (1962) is a slightly
dark piece emanating from a bizarre anniversary, while Psalm 150 is
the simplest of school songs written the same year for South Lodge
(now renamed Old Buckenham Hall).
Britten’s crowning choral work, and for some possibly the pinnacle of
his entire output, is the War Requiem, begun in the second half of
1961 as the result of a 1958 commission for the festival marking the
consecration of the new cathedral at Coventry (see England, fig.14).
Arguably, Britten became a victim of his own success, drowning his
authentic ‘private voice’ as a result of inscribing himself into the
English oratorio tradition with a grandiloquent work for soloists,
massed choral forces and orchestra. An ingenious medievalism was
evoked by troping the Latin text with a vernacular commentary. The
historical resonance, combined with an evocation of the sublime in
the form of a bombed cathedral in Britain's industrial midlands and of
the metaphysical in the notion of reconciliation beyond the grave,
gave the piece a portentous and grandiose character which seems
oddly more of the age of Elgar than that of post-World War II. Some
listeners have wondered whether the evocation of the end of Elgar's
Dream of Gerontius in the concluding chorus is sufficiently
undermined by the interruptions of boys and bells sounding the
ominous augmented 4th that underpins the work. In terms of politics,
too, questions have arisen about the application of a World War I
pacifist message in a post-World War II context, as though the
holocaust were not a factor to be reckoned with, as well as the
silence on the topic of nuclear disarmament so germane to the early
1960s. The integrity of Britten's homosexual politics explains a great
deal here, particularly the use of fellow pacifist and homosexual
Wilfred Owen's poetry to transmit his anger about the fate of young
men sent to their deaths by an unfeeling patriarchal system as well as
his critique of empty religious forms in collusion with that system;
possibly a metaphorical extension can be made to all innocent
victims. But the choice of a major establishment genre in which to
couch the powerful message of pacifism can only be explained as
part of a strategy, perhaps unconscious, to gain acceptance for the
artist while maintaining the subversion of his message. ‘All a poet can
do is warn’ (in the words of Owen); but if the medium overwhelms the
message, the warning loses urgency, irony is overwhelmed, and
reception tends to become complacent.
A return to the more typical and more modest occasional style of
Britten's choral music came a year later in Cantata misericordium,
commissioned for the centenary of the International Red Cross. The
string quartet component, the bass-tenor duo (Pears and Fischer-
Dieskau in the early performances and recording) and the Latin text
recall the grander work. But the scale is more suited to the swift
telling of the simple and relevant tale of the Good Samaritan. A
mixture of harp and piano brilliantly characterizes the spine-chilling
anxiety of the baritone Traveller before he is attacked, and the
subsequent focus on the Samaritan (the priest and Levite are chorally
described rather than vocally personified) is dramatically apt for the
moral (‘you now know who your neighbour is: go and do likewise’)
without the point being laboured.
Britten, Benjamin
7. Further travels, 1963–9.
Britten's 50th birthday year was marked by a number of events,
including a visit to Moscow, a book of tributes from friends (Gishford,
C1963), a Prom concert (12 September 1963) at which he conducted
the Sinfonia da Requiem, the Spring Symphony and the first
performance in Britain of Cantata misericordium, and on the birthday
itself a concert performance of Gloriana. In a public tribute Hans
Keller proclaimed him ‘the greatest composer alive’, greater even
than Stravinsky (Music and Musicians, xii/3, 1963–4, p.13). There
was another side to this institutionalization. Musical taste in Britain,
long starved of avant-garde stimulation, insulated even from
modernism, was now moving on owing to radical changes by the new
BBC Controller of Music, William Glock, and a new generation of
composers such as Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle and
Cornelius Cardew. The general audience was as usual accepting of
merely a few pieces that had crept into the repertory, a situation
exacerbated rather than relieved by the success of the War Requiem.
Having worked to gain the position that Vaughan Williams had held,
Britten was made doubly insecure by the isolation of preeminence.
Accordingly he set out on new paths somewhat unheralded.
First came a return to the grand, purely orchestral statement not
heard from him since Sinfonia da Requiem. The Symphony for Cello
and Orchestra, completed early in May 1963, was part of the series of
works for Rostropovich. Referred to by its composer during
composition as a sinfonia concertante, it proceeds, in spite of the
opening dark flourishes that appear to herald a conventional concerto
arrangement, as a discourse between equal forces, the soloist
democratically exchanging roles with the orchestral basses at the
recapitulation of the extensive and regularly proportioned sonata-form
first movement. The dark, furtive-sounding Scherzo is followed by an
Adagio that connects to the last movement and is strongly related to
it. The year closed with a more intimate instrumental work, Nocturnal
after John Dowland, for Julian Bream, whose interpretations of
Dowland songs with Pears had become justly celebrated. Writing for
the virtuoso guitar rather than the accompanimental lute, and
adopting the strategy of the earlier Lachrymae, Britten allows the
theme, the song Come, heavy sleep, to emerge in Dowland's own
accompaniment only after eight insomniac variations (the last a
ground-bass treatment of a detail from Dowland's accompaniment)
have succeeded each other without ever achieving the final repetition
of the second strain, whose curtailed presentation lends a witty and
moving air to the conclusion.
Meanwhile, there was the long-postponed Sumidagawa to face. For
the purpose, Britten, Pears and entourage (Graham as stage director
and Holst as amanuensis) took an unusual six-week working vacation
in Venice. The conception belonged to the visit to Japan eight years
earlier, when Plomer had recommended that Britten see all forms of
Japanese theatre, but particularly the nō. Although his initial reaction
was of embarrassed amusement at the stylized acting, he soon
became entranced by the story of a distraught mother searching for
her lost child, went to see it again, and procured a translation of the
Sumidagawa of the early 15th-century dramatist Jūrō Motomasa. He
later visited the kabuki theatre, enjoyed shamisen songs at a geisha
evening and heard the gagaku orchestra whose sounds were to
reverberate in Curlew River. The principal nō characteristic of limiting
expressivity in acting and presentation in search of a more profound
underlying truth that springs from its stylization resonated with
Britten's own training, and its all-male cast appealed to a gender
identification intensified by upbringing and sexual orientation. Plomer
and Britten initially planned an operatic translation of the original,
presumably with musical imitation (‘oh, to find some equivalent to
those extraordinary noises the Japanese musicians made!’: Cooke,
D1998, p.141). In April 1959, however, came a change of heart: not a
nō pastiche (‘which, however well done, would seem false and thin’)
but a medieval church drama set in pre-conquest East Anglia. It was
to be a Christian work, with ‘Kyrie eleison’ replacing ‘Amida Buddha’:
in 1963 Britten finally identified himself as ‘a dedicated Christian’ (see
Carpenter, 421)
In Curlew River Britten made a radical attempt to return Western
music to its melodic origins (before the disease of harmony germed,
as it were). A plainchant hymn, Te lucis ante terminum, provides the
melodic fount (and, typically, the outer frame), its intervals extended
to include the augmented 4th for the cry of the curlew and of the
protesting Madwoman. The resonant acoustic works with the
plainchant-inspired lines, already blurred by the heterophonic
technique, emphasized here to a new degree, to create a new kind of
‘harmony’ more like the bright but kaleidoscopic hues of stained
glass, with similar iridescence. Characterization is by single
instrumental colours – the Ferryman his active horn, the Traveller a
double-stopped double bass, the Madwoman a flute, imitating her
extraordinary vocal line with its heavy portamento. The organ
(imitating the shō) pours cold water on the ensemble; the harp injects
its prismatic detail; and the percussion suggests otherness, whether
exotic or historical. A disciplined ensemble of actor-singers and
instrumentalists in monks' habits – three of them assuming the masks
of the main characters in a ritual robing – performs, without
conductor, from a score with special notational features to promote
synchronization. The audience is mesmerized by an hour's-worth of
radical renovation which opens out into time unaccounted for or
differently measured. It is a ‘parable’ about various Christian themes
– charity, the afterlife – but the focus is on the visionary Madwoman,
one of Britten's few really sympathetic portrayals of women, sung by
Pears in the original.
1964 was marked by other innovations in Britten's life. He parted
company with his longtime publishers, Boosey & Hawkes; the literary
publishers Faber & Faber founded Faber Music for him, with Donald
Mitchell its head. Rosamund Strode entered the Aldeburgh household
as Britten's music assistant, replacing her friend and mentor Imogen
Holst (who continued to be involved with the festival). In July Britten
flew to Colorado to receive the first Aspen Award for an outstanding
contribution to ‘the advancement of the humanities’. In his acceptance
speech, later published, he encapsulated his views about the relation
of the composer to society, and about his own needs. ‘I want my
music to be of use to people, to please them … my music now has its
roots, in where I live and work. And I only came to realise that in
California in 1941’ (Britten, 1964, pp.21–2). Later in the year, Britten
reported to Plomer that his doctors had ordered rest, and that he and
Pears would take 1965 off, beginning with a lengthy trip to India with
the Hesses. He nevertheless composed the first of the three cello
suites before the New Year (having earlier written cadenzas to
Haydn's Cello Concerto in C for Rostropovich). Soon after his return
from India, in March, he was awarded the Order of Merit (in place of
T.S. Eliot who had recently died); this was the highest possible British
honour (Vaughan Williams was the last musician to belong among the
24 most eminent living citizens personally appointed by the queen).
Composition continued in the ‘sabbatical’ year. The Indian holiday
saw the completion of Gemini Variations, 12 variations and a fugue
on a theme by Kodály written for Hungarian prodigy twins, Zoltán and
Gabriel Jeney, who between them covered the flute, violin and piano
and could accordingly change instruments between variations and
during the final fugue. The following month produced a work in
complete contrast – the bleak Songs and Proverbs of William Blake,
inspired by Fischer-Dieskau's darkly coloured voice and extraordinary
musicianship as well as Britten's most personal concerns. The cycle,
a continuous one, interleaves a ritornello-like setting of the seven
proverbs with seven songs that paint an increasingly sombre picture
of human existence. Musically, the construction depends on a 12-
note series arranged in three four-note segments, and only achieved
as a melodic statement by the voice in Proverb VII to suitable words:
‘To see the World in a grain of sand’. Most remarkable is the powerful
setting of Blake's insight into the processing of anger, A Poison Tree.
Britten, who must surely have known the truth of Blake's words while
spectacularly failing to act on them, at least in the Aldeburgh
situation, uses a 12-note vocal melody closely related to the original
set. It comes readily enough round to a cadence on E minor on its
return to the first note in the initial ‘healthy’ statement (‘I told my
wrath, my wrath did end’), but then develops, with the help of
inversion in the bass line (symbolizing the internalization process),
into a terrifyingly effective and highly dissonant contrapuntal build-up
ending in the hollow chordal triumph (over the inevitable E pedal) of
the death of the foe. There is no mild consolation of the kind offered
in Winter Words in the prospect of, or longing for, nescience. The all-
too-knowing subject is revealed in full frailty – a portrait (from a
composer so often connected merely with ‘innocence’) all the more
remarkable for its unblinking honesty and bleak integrity.
At another point in the ‘sabbatical’, Britten was tempted by a
commission into writing a didactic work celebrating the 20th
anniversary of the United Nations – it was performed in New York,
Paris and London on the very day, 24 October 1965. Voices for
Today is an unaccompanied choral work (with ad libitum organ part)
for large mixed chorus with a smaller chorus of boys, or boys and
girls. It begins sententiously though quietly with an anthology of
positive thoughts from the world's great thinkers and poets – all of
them noticeably male – before opening out into a setting of Virgil's
fourth Eclogue. Shorn of its pagan specifics this becomes an address
to a Christ-like boy figure, the harbinger of a new pastoral life of
plenty and peace. So much high-mindedness somehow dampened
the musical response. A more robust expression of Britten's musical
character comes out in the Pushkin cycle, The Poet's Echo, written
for the excitingly dramatic voice of Galina Vishnevskaya and first
performed by her on 2 December 1965 with Rostropovich
accompanying.
Britten had written to Plomer about an idea for ‘another opera in the
same style’ less than a month after Curlew River's first performance.
The Burning Fiery Furnace predictably replaced Japanese sources
with story from the book of Daniel. Three young Israelites, Ananias,
Misael and Azarias, attempt to deal with the favours and demands of
Nebuchadnezzar and the jealousy of his astrologer and people. A
crisis around naming (the trio are forced to accept the Babylonian
names Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego) makes this a parable of
identity and difference. The luxury of Babylon, indicated by the
dancing boys' ‘cabaret’ as well as the increased opulence of the
scoring, can be understood as a reflection of the ‘never-had-it-so-
good’ Britain of the Macmillan era and its anti-Semitism related to the
growing anti-immigrant racism of the time. The identity politics may
obliquely refer to the ‘coming out’ process for the homosexual
(Hindley, E1992), but it is quite likely that Britten himself supported
the literal Christian parable of faith. He devised a charmingly literal
pun by emphasizing the interval of the 4th to mirror the appearance of
the fourth figure in the furnace, the Angel (many such felicities are
detailed by Evans, C1979, pp.480–89). The score is a little slow to
get off the ground but reaches a cold and sinister brilliance with the
march and hymn in praise of the heathen idol, answered by the four
cool voices from the furnace. The extra brass and percussion, with
more extrovert musical gestures (the alto trombone's brazen
portamentos), effect the move to the Middle East from the Far East of
the dramatic form, a collapsing of distinctions characteristic of
orientalism.
Two fairly slight works intervened before the third and final church
parable. The Golden Vanity, a ‘vaudeville’ with a libretto by Colin
Graham, the dedicated stage director of the church operas, takes a
folksong (one Vaughan Williams himself had set) as the basis for
what has been described as a children's Billy Budd owing to the
relation between the perfidious sea captain and his gallant cabin boy.
It was written (in August 1966) for the Vienna Boys' Choir, who
performed it at the 1967 Aldeburgh Festival. Hankin Booby is a salty
little folk dance for wind and drums, originally written for the opening
concert of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, and later incorporated
into the Suite on English Folk Tunes. But a concert hall closer to
home occupied much energy during this period. The Maltings at
Snape had been discovered by Stephen Reiss, manager of the
festival, as an available space to improve on the now-outgrown
Aldeburgh facilities. The way Britten threw himself into this project,
cajoling and demanding by turns, shows not only how much he
wanted to be able to mount his larger works, both instrumental and
operatic, at the festival but also how very seriously he took himself
and his position in British culture by this time (Carpenter, 454–8, 468–
70, 472–5). The Maltings concert hall was opened on 2 June 1967 by
the Queen, and the initial concert included Britten's arrangement of
the national anthem and his specially composed overture, The
Building of the House, with its (optional) choral setting of the
Elizabethan metrical version of Psalm cxxvii, ‘Except the Lord the
house doth make’. The Cello Suite no.2 occupied Britten during the
summer.
The Prodigal Son is the least immediately appealing of the church
parable triptych, but inside its purposely reticent interior is a
significant return to the issues of patriarchy and authority. By
assigning the viola to the title figure, moreover, the composer
indicated his personal identification. A warm baritone Father, lyrically
extolling the virtues of husbandry with Britten's favourite alto flute as
accompaniment, signals a reconciliation with the patriarchy that is as
unexpected dramatically as the rooted B triads are musically unusual
in the melodically orientated music of the church parables. But an
interpretation at one level leads to a contradiction at the next. The
frame is broken by the Abbot's being in mufti and notably failing to
present his religious credentials (‘you people … do not think I bid you
kneel and pray’); he is a home wrecker (‘see how I break it up’) who
insinuates himself as the alter ego of the younger son. The similarity
with Quint has often been noted. The temptations (of wine, the flesh
and gambling) are cleverly presented by a distant boys' choir –
Britten's own idea – so that the Tempter can mediate them in
extraordinary Sprechstimme with glissando harmonics on the double
bass. That these temptations are not too musically alluring should not
be surprising: Britten's idea of sin can never have involved bars, bath-
houses, casinos or other material delights. No wonder they are
overshadowed by the accelerating march home, in which the various
instrumental strands suggest the coming together of a fragmented
existence, ending in the radiant B of the father's acceptance. But the
listener is also left to wonder if those B chords are not too restricting
and binding, as alien as the Tempter himself. Auden's warning to
Britten about the dangers of building a warm nest of love for himself
seems appropriate to invoke.
On returning in February 1968 from Venice, where much of the opera
was completed, Britten contracted infective endocarditis, which
postponed its completion until April. The Maltings enabled the festival
to be extended, and after the summer performances Britten settled
down to recording projects there, including Schubert songs with
Pears, the Brandenburg concertos, English string music and two LPs
of Percy Grainger, culminating in early 1969 with a televised Peter
Grimes. During the same period he wrote Children's Crusade for the
50th anniversary of the Save the Children Fund. The down-to-earth
style and impersonal tone of Brecht's Kinderkreuzzug, a ballad about
the death of a wandering band of children in the war-torn Poland of
1939, allowed Britten's anger to surface. The manipulations of a 12-
note row appear to symbolize, here as elsewhere, the dying
civilization of Europe, reflected through the fate of the children and
their dog, whose death ends ‘a very grisly piece’ (as Britten himself
called it) on an unsentimental note. This was shortly succeeded by
one of the grimmest of the song cycles, Who are these Children?.
The 12 songs are settings of ‘lyrics, rhymes and riddles’ by William
Soutar (1898–1943), the caustic Scottish invalid poet. The riddles and
rhymes in Scottish dialect, portraying the relatively carefree life of the
‘natural’ boy, as it were, are interleaved with settings of English
poems depicting the cruelty of modern civilization in terms of irony
and sheer pain. Commentators have invoked the Donne Sonnets to
characterize the relentless accompanimental figuration of Slaughter;
the background to the title song is a 1941 photograph of children in a
bombed village staring uncomprehendingly at a fox-hunting party
riding through; and the actual pitches of the wartime air-raid siren are
used as an ostinato in The Children, a poem written in response to
bombing in the Spanish Civil War (Johnson, in Palmer, D1984,
p.305). The last song, to a dialect poem about the feeling of an oak,
brings to reality in the ‘natural’ cycle the foreboding of the first
‘English’ poem, ‘Nightmare’. It is an uncompromising vision ending
with the much-repeated word ‘doun’ (signifying ‘the end of
everything’, Britten told Johnson). Some relief came between these
works in the lucid C major music Britten composed for one of his
favourite instruments and performers: the Suite for Harp was the first
of a number of pieces for Osian Ellis, a valued collaborator and
alternative accompanist for Pears, and its final variations on the
Welsh hymn tune ‘Saint Denio’ constitute a special compliment to his
and the harp's nationality.
The decade ended in flames with the dramatic conflagration of the
Maltings concert hall on the first night of the festival, Saturday 7 June
1969. Britten's calm and practical nature excelled in such
circumstances, and his leadership ensured that the festival
programme continued. Served by an able administration and local
builders, rebuilding with improvements forged ahead in time for the
1970 festival. There were other less flammable but perhaps more
indicative disappointments about the decade. Two shelved opera
projects that came to a head between 1963 and 1965, King Lear and
Anna Karenina, both scotched because of premature press reports,
show that Britten was beginning to accept his limitations. In returning
to social protest in connection with boyhood at the end of the 1960s,
he was all but announcing that his obsessions were what made him
function. He could not entirely adopt the ‘universal’ voice expected of
the ‘classical music’ composer, however much he had tried in the War
Requiem to do so. To his credit he knew that, but could not be
absolutely explicit about his private obsessions to the extent of their
losing resonance for other human beings of his class and culture.
Britten, Benjamin
8. Final testaments, 1970–76.
Britten was no fan of television: he did not own a set until Decca gave
him one for his 60th birthday. But with the Maltings available, he
determined around 1968 to go ahead with a television opera on a
more obscure Henry James ghost story which for him had ‘much the
same quality as the Screw’ (Carpenter, 508). Owen Wingrave,
completed in August 1970, recorded in November and broadcast
simultaneously in Europe and America in May 1971, is at one level a
final testament on pacifism. The hero, scion of a military family,
determines not to embark on an army career; disinherited as a result,
he is goaded by his financée's taunt of cowardice into being locked
into the haunted room of the family mansion. On unlocking the door in
remorse, she discovers him dead. The opera places great
condemnatory weight on tradition and the family, the power of which
is maintained in the almost complete absence of male authority (an
old general totters through his expected gestures) by three women
portrayed with unmitigated hostility in both music and television image
as shoring up the patriarchy; we are barely invited to sympathize with
any of them. ‘The massive audience was a wonderful opportunity for
Britten to make his personal statement about war and the empty glory
of heroism, in the context of the Vietnam War and the shooting of
students … on Kent [State University] campus’ (Graham, in Herbert,
E1979, p.54). Given McClatchie's successful attempt (E1996) to show
at another level how the discourse of homosexuality is displaced on
to that of pacifism, the work may equally represent Britten’s
pessimism about gay militancy, recently energized by the New York
Stonewall Riots of 1969. Owen's determination to be true to himself in
the face of the enemy – tradition and the family – leads to a classic
‘coming out’ scene that Britten, schooled in a discretionary age, could
never have contemplated for himself. James cannot resist the irony of
Owen's embracing peace only to die ‘all the young soldier on the
gained field’, a point that Britten and Piper underscore (Owen's
reaction to past military heroes, like his own ancestors, is to want to
‘hang the lot’). Similarly, Britten and James send Owen literally back
into his closet at the end of the opera, and kill him off as well: at least
he has found ‘peace’. Musically this happens in one of Britten's most
celebrated arias not only accompanied by diatonic triads (like the
‘interview’ scene in Billy Budd) but also given an overlay of gamelan
music – the kind that in The Prince of the Pagodas signifies at best
utopianism or nescience, at worst polymorphous perversity, definitely
not erotic allure. Britten's musical irony, in which each level peeled
away reveals a further one beyond, extends to a critique of his own
exoticism. The Wingrave family portraits are heralded by a pseudo-
gamelan flourish with a militaristic tattoo on the drums; it opens the
opera and recurs whenever they loom. The almost inaudible pitches,
however, consist of one of the several 12-note collections of the
opera, one that notably provides the diminished intervals that consign
the Wingraves to the obsolescent and evil European past. Britten
once compared Balinese music to Schoenberg in terms of
complication, but mapping the one onto the other was to commit a
meaningful kind of sacrilege: it undermines any attempt to think of
signs as stable in his music and supports a pessimistic reading. Self-
determination is a chimera, the opera seems to say, for there is
always some ghost to disturb the perfect dénouement. Just as the
pacifist can fight militarism only in its own terms (and lose in those
terms), so the problem of the homosexual is to escape the history of
sexuality into a new life without replicating the old ‘straight’ order,
something understandably inconceivable to Britten. As in Peter
Grimes, Britten appears instinctively to have anticipated an argument
that would take queer theorists a decade or more to articulate. This
opera may seem to preach, but it repays study as the testament of a
man resigned to the way things are but nevertheless continuing to
protest.
The 1970 Aldeburgh Festival was marked not only by the attendance
of the Queen for the reopening of the Maltings but also by an article in
The Observer (7 June), ‘At the Court of Benjamin Britten’. This put a
name to the atmosphere typified architecturally by the extraordinary
aperture on the side of the auditorium in which Britten, Pears and
Imogen Holst would appear as icons to be worshipped and as judges
of all that took place. Britten seemed to be losing his draw, his music
gleefully seen as increasingly ‘thin’ by cognoscenti, the working
conditions alienating performers, Aldeburgh politics becoming extra-
Byzantine and the Russians failing to turn up because of political
problems of their own. The pointless game of Tippett versus Britten
seemed to be going in Tippett's favour. Not unexpectedly, Britten
retired further into the Suffolk countryside, taking a house at Horham
to escape Aldeburgh's increasing aircraft noise. In the following
summer, Britten and Pears, full of ambitious ideas for the expansion
of the Maltings into a full-scale arts centre and music school, clashed
with the long-suffering festival manager, Stephen Reiss, in a
deplorable manner that led to his resignation. The first three months
of 1971 nevertheless saw the completion of two new works. Canticle
IV, Journey of the Magi, a slightly detached and interior setting of the
uneasy T.S. Eliot poem about death-in-birth and the difficulty of
change, was written for the three singers, James Bowman, Pears and
John Shirley-Quirk, who were to be principals in the next opera,
already then in the planning stage. The third and most passionate
Cello Suite incorporates four Russian themes, three folksongs
arranged by Tchaikovsky and the moving Kontakion (Hymn for the
Dead) which, as in earlier Britten solo works, are offered in their plain
forms only at the end. It marks the culmination of a body of work
inspired by Rostropovich's rich and romantic performance of the Bach
unaccompanied suites.
In September 1970 Britten asked Myfanwy Piper to write a libretto for
an opera on Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice, an idea he had
entertained for some time. The project moved forward at an unusually
deliberate pace for Britten, and was not thrown off the rails by
advance publicity, or even by the need to do something about the
cardiac deterioration his doctor diagnosed in August 1972. The
composer was both determined and ‘desperately keen to make it the
best thing I have ever done’ (Carpenter, 534). The composition
sketch was finished by Christmas 1972, the scoring early the
following spring. Britten's need to complete the work is
understandable because it views the great themes of his music, from
a fundamentally different and freshly revealing viewpoint.
Aschenbach the writer's relation to a handsome young boy, Tadzio, is
created entirely in his imagination through the play of bodily form,
motion, gesture and sound. His obsession is reflected by dense
motivic allusion and serial manipulation in the music, and the beauty
of Tadzio appropriately represented by dance and the bright ring of
Balinese-inspired sounds. A particularly brilliant decision was the
assignment to a single singer of the seven Hermes-like characters
who stage Aschenbach's journey towards death – or is it
transfiguration? This has led critics into interpreting the work as a
parable of artistic endeavour, hinging on the need for balance
between Dionysian urges and Apollonian regulation along the lines of
Mann's response to Nietzsche's theory of art.
But two facts have to be recognized before the critic can dispense
with sex in favour of metaphysics: one is the cry wrung from
Aschenbach at the end of Act 1 (‘I – love you’), the other (elegantly
outlined by Travis, E1987, pp.132–3) that the notes accompanying
the tortured 12-note monologue in which Aschenbach laments his
creative impotence at the opening of the opera resolve into the
‘Tristan chord’, with a two-octave upward displacement of its tenor
note B. The E–F tensions of Act 1 can also be seen to be derived
from Wagner's opening melodic gesture. Sex and sexuality cannot,
then, be spirited away but are presented along Nietzsche's inclusive
model as reaching to the highest peaks of the intellect, not opposed
to it. Further, the discourse Mann presents and Britten develops with
Hellenic references – the Games of Apollo and The Dream – belongs
to an older order of same-sex relations than 19th-century
homosexuality, that of Greek pederasty, which embraces the entire
history and condition of culture in the West. Imbuing the image of
Tadzio with the sounds of Bali, moreover, took Mann's discourse a
stage further, elaborating on his suggestion of the Asiatic origins of
the libidinous cult of Dionysus, and also of the cholera carried by the
sirocco. This was dramatically apt, since the mind-driven Aschenbach
through whom we perceive both Venice and Tadzio would be
culturally conditioned to project them both in terms of the exotic, that
which is Other. This Asian-derived music, then, opens up the
meanings of the opera to embrace the European philosophical
discourse of Self and Other, and in turn to invoke the West's
insatiable appetite for colonization – the same patterns of domination
being apparent here as in classical pederasty. These are some of the
themes of this multifarious and magnificient work, at one level a
‘musical autobiography’ (Carpenter, 554), at another an engagement
with postwar, post-colonial Britain and the culture of the West.
After the completion of the opera, and celebrations of events with
personal friends, Britten went into hospital on 6 April 1973, and
underwent an operation on 7 May to replace a failing heart valve. The
operation was successful, but he suffered a slight stroke which
affected his right hand, and the results were ultimately disappointing.
Convalescence did not go smoothly and Britten felt unable to
compose, perhaps for the first time. 60th birthday celebrations in
November were held without his participation. Rostropovich visited in
January 1974 to play the Cello Suite no.3 to Britten, who made some
revisions. A little later Donald Mitchell interested him in revising the
String Quartet in D (1931) for publication by Faber Music. At the
National Heart Hospital where the operation was done, Britten
became friendly with a senior sister, Rita Thomson, who went to
Aldeburgh that Easter to look after him and stayed for the rest of his
life. He improved notably under her care and began slowly to face
serious work again, revising Paul Bunyan, some numbers of which
had been given at the 1974 Aldeburgh Festival.
The first new work, completed in July that year, was Canticle V, The
Death of Saint Narcissus. The setting of a dense and complicated
early poem of T.S. Eliot, it was written for Pears to the
accompaniment of Ellis's harp, a poignant reminder that the
composer's accompanying days were past – but not the imagination
that could create the beautiful, damaged ‘dancer before God’ in so
few and eloquent strokes, faintly recalling the erotic intensity of Les
illuminations. A projected Christmas opera along the lines of Noye's
Fludde never progressed beyond sketches, but while staying with
Margaret Hesse at Wolfsgarten, he began the Suite on English Folk
Tunes, and completed it in November. Its subtitle, ‘A time there
was…’ comes from the Hardy poem, ‘Before Life and After’, that
closes Winter Words, and the work, undertaken as a frame for Hankin
Booby (1966), provides an elegant and nostalgic farewell to the folk
and traditional music from which Britten had drawn so much; it was
‘lovingly and reverently dedicated to the memory of Percy Grainger’,
with whom he identified as against the other English folksong
composer-collectors. Another work recalling the brilliance of Britten's
writing for unaccompanied chorus followed almost immediately.
Sacred and Profane, written for Pears's Wilbye Consort and
completed in January 1975, takes eight medieval lyrics and sets them
with a breathtaking directness and artful simplicity. Most moving in
their intensity are the two laments for Christ on the cross, but good
humour is not lacking, especially in the final song, which not only
catalogues the attributes of death and decay with verve but ends on a
suitably defiant note. The delight that Britten took in modifying simple
strophic shapes in setting these medieval poems also provides
enormous pleasure in A Birthday Hansel, a short cycle of Burns
poems for high voice and harp written at the request of Queen
Elizabeth for her mother's 75th birthday (4 August 1975); completed
in March, they were performed for the Queen Mother by Pears and
Ellis the following January.
These three works were in a sense a final tribute to the musicianship
and voice of Peter Pears, who was kept away from Aldeburgh for
extended periods during Britten's illness. In autumn 1974 he was in
New York for the Metropolitan Opera production of Death in Venice
and during this period Britten, after hearing a broadcast of their last
British recital in 1972, put down in writing all that Pears's voice,
personality and artistry had meant to him: their exchange of letters is
deeply expressive of their remarkable partnership, unparalleled in
20th-century music (for the texts, see Carpenter, 568–9).
At the 1975 festival, Janet Baker sang Berlioz's cycle Nuits d'été, and
Britten decided to compose something for her on verse from Robert
Lowell's free translation of Racine's Phèdre. An opera being now
beyond his physical powers, he wrote a dramatic cantata in
Handelian form, in which Phaedra addresses other characters
(Aphrodite, Hippolytus, Oenone, Theseus) in discrete arias and
recitatives, the latter accompanied by the traditional continuo
instruments, harpsichord and cello. There is no glorification of
Hippolytus in Phaedra, merely a ‘thin’ presto depiction of Phaedra's
obsession, with Racinian irony (see Palmer, D1984, p.410). Theseus
is more beautifully outlined in a sweeping Apollonian A major theme
(in key and opening gesture it recalls Theseus's celebratory theme in
Act 3 of A Midsummer Night's Dream). But more glorious still is the
dénouement, in steadily rising ten-part string chords, an unusual
sonority for Britten, in which the sexual outlaw, having made her
forthright confession, finds nobility, peace and purity in an almost
unsullied C major; sweet, fleeting, reminiscences of her life flicker as
she dies and her spirit ascends in an apotheosis of muted string
diatonic chord clusters rising through two octaves over the expiring
pedal C.
Hans Keller, to whom Britten dedicated his last major work, the String
Quartet no.3, wrote that here the composer had taken ‘that decisive
step beyond – into the Mozartian realm of the instrumental purification
of opera’ (Herbert, E1979, p.xv). Another way of putting that without
endorsing the genre over the substance is to say that there is really
no music of Britten's that fails to render meanings. Owing to his
eternal seeking and questioning and the ambiguity with which he
managed to imbue the common musical symbols of his tradition,
those meanings are rarely simple. Quotations from Death in Venice
occur in the recitative introduction to the passacaglia finale,
appropriately sketched on a last visit to Venice in November 1975,
and allusions to the opera are made in various ways throughout. The
agenda probably includes the redemption or transfiguration of
Aschenbach, with whom the composer clearly identified, to whose E
major both first and last movements reach. But the most complete
tonal resolution, on Britten's ‘own’ C major, occurs in the enigmatic
central movement of the five, ‘Solo’; and the end, when it arrives, not
only comes ‘with a question’, as Britten put it, but draws attention both
to the arbitrary nature of closure (in art as in life) and in retrospect to
the more complete closures earlier on (see Rupprecht, in Cooke,
D1999, p.258). Whatever the interpretation, few listeners will doubt
that this is as profound a work as anything Britten wrote.
It is nevertheless appropriate that his last complete work, finished in
August 1976, was the unpretentious and cheerful Welcome Ode,
written for a local occasion – a visit of the Queen Mother to Ipswich –
and designed for ‘young people's chorus and orchestra’. As Evans
pointed out (D1979, p.292), the development of instrumental teaching
and growth of youth orchestras in Britain made it possible for Britten
to demand a good deal, and it is fitting that his mission as a composer
should have ended not with the high-flown quartet but this
straightforward and unpatronizing gesture to the children he loved so
much. In fact, work had become increasingly difficult during 1976, and
was made up largely of what he might at other times have called
‘chores’ – a Tema ‘Sacher’ that Rostropovich could play for the 70th
birthday of Paul Sacher, an arrangement for viola and string orchestra
of Lachrymae and some folksong arrangements for Pears and Ellis.
In July he started on a project to mark Rostropovich's first season
with the National SO in Washington, DC, a cantata setting of the
poem Edith Sitwell had dedicated to him, ‘Praise we Great Men’. The
work remained incomplete, reaching a performable state only through
the efforts of Colin Matthews, the young composer who had assisted
with the scoring of Death in Venice and had become more intimately
involved in Britten's composing as the older composer became
increasingly infirm.
During the 1976 Aldeburgh Festival, in which the revised Paul
Bunyan was staged and Phaedra made a deeply emotional impact,
Britten was awarded a life peerage. Plenty of musicians had received
knighthoods but none a peerage; according to Rosamund Strode,
‘Ben didn't mind about himself in the least. He just felt it was
marvellous for music’ (Carpenter, 580). Others have viewed his
acceptance with puzzlement or irony: but it seems entirely
characteristic of the man who wanted so much to belong to the
society he thought he didn't fit into. By this time he was desperately ill,
and even took communion from a bishop who visited. On his birthday
in November he took leave of his closest friends, and during the night
of 3–4 December he died in the arms of Peter Pears.
Britten, Benjamin
9. Reception, influence, significance.
After Britten's death there was no appreciable lapse of interest in his
music; its audience rather increased during the last quarter of the
20th century. Perhaps the tide that swept away serialism, atonality
and most forms of musical modernism and brought in neo-
Romanticism, minimalism and other modes of expression involved
with tonality carried with it renewed interest in composers who had
been out of step with the times. Britten's 12-note manipulations could
now be seen as retaliatory and subversive rather than as conciliatory
and accommodating. His instinct for success, some would observe,
had put him ultimately on the winning side. A simpler idea would be
that his music is very good, and quality is irresistible. To maintain this
as true (difficult in a postmodern environment) leads to the question
‘how good?’ and to unseemly comparisons. It is enough to note that
Britten turned out to be more than the ‘local Shostakovich’ of
Thomson's 1940s taunt – accurate to the extent that Britten was
indeed to the UK what Shostakovich was to the USSR, and that he
made an increasing issue out of locality. But to set Britten against the
modernist ‘giants’ of the previous generation is as pointless as
comparing him with innovatory popular musicians of a younger
generation who reached a far wider audience still. Like most
remarkable composers he was inimitable, possessed of a distinctive
voice which renovated every aspect of the classical tonal tradition in
which he worked, a voice and sound too dangerous to imitate.
The extent of his influence might nevertheless be taken up as an
indication of his stature. Probably no subsequent British composer
can have been entirely unaffected by his life and work, if not at a
musical then at an organizational and operational level. He is a key
figure in the growth of British musical culture in the second half of the
20th century, and his effect on everything from opera to the
revitalization of music education is hard to overestimate. More formal
homage came from composers everywhere as Britten's life drew on.
Britten reception, scholarship and criticism provides an avenue for
exploring signs of his ultimate valuation. His financial success made
possible the founding of several monuments to him and Pears in the
Aldeburgh area, including a well-staffed library at the Red House
where the autographs, sketches and papers are kept. A team of
scholars headed by Donald Mitchell (Britten's musical executor) has
produced an enormous amount of documentary and musical material
as well as critical insight in a very short time. In some cases, as in
Mitchell's sensitive musico-biographical sketch accompanying Letters
from a Life, the level of critical thought has been high; but on the
whole the tone has (almost inevitably) been both laudatory and
protective. Into this world the arrival of the professional biographer,
Humphrey Carpenter, came as a cold shower. His unfettered account
of Britten's life produced a recognizable human being with a
psychological profile in which anger, cruelty and evasion figured large
(and in which Pears often appears as Svengalian); he also revealed
details about Britten's love of adolescent boys which some had
thought unmentionable. Possibly his concern to reveal Britten's
pathology meant that he rarely looked beyond the psychological traits
towards their grounding in social causes and conditioning; and
Auden's famous diagnosis and prescription (Letters, 1015–16) figured
large in his interpretation, especially in dealing with the music. At a
polar opposite to this approach, musical analysis had been prominent
in Britten criticism from the start (as represented by the distinguished
work of Stein and Keller, for example). Peter Evans's analytical study
(D1979) was the first major, single-author book on Britten's entire
output to appear. Arnold Whittall, whose earlier work focussed heavily
on ‘extended tonality’ but later took a broader view of analysis and
ventured beyond its pure application into genre criticism, has
continued this tradition, and in the 1990s North American theorists
began to engage interestingly with Britten's music. An encouraging
sign is the appearance of a younger generation of writers with new
and sometimes interesting viewpoints (several are represented in
Cooke, D1999).
Britten's canonical status has never been unassailable, and there
have always been resistances to the personal nature of his
achievement. As he grew older he became on the one hand more
‘English’ and on the other more committed to Asian musics, neither of
which has won him praise from British music critics anxious for wider
European viability for the national artistic product, scornful of the
thinness of his melody-orientated music and perhaps uneasy about
its religious overtones, strange brand of exoticism and political
affiliations. Criticism by Paul Griffiths (D1991) and Robin Holloway
(D1992) points in the one case regretfully to Britten's retreat from
European eclecticism into cosy provincialism and in the other to a
failure of musical nerve at important moments. Those unconcerned
with questions of national identity may recognize what was gained in
the move that disturbs Griffiths; the Wagnerian model conjured up
usefully by Holloway to highlight Britten's institutional success,
moreover, is hardly apt for a selfconscious figure of the mid-20th
century, and many will share the feeling about both Britten and the
Stravinsky of the 1920–50 period that the powerful emotional effect
depends on the musical restraint. Dangerous enough was the Mahler
connection, apparent in everything except the desire for totalization of
the artistic experience, which Britten almost always successfully
avoided.
He was in most respects an exceptionally aware composer; the areas
in which that awareness failed are therefore all the more telling.
Homosexual artists and thinkers have often shown great sensitivity to
the oppression of women in patriarchal society. Britten made a
gesture in this direction in Act 2 scene i of Peter Grimes, when Ellen
is united musically with Auntie and her loose-living nieces in gender
solidarity. The scene is an exception in Britten's output. Lucretia's
sacrifice is overshadowed by reference to Christ's. A full half of the
dramatic works (those in Herbert, E1979), include no women's voices
or (like Paul Bunyan and Death in Venice) no significant female roles.
Gloriana movingly portrays a woman's struggle with a traditionally
male role; the Madwoman in Curlew River, arguably Britten's most
touching female character, is sung by a man. This leaves the
purposely ambivalent portrayal of the Governess in The Turn of the
Screw as the chief contribution to gender variation in the operas (the
fearsome group of female characters in Owen Wingrave would need
special pleading under any circumstances). The musical depiction of
Phaedra as ennobled rather than mad may be a last-minute reprieve,
yet it is hard to avoid the conclusion that ‘for the most part [Britten]
confines his women to traditional roles and stereotypes, often
identifying them with the society that restricts or even destroys his
main characters’ (McDonald, E1986, p.83). This limitation is perhaps
the chief reason why claims for Britten's greatness need to be
qualified. Compounding this limitation is the failure of ‘such a
champion of the oppressed … to see the underlying connections
among different kinds of oppression’ (ibid., p.100).
An un-Forsterian lack of connection can also be discerned in Britten's
appropriation of Asian music and drama. He did not identify with his
sources (towards the Japanese he adopted a distinctly patronizing
attitude); nor did he limit the uses to which they were put, which
included traditionally exotic colouring, the projection of aberrant
sexual desire and even the utopian portrayal of such things as
‘peace’, the Platonic perfection of Beauty and, inevitably, nescience.
His status as a homosexual oppressed in his own culture can be
argued as a mitigating circumstance: his ‘Orientalism’ – to apply
Edward Said's critique, and his terminology, to this phenomenon –
was not of the same kind as Durrell's or Flaubert's (see Brett, E1994).
Britten's enclosing of his own meanings in the protective borrowed
frame, and in Curlew River his appropriating aspects of Japanese nō
that appealed to him while discarding the Buddhist elements that did
not, may argue the opposite (Sheppard, in Revealing Masks, E.
forthcoming). Such examples, rather than distancing Britten from the
‘colonizing impulse’, put him in collusion with it, placing him in line
with the Elgar he would have despised as the inheritor of limited and
unthinking attitudes to other peoples of the world even while he was
admiring of, as well as benefiting financially and artistically from, their
artistic prowess.
Issues of gender and race are the more important because Britten
shines out as one of the few composers of the 20th century with
claims to effective political and social engagement in other areas. His
political commitment, begun under the tutelage of Auden and
Isherwood and developed through contact with Forster and others,
stems from a complicated sense of himself as a homosexual. Sensing
the difficulties surrounding the place of the homosexual in society,
and positioning himself so that his partnership with Pears, projected
as ‘normal’, masked his paedophilia, Britten pursued a political
agenda far removed from the liberal socialism of his predecessor
Vaughan Williams. It was similarly rooted in the past, and involved ‘a
sense of disengagement from immediate politics’ that increased as
Britten grew older (Carpenter, 486). Along the lines of interwar
homosexual pacifist ideals, it placed personal relations above
allegiance to institutions; it put the individual before society; it tended
to show institutions such as the law, the military and the church as
hypocritical, unjust or simply evil; it favoured erotic relations over
marriage; it portrayed the patriarchal family as shallow and
oppressive; it passionately argued justice for the victim and the
victimized; and it presented the difficulty of homoerotic relations as a
legacy of this society. Britten's assimilation into the British
establishment, and his silence on contemporary issues, effectively
camouflaged the devastating extent of this social and political critique
in his works.
Two critical responses to the Other, or the marginal, have been
discerned (see Champagne, The Ethics of Marginality, Minneapolis,
1995): the liberal humanist response, granting it greater subjectivity
by trying to remake it in the image of the dominant or centre; and
valorizing or privileging the marginality of the Other by making a
resistant and transgressive use of the very lack at the centre that
caused the construction of the margin. As a person compromised by
his position in society, Britten nevertheless managed to cling to some
semblance of the second view. ‘All a poet can do is to warn’, reads
the War Requiem epigraph: but to warn, or do anything else, the poet
has to be heard. It may be that North America taught Britten that to
work for centrality at home would ultimately be more artistically and
therefore politically effective than marginality abroad – as a means of
articulating a message to society from that margin where Britten, at
least, always imagined he lived. His old left friends like Slater and
Auden were irritated to see him as a ‘courtier’, and gay politics, from
which he distanced himself, have moved far beyond his nervous
position. Yet one still needs to acknowledge his consistency and
integrity in pursuing, sometimes to his friends’ acute discomfort, a
fairly incisive and certainly passionate line on pacifism and
homosexuality in relation to subjectivity, nationality and the
institutions of the capitalist democracy in which he lived. This line he
maintained in his work rather than his life, where he acted out a role
of charm and compliance laced with occasional brutality. The political
stance is all the more remarkable because it barely exists anywhere
else in art music outside avant-garde circles already too self-
marginalized to offer any hope of serious intervention in the status
quo. Further, it scores over the credo of the many later composers
who, though openly gay, vow that homosexuality has nothing
whatsoever to do with their music; they do not see it as a site from
which to disrupt present notions of subjectivity and the organization of
power and pleasure, as Britten demonstrably did.
Britten's artistic effort was an attempt to disrupt the centre that it
occupied with the marginality that it expressed. If in life he was less
discerning than Forster, his achievement as an artist makes
interesting counterpoint with that of the novelist who, though he
contributed a great deal in A Passage to India to the eventual
downfall of the British Empire, never specifically addressed the
persecution of his own kind until Maurice, which appeared
posthumously. ‘We are after all queer & left & conshies which is
enough to put us, or make us put ourselves, outside the pale, apart
from being artists as well’, wrote Pears in 1963 to Britten, who in his
public life predictably ‘wanted to be just an absolutely normal person’
(as reported by Reiss to Carpenter, 419–20, 445). It was Britten's
achievement (reinforced rather than contradicted by Tippett) that
British art music during his years of ascendancy came to embrace
what was indelibly ‘queer & left & conshie’: and, instead of being
instantly marginalized, it has travelled all over the world. There is no
need to argue that in the process of assimilation Britten’s music may
have had some transformative effect; it is enough to note that, for
anyone inclined to explore beyond its deceptively ‘conservative’ and
desperately inviting surface, it offers not only a rigorous critique of the
past but possibly also the vision of a differently organized reality for
the future.
Britten, Benjamin
WORKS
stage
incidental music
orchestral
instrumental ensemble
vocal
chamber and solo instrumental
Britten, Benjamin: Works
stage
original works

dates are of first publication; earlier printed rehearsal editions are in GB-ALb and
Lbl
Op. Title Genre, acts Composition

17 Paul Bunyan operetta, prol, 1939–41

2

Libretto :
W.H. Auden

First performance :
cond. H. Ross, New York, Columbia U., 5 May 1941

rev. version 1974–5

First performance :
cond. S. Bedford, BBC, 1 Feb 1976; stage, cond. Bedford,
Snape Maltings, 4 June 1976

Publication; autograph :
vs 1978, fs 1993

33 Peter Grimes op, prol, 3 1944–5

Libretto :
M. Slater, after G. Crabbe: The Borough

First performance :
cond. Goodall, London, Sadler’s Wells, 7 June 1945

Publication; autograph :
vs 1945, study score 1963; US-Wc

37 The Rape of op, 2 1946; rev.

Lucretia 1947

Libretto :
R. Duncan, after A. Obey: Le viol de Lucrèce

First performance :
cond. Ansermet, Glyndebourne, 12 July 1946

Publication; autograph :
vs 1946, vs 1947 (rev. edn), study score 1958

39 Albert comic op, 3 1946–7

Herring
Libretto :
E. Crozier, after G. de Maupassant: Le rosier de Madame
Husson

First performance :
cond. Britten, Glyndebourne, 20 June 1947

Publication; autograph :
vs 1948, study score 1970

45 The Little ‘an 1949

Sweep [Act 3 entertainment
of Let’s Make for young
an Opera, people’
op.45]

Libretto :
Crozier

First performance :
cond. N. Del Mar, Aldeburgh, Jubilee Hall, 14 June 1949

Publication; autograph :
vs 1950, study score 1965

50 Billy Budd op,4 1950–51

Libretto :
E.M. Forster and Crozier, after H. Melville

First performance :
cond. Britten, London, CG, 1 Dec 1951

Publication; autograph :
vs 1952

rev. version op, 2 1960

First performance :
cond. Britten, BBC, 13 Nov 1960; stage, cond. Solti,. London,
CG, 9 Jan 1964

Publication; autograph :
vs 1961, study score 1985

53 Gloriana op, 3 1952–3; rev.

 1966

Libretto :
W. Plomer, after L. Strachey: Elizabeth and Essex

First performance :
cond. Pritchard, London, CG, 8 June 1953

Publication; autograph :
vs 1953, vs 1968 (rev. edn), study score 1990; GB-Lbl

54 The Turn of op, prol, 2 1954

the Screw

Libretto :
M. Piper, after H. James

First performance :
cond. Britten, Venice, Fenice, 14 Sept 1954

Publication; autograph :
vs 1955, study score 1966

57 The Prince of ballet, 3 1955–6

the Pagodas

Libretto :
J. Cranko

First performance :
cond. Britten, London, CG, 1 Jan 1957

Publication; autograph :
study score 1989

59 Noye’s 1 1957–8
Fludde

Libretto :
Chester miracle play

First performance :
cond. Mackerras, Orford Church, 18 June 1958

Publication; autograph :
vs 1958, fs 1959

64 A op, 3 1959–60
Midsummer
Night’s
Dream

Libretto :
Britten and Pears, after W. Shakespeare

First performance :
cond. Britten, Aldeburgh, Jubilee Hall, 11 June 1960

Publication; autograph :
vs 1960, study score 1962

71 Curlew River church 1964

parable, 1

Libretto :
Plomer, after J. Motomasa: Sumidagawa

First performance :
dir. Britten, Orford Church, 12 June 1964

Publication; autograph :
rehearsal score 1965, fs 1983

77 The Burning church 1965–6

Fiery parable, 1
Furnace

Libretto :
Plomer, after Bible: Daniel i–iii

First performance :
dir. Britten, Orford Church, 9 June 1966

Publication; autograph :
rehearsal score 1968, fs 1983

78 The Golden vaudeville for 1966

Vanity boys and pf

Libretto :
C. Graham, after old Eng. ballad
First performance :
Vienna Boys’ Choir, dir. A. Neyder, Snape Maltings, 3 June
1967

Publication; autograph :
1967

81 The Prodigal church 1967–8

Son parable, 1

Libretto :
Plomer, after Bible: Luke xv.11–32

First performance :
dir. Britten, Orford Church, 10 June 1968

Publication; autograph :
rehearsal score 1971, fs 1986

85 Owen op, 2 1969–70

Wingrave

Libretto :
Piper, after James

First performance :
cond. Britten, BBC TV, 16 May 1971; stage, cond. Bedford,
London, CG, 10 May 1973

Publication; autograph :
vs 1973, fs 1995

88 Death in op, 2 1971–3; rev.

Venice 1973–4

Libretto :
Piper, after T. Mann

First performance :
cond. Bedford, Snape Maltings, 16 June 1973

Publication; autograph :
vs 1975, fs 1979
realizations and completions
J. Gay: The Beggar's Opera, realized Britten (ballad op, 3, Gay, T. Guthrie),
op.43, 1947–8; cond. Britten, Cambridge, Arts Theatre, 24 May 1948; vs
(1949), study score (1997)
H. Purcell: Dido and Aeneas, z626, ed. Britten and I. Holst (op, 3, N. Tate),
1950–51, rev. 1958–9; cond. Britten, Hammersmith, Lyric, 1 May 1951; rev.
version, cond. Britten, Drottningholm, 16 May 1962; vs (1960), fs (1961)
Purcell: The Fairy Queen, z629, ed. Pears, Britten and I. Holst (masque,
after Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream), 1967; cond. Britten,
Snape Maltings, 25 June 1967; vs (1970)
G. Holst: The Wandering Scholar, op.50, ed. Britten and I. Holst (chbr op, 1,
C. Bax), ?1948–51; cond. I. Clayton, BBC, 5 Jan 1949; vs (1968)
Britten, Benjamin: Works
incidental music
film
recording sessions were in year of composition unless otherwise stated

GPO produced by General Post Office Film Unit

BCGA produced by British Commercial Gas Association

The King's Stamp, fl + pic, cl, perc, 2 pf, April–May 1935 [rec. 17 May];
GPO, dir. W. Coldstream, 1935
Coal Face (verse: W.H. Auden, M. Slater), spkr, whistler, SATB, perc, pf,
May–June 1935 [rec. 19, 26 June]; GPO producer J. Grierson, dir. A.
Cavalcanti, 1935
CTO: the Story of the Central Telegraph Office, fl, ob, cl, perc, pf, July 1935
[rec. 20 July]; GPO, producer S. Legg, 1935
Telegrams, boys' vv, fl, ob, cl, perc, pf, July 1935 [1st recording session 20
July]; GPO [film unidentified]
The Tocher (film ballet), boys' vv, fl + pic, ob, cl, perc, pf, July 1935 [rec. 20
July]; GPO producer Cavalcanti, animator L. Reiniger, 1938 [see also
choral, Rossini Suite]
Gas Abstract, fl, cl, bn, perc, pf, Aug–Sept 1935 [rec. 3 Sept]; ?BCGA [film
unidentified]
Dinner Hour, fl, cl, perc, pf, vn, vc, Sept 1935 [rec. 16 Sept]; BCGA, dir. A.
Elton, 1936
Title Music III, fl, cl, perc, pf, vn, vc, Sept 1935 [rec. 16 Sept]; BCGA, dir. A.
Elton, ?1936 [film unidentified]
Men behind the Meters, fl, ob, cl, perc, glock, pf, vn, vc, Sept–Oct 1935
[rec. 16 Sept, 2 Oct]; ARFP for BCGA, dir. A. Elton, 1936
Conquering Space: the Story of Modern Communications, fl, ob, cl, bn,
perc, pf, Sept 1935 [rec. 1 Oct]; GPO, dir. Legg, 1935
How the Dial Works, fl, ob, cl, perc, pf, Sept 1935 [rec. 1 Oct]; GPO,
producer R. Elton, R. Morrison, 1937
The New Operator, fl, ob, cl, bn, perc, pf, Sept 1935 [rec. 1 Oct]; GPO,
producer J. Grierson, dir. Legg [soundtrack for silent film; never released]
The Savings Bank, fl, ob, cl, bn, perc, pf, Sept 1935 [rec. 1 Oct]; GPO, dir.
Legg, 1935
Sorting Office, fl, ob, cl, bn, perc, pf, Sept 1935 [rec. 1 Oct]; GPO, dir. H.
Watt [soundtrack for silent film; never released]
Negroes/God's Chillun (Auden), Sept–Nov 1935, rev. Jan 1938 [rec. 8 Jan];
S, T, B, TB chorus, ob + eng hn + tambourine, perc, hp, pf + b drum; GPO,
1938
GPO Title Music 1 and 2, fl, ob, bn, tpt, perc, hp, vn, va, vc, db, ?Nov 1935;
GPO [film unidentified]
Night Mail (J. Grierson, Watt, B. Wright; verse: Auden), spkr, fl, ob, bn, tpt,
perc, vn, va, vc, db, Nov 1935–Jan 1936 [rec. Dec 1935–Jan 1936] (2000);
GPO, producer Grierson, dir. Watt, Wright, sound dir. Cavalcanti, 1936 [see
instrumental ensemble]
Peace of Britain, fl, cl, tpt, perc, pf, str, March 1936 [rec. 21 March]; Freenat
Films and Strand Films, dir. P. Rotha, 1936
Around the Village Green, 2 fl, ob, cl, tpt, trbn, timp, perc, hp, str, April,
Sept–Oct 1936 [rec. 19, 21 Oct]; Travel and Industrial Development
Association, dir. Spice, M. Grierson, 1937 [see orchestral, Irish Reel]
Men of the Alps, fl + pic, cl, tpt, trbn, perc, hp, str; Sept–Oct 1936 [rec. 20
Oct]; GPO and Pro Telephon, Zürich, producer, Watt, dir. Cavalcanti, 1937
The Saving of Bill Blewitt, fl, cl, tpt, trbn, perc, hp, str, Oct 1936 [rec. 20
Oct]; GPO, producer J. Grierson, dir. Watt, 1937; music lost
Calendar of the Year, March, Sept–Nov 1936 [rec. 9, 20 Oct, 3 Nov]; GPO,
produced Cavalcanti, dir. E. Spice, 1937; most music lost
Line to the Tschierva Hut, fl + pic, cl, tpt, trbn, perc, hp, str, Sept–Nov 1936
[rec. 20 Oct, 3 Nov]; GPO and Pro Telephon, Zürich, producer, J. Grierson,
dir. Cavalcanti, 1937
Four Barriers, ?Sept–Nov 1936; GPO and Pro Telephon, Zürich, producer
Watt, dir. Cavalcanti, 1937; music lost
Message from Geneva, ?Sept 1936; GPO and Pro Telephon, Zürich, dir.
Cavalcanti, 1937; music lost
Love from a Stranger (F. Marion, adapted from play by F. Vosper, after A.
Christie: Philomel Cottage), orch, Nov 1936 [rec. 25, 27 Nov] (2000, transcr.
C. Matthews); Capitol (Trafalgar) Films/Max Schach Productions, produced
Schach, dir. R.V. Lee, 1937 [feature film; for pubd version, see
Arrangements by others of Britten works]
The Way to the Sea (verse: Auden), spkr, fl + pic, ob + eng hn, cl, a sax,
bn, tpt, trbn, perc, hp, pf, Dec 1936 [rec. 14, 16 Dec]; Strand Films for
Southern Railway, producer Rotha, dir. J.B. Holmes, 1937
Book Bargain, ?1936–7; GPO, dir. N. McLaren, 1937
Advance Democracy (R. Bond), SATB, perc, 1938; Realist Film Unit, dir.
Bond, Wright, 1938
Mony a Pickle, ?1938; GPO, dir. Cavalcanti, R. Massingham, 1938 [music
taken from The King's Stamp, probably without Britten's knowledge]
Instruments of the Orchestra (Slater), orch, 1945 [rec. 28 March 1946]
(1947); Crown Film Unit, producer A. Shaw, dir. M. Mathieson, 1946 [see
orchestral, The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, 1945]

radio
King Arthur (D.G. Bridson), SATB, orch, March–April 1937; BBC, 23 April
1937 [for pubd Suite, see Arrangements by others of Britten works]
The Company of Heaven (compiled R.E. Roberts), S, T, SATB, timp, org,
str, Aug–Sept 1937 (1990); BBC, 29 Sept 1937 [see vocal: solo voices and
chorus with orchestra]
Hadrian's Wall (W.H. Auden), solo male v, SATB, perc, str qt, Nov 1937;
BBC, 25 Nov 1937; music lost
Lines on the Map (4 programmes: S. Potter, J. Miller, D.F. Aitken and E.J.
Alway, Potter), 2 tpt, 2 trbn, perc, Jan 1938; BBC, Jan–April 1938
The Chartists’ March (J.H. Miller), TB, perc, April–May 1938; BBC, 13 May
1938; music lost
The World of the Spirit (compiled Roberts), S, A, T, B, SATB, orch, April–
May 1938 (2000); BBC, 5 June 1938 [see vocal: solo voices and chorus
with orchestra]
The Sword in the Stone (6 pts, M. Helweg, after T.H. White), solo female v,
2 solo male vv, TB, fl + pic, cl, bn, tpt, trbn, perc, hp, April–May 1939; BBC,
11 June – 16 July 1939 [for pubd Suite, see Arrangements by others of
Britten works]
The Dark Valley (Auden), solo female v, fl, eng hn, cl, tpt, perc, May 1940;
CBS (New York), 2 June 1940
The Dynasts (after T. Hardy), brass, perc, str, 1940; CBS (New York), 24
Nov 1940; music lost
The Rocking-Horse Winner (Auden and J. Stern, after D.H. Lawrence),
male vv, fl, cl, perc, hp, 1941; CBS (New York), 6 April 1941; music lost
Appointment (N. Corwin), orch, 1942; BBC, 20 July 1942
An American in England (6 programmes: Corwin), orch, July 1942; CBS
(London), July–Sept 1942
Lumberjacks of America (R. MacDougall), fl, cl, bn, 2 tpt, trbn, perc, pf, hp,
db, July–Aug 1942; BBC, 24 Aug 1942
The Man Born to be King, play 10: The Princes of this World (D.L. Sayers),
solo male v, pf, 1942; BBC, 23 Aug 1942 [song: Bring me garlands, bring
me wine]
The Man Born to be King, play 11: King of Sorrows (Sayers), S/Mez, male
chorus, hp/pf, Sept 1942; BBC, 20 Sept 1942 [song: Soldier, soldier, why
will you roam]
Britain to America (programmes i/9, ii/4, ii/13: L. MacNeice), orch, 1942;
BBC North American Service, Sept, Nov 1942, Jan 1943
The Four Freedoms, programme 1: Pericles (MacNeice), 1943; BBC, 21
Feb 1943; music lost
The Rescue (E. Sackville-West, after Homer: Odyssey), S, Mez, T, B, orch,
1943; BBC, 25–6 Nov 1943 [for concert version, see Arrangements by
others of Britten works]
A Poet's Christmas (Auden), SATB, 1944; BBC, 24 Dec 1944 [music for: 1
A Shepherd's Carol, 2 Chorale after an Old French Carol]
The Dark Tower (MacNeice), tpt, perc, str, 1945; BBC, 21 Jan 1946
Men of Goodwill (compiled L. Gilliam and L. Cottrell), orch, 1947; BBC, 25
Dec 1947
theatre
Timon of Athens (W. Shakespeare), 2 ob, perc, hpd, Oct–Nov 1935;
producer N. Monck, London, Westminster Theatre, 19 Nov 1935
Easter 1916 (M. Slater), mixed vv, perc, accdn, Dec 1935; producer A. van
Gyseghem, London, Phoenix, 8 Dec 1935; music lost
Stay down Miner (Slater), T/Bar, TB chorus, cl, perc, vn, vc, May 1936;
producer W. Walter, London, Westminster Theatre, 10 May 1936
The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (trans. L. MacNeice), SATB, 2 fl, eng hn, cl,
perc, Oct 1936; producer R. Doone, London, Westminster Theatre, 1 Nov
1936
The Ascent of F6 (W.H. Auden, C. Isherwood), solo female v, 2 solo male
vv, SATB, perc, ukelele, 2 pf, Feb 1937; producer Doone, London, Mercury,
26 Feb 1937
Pageant of Empire (Slater), mixed vv, cl, a sax, tpt, perc, pf, vn, vc, db, Feb
1937; London, Collins’ Music Hall, 28 Feb 1937
Out of the Picture (MacNeice), S, solo male v, SATB, tpt, perc, pf, Dec
1937; producer Doone, London, Westminster Theatre, 5 Dec 1937
Spain (Slater), mixed vv, cl, vn, pf, June 1938; London, Mercury, 22 June
1938; music lost
On the Frontier (Auden, Isherwood), male v, chorus, 2 tpt, perc, accdn, pf,
Oct–Nov 1938; producer Doone, Cambridge, Arts, 14 Nov 1938
They Walk Alone (M. Catto), org, Nov 1938; producer B. Viertel, London, Q
Theatre, 21 Nov 1938
The Seven Ages of Man (Slater), 1938; London, Mercury, 1938; music lost
Johnson over Jordan (J.B. Priestley), S, fl + pic, orch, Jan–Feb 1939;
producer B. Dean, London, New, 22 Feb 1939 [for pubd Suite, see
Arrangements by others of Britten works]
This Way to the Tomb (R. Duncan), S, A, T, B, SATB, perc, pf 4 hands,
1945; producer E.M. Browne, London, Mercury, 11 Oct 1945
The Eagle has Two Heads (J. Cocteau, trans. Duncan), brass, perc, 1946;
producer M. MacDonald, Hammersmith, Lyric, 4 Sept 1946
The Duchess of Malfi (J. Webster, adapted Auden), 1946; producer G.
Rylands, Providence, RI, Metropolitan, 20 Sept 1946; music lost
Stratton (Duncan), 1949; producer J. Fernald, Brighton, Royal, 31 Oct 1949;
music lost
Am stram gram (A. Roussin), mixed vv, pf, 1954; producer V. Azaria,
London, Toynbee Hall, 4 March 1954 [for pubn, see vocal: chorus with
instrumental ensemble or solo instrument]
The Punch Revue (Auden, W. Plomer), female v, pf, 1955; producer V.
Hope, London, Duke of York's, 28 Sept 1955

For further details of Britten's incidental music, see Evans, Reed and Wilson (B1987) and
Reed (F1987).

Britten, Benjamin: Works

orchestral
c60 unpubd juvenilia
— Two Portraits, str (no.2 with solo va)
1930 (1997); M. Gerrard, Northern
Sinfonia, cond. M. Brabbins, BBC, 5
Dec 1995
— Plymouth Town, 1931 [orig. a ballet,
never perf.]
— Double Concerto, vn, va, orch, 1932
(1999, ed. C. Matthews); K. Hunka,
 P. Dukes, Britten-Pears Orchestra,
cond. Nagano, Snape Maltings, 15
June 1997
1 Sinfonietta, chbr orch, 1932 (1935),
London, 31 Jan 1933; version for
small orch, 1936, cond. E. Cundell,
London, 10 March 1936
4 Simple Symphony, str, 1933–4
(1935); cond. Britten, Norwich, 6
March 1934
9 Soirées musicales [after Rossini]: 1
March, 2 Canzonetta, 3 Tirolese, 4
Bolero, 5 Tarantella, 1935–6 (1938);
BBC Orch, cond. J. Lewis, BBC, 16
Jan 1937 [nos.1, 2, 4 adapted from
choral work, Rossini Suite, 1935; see
also Matinées musicales, op.24]
— Irish Reel, 1936, rev. 1937 (1996);
Charles Brill Orchestra, cond. Brill,
BBC, 21 April 1938 [composed as
title music to film score, Around the
Village Green, 1936]
10 Variations on a Theme of Frank
Bridge, str, 1937 (1938); Boyd Neel
Orchestra, cond. Neel, Radio
Hilversum, Netherlands, 25 Aug
1937
12 Mont Juic [after Catalan dances],
1937 (1938), collab. L. Berkeley;
BBC Orchestra, cond. Lewis, BBC, 8
Jan 1938
13 Piano Concerto, 1938 (red. score
1939), rev. 1945 (red. score 1946, fs
1967); Britten, BBC SO, cond. Wood,
London, 18 Aug 1938
15 Violin Concerto, 1938–9 (red. score
1940), rev. 1950, 1954 (red. score
1958), 1965 (1965); A. Brosa, New
York PO, cond. Barbirolli, New York,
28 March 1940
16 Young Apollo, pf, str qt, str orch,
1939 (1982); Britten, CBC String
Orchestra, cond. A. Chuhaldin, CBC,
27 Aug 1939; withdrawn
19 Canadian Carnival (Kermesse
canadienne), 1939 (1948); BBC
Orchestra, cond. Raybould, BBC, 6
June 1940
20 Sinfonia da Requiem, 1939–40
(1942); New York PO, cond.
 Barbirolli, New York, 29 March 1941
21 Diversions, pf left hand, orch, 1940
(1941), rev. 1950, 1953–4 (red. score
1955, fs 1988); Wittgenstein,
Philadelphia Orchestra, cond.
Ormandy, Philadelphia, 16 Jan 1942
24 Matinées musicales [after Rossini]: 1
March, 2 Nocturne, 3 Waltz, 4
Pantomime, 5 Moto perpetuo, 1941
(1943); American Ballet Company,
cond. E. Balaban, Rio de Janeiro, 27
June 1941 [no.1 is reorchestration of
no.3 from choral work, Rossini Suite,
1935; see also Soirées musicales,
op.9]
— Paul Bunyan Overture, 1941, orchd
C. Matthews 1977 (1980); European
Community Youth Orchestra, cond.
J. Judd, London, 6 Aug 1978
— An American Overture, 1941 (1985);
CBSO, cond. Rattle, Birmingham, 8
Nov 1983
26 Scottish Ballad, 2 pf, orch, 1941 (red.
score 1946, fs 1969); E. Bartlett, R.
Robertson, Cincinnati SO, cond. E.
Goossens, Cincinnati, 28 Nov 1941
— Movement for Clarinet and Orch,
1941–2, orchd C. Matthews c1990;
M. Collins, Britten-Pears Orchestra,
cond. T. Vásáry, London, 7 March
1990
29 Prelude and Fugue, 18-pt str orch,
1943 (1951); Boyd Neel Orchestra,
cond. Neel, London, 23 June 1943
33a Four Sea Interludes, from Peter
Grimes, 1945 (1946); LPO, cond.
Britten, Cheltenham, 13 June 1945
33b Passacaglia, from Peter Grimes,
1945 (1946); BBC SO, cond. Boult,
London, 29 Aug 1945
34 The Young Person's Guide to the
Orchestra: Variations and Fugue on
a Theme of Henry Purcell (opt. text:
E. Crozier), spkr ad lib, orch, 1945
(1947); Liverpool PO, cond. Sargent,
Liverpool, 15 Oct 1946
38 Occasional Overture, 1946 (1984);
BBC SO, cond. Boult, BBC, 29 Sept
1946; withdrawn
— Men of Goodwill: Variations on a
 Christmas Carol (‘God rest ye merry,
gentlemen’), 1947 (1982); LSO,
cond. W. Goehr, BBC, 25 Dec 1947
48a Lachrymae, va, str, 1976 (1977); R.
Moog, Westphalian SO, cond. K.A.
Rickenbacher, Recklinghausen, 3
May 1977 [arr. of chbr work, op.48]
— Variation on an Elizabethan Theme,
str, 1953; Aldeburgh Festival
Orchestra, cond. Britten, BBC, 16
June 1953 [theme by Byrd,
Sellenger's Round, arr. I. Holst, other
variations by A. Oldham, Tippett,
Berkeley, Searle, Walton]
53a Symphonic Suite ‘Gloriana’ (R.
Devereux), T/ob ad lib, orch, 1953;
Pears, CBSO, cond. R. Schwarz,
Birmingham, 23 Sept 1954
57a Pas de six, from The Prince of the
Pagodas, 1957; CBSO, cond.
Schwarz, Birmingham, 26 Sept 1957
68 Symphony for Cello and Orchestra,
1963, rev. 1964 (1964);
Rostropovich, Moscow PO, cond.
Britten, Moscow, 12 March 1964
79 The Building of the House (Bible: Ps
cxxvii), ov., SATB/org/brass ad lib,
orch, 1967 (1968); East Anglian
choirs, English Chamber Orchestra,
cond. Britten, Snape Maltings, 2
June 1967
90 Suite on English Folk Tunes: ‘A time
there was …’, 1974 (1976); English
Chamber Orchestra, cond. Bedford,
Snape Maltings, 13 June 1975 [incl.
Hankin Booby, 1966, written for
opening of Queen Elizabeth Hall,
London, 1 March 1967]

See also Arrangements by others of Britten

works

Britten, Benjamin: Works

instrumental ensemble
— Night Mail (W.H. Auden), spkr, fl, ob, bn, tpt, 8 perc, vn, va, vc, db,
1935–6 (2000); concert perf. Apollo Chamber Orchestra, cond. D.
Chernaik, London, 7 Nov 1997 [orig. composed as film score]
— Russian Funeral, brass and perc ens, 1936 (1981); South London Brass
Orchestra, cond. A. Bush, London, 8 March 1936
— Fanfare [from Gloriana, 1953], tpts in multiples of 3; Herald Trumpeters
of the Royal Artillery Band, Woolwich, Snape Maltings, 2 June 1967
Britten, Benjamin: Works
vocal
solo voices and chorus with orchestra
solo voice with orchestra
chorus with instrumental ensemble or solo instrument
chorus unaccompanied
1–3 solo voices with 1 or 2 instruments
opera excerpts prepared in Britten's lifetime: choral
opera excerpts: solo voice with accompaniment
Britten, Benjamin: Works
solo voices and chorus with orchestra
— The Company of Heaven (compiled R.E. Roberts), spkrs, S, T, SATB,
timp, org, str, 1937 (1990); F. Aylmer, I. Dawson, S. Rome, S. Wyss, P.
Pears, BBC Chorus and Orchestra, cond. T. Harvey, BBC, 29 Sept
1937 [orig. a radio feature]
— Pacifist March (R. Duncan), chorus 2vv, orch, 1936–7 (1937)
— The World of the Spirit (compiled R.E. Roberts), spkrs, S, C, T, B,
SATB, orch, 1938 (2000); Aylmer, L. Genn, R. Speaight, Wyss, A.
Wood, E. Bebb, V. Harding, BBC Singers and Orchestra, cond. Harvey,
BBC, 5 June 1938 [orig. a radio feature]
14 Ballad of Heroes (R. Swingler, W.H. Auden), T/S, chorus, orch, 1939
(vs 1939); W. Widdop, 12 choruses, LSO, cond. Lambert, London, 5
April 1939
42 Saint Nicolas (E. Crozier), T, 4, Tr, SATB, SA, pf 4 hands, perc, org, str,
1947–8 (chorus score 1948, fs 1949); Pears, Aldeburgh Festival
Chorus, cond. L. Woodgate, Aldeburgh, 5 June 1948
44 Spring Symphony (various poets), S, C, T, mixed vv, boys' vv, orch,
1948–9 (vs 1949, fs 1951); J. Vincent, Ferrier, Pears, Dutch Radio
Chorus, Concertgebouw Orchestra, cond. van Beinum, Amsterdam, 14
July 1949
62 Cantata academica, carmen basiliense (charter of Basle U. and other
texts, compiled B. Wyss), S, A, T, B, chorus, orch, 1959 (vs 1959, fs
1960); A. Giebel, E. Cavelti, Pears, H. Rehfuss, Basle Chamber
Orchestra, cond. Sacher, Basle U., 1 July 1960
66 War Requiem (Missa pro defunctis, W. Owen), S, T, Bar, SATB, orch,
chbr orch, boys’ vv, org, 1961–2 (1962); Harper, Pears, Fischer-
Dieskau, Coventry Festival Chorus, CBSO, cond. M. Davies, Melos
Ensemble, cond. Britten, Coventry Cathedral, 30 May 1962
69 Cantata misericordium (P. Wilkinson), T, Bar, small chorus, str qt, str
orch, pf, hp, timp, 1963 (chorus score 1963, fs 1964); Pears, Fischer-
Dieskau, Le Motet de Genève, Suisse Romande Orchestra, cond.
Ansermet, Geneva, 1 Sept 1963
95 Welcome Ode (T. Dekker, J. Ford, H. Fielding, anon.), young people's
vv, orch, 1976 (1977); Suffolk Schools’ Choir and Orchestra, cond. K.
Shaw, Ipswich, 11 July 1977
— Praise we Great Men (E. Sitwell), S, Mez, T, B, SATB, orch, 1976,
orchd C. Matthews 1977; M. McLaughlin, Harper, Langridge, R.
 Jackson, Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra, cond. Rostropovich,
Snape Maltings, 11 Aug 1985
Britten, Benjamin: Works
solo voice with orchestra
9 unpubd juvenilia
— Quatre chansons françaises: 1 Nuits de
juin (V. Hugo), 2 Sagesse (P. Verlaine),
3 L'enfance (Hugo), 4 Chanson
d'automne (Verlaine); high v, orch, 1928
(vs 1982, fs 1983); Harper, English
Chamber Orchestra, cond. Bedford,
BBC, 30 March 1980
8 Our Hunting Fathers, sym. cycle:
Prologue (W.H. Auden), 1 Rats away!
(anon.), 2 Messalina (anon.), 3 Dance of
Death (T. Ravenscroft), Epilogue and
Funeral March (Auden); high v, orch,
1936 (vs 1936), rev. 1961 (fs 1964);
Wyss, LPO, cond. Britten, Norwich, 25
Sept 1936
18 Les illuminations (A. Rimbaud), high v,
str, 1939 (1940); Wyss, Boyd Neel
Orchestra, cond. Neel, London, 30 Jan
1940
— Now sleeps the crimson petal
(Tennyson), T, hn, str, 1943 (1989, ed.
C. Matthews); N. Mackie, A. Civil,
English Chamber Orchestra, cond.
Bedford, London, 3 April 1987 [orig.
composed as part of Serenade, op.31]
31 Serenade: Prologue, 1 Pastoral (C.
Cotton), 2 Nocturne (Tennyson), 3 Elegy
(W. Blake), 4 Dirge (anon., 15th
century), 5 Hymn (B. Jonson), 6 Sonnet
(J. Keats), Epilogue; T, hn, str orch,
1943 (1944); Pears, D. Brain, cond. W.
Goehr, London, 15 Oct 1943
60 Nocturne: Prometheus Unbound (P.B.
Shelley), The Kraken (Tennyson), from
The Wanderings of Cain (S.T.
Coleridge), Blurt, Master Constable (T.
Middleton), from The Prelude (W.
Wordsworth), The Kind Ghosts (W.
Owen), Sleep and Poetry (Keats),
Sonnet 43 (W. Shakespeare); T, 7 obbl
insts, str, 1958 (1959); Pears, BBC SO,
cond. Schwarz, Leeds, 16 Oct 1958
93 Phaedra (dramatic cant., R. Lowell, after
J. Racine), Mez, perc, hpd, str, 1975 (vs
1977, fs 1992); Baker, English Chamber
 Orchestra, cond. Bedford, Snape
Maltings, 16 June 1976

See also Arrangements by Britten:

folksongs

Britten, Benjamin: Works

chorus with instrumental ensemble or solo instrument
20 unpubd juvenilia
— Three Two-Part Songs (W. de la Mare): The Ride-by-Nights, The
Rainbow, The Ship of Rio; boys'/female vv, pf, 1932 (1932); Carlyle
Singers, pf Britten, cond. I. Lemare, London, 12 Dec 1932
— Two Part-Songs: I Lov'd a Lass (G. Wither), Lift Boy (R. Graves);
SATB, pf, 1932, rev. 1933 (1934); cond. Lemare, London, 11 Dec
1933
— Jubilate Deo, E (Psalm c), SATB, org, 1934 (1984); Winchester
Cathedral Choir, J. Lancelot, cond. M. Neary, Winchester Cathedral, 4
March 1984
— Te Deum, C (Bk of Common Prayer), Tr, SATB, org/(hp/pf, str), 1934
(1935), orchd 1936; M. Bartlett, St Michael's Singers, G. Thalben-Ball,
cond. H. Darke, London, 13 Nov 1935
— May (anon.), unison vv, pf, 1934 (1935); BBC, 24 June 1942
— Rossini Suite [after Rossini]: 1 Allegro brillante, 2 Allegretto, 3
Allegretto, 4 Bolero, 5 Allegro con brio; boys' vv, chbr ens, 1935
[nos.1, 2, 5 from film score, The Tocher, 1935; adaptation of nos.1, 2,
4 in Soirées musicales, op.9; reorch of no.3 in Matinées musicales.
op.24]
7 Friday Afternoons, 12 children's songs: 1 Begone, dull care (anon.), 2
A Tragic Story (W.M. Thackeray), 3 Cuckoo! (J. Taylor), 4 ‘Ee-Oh!’
(anon.), 5 A New Year Carol (anon.), 6 I mun be married on Sunday
(N. Udall), 7 There was a man of Newington (anon.), 8 Fishing Song (I.
Walton), 9 The Useful Plough (anon.), 10 Jazz-Man (E. Farjeon), 11
There was a monkey (anon.), 12 Old Abram Brown (anon.); children's
vv, pf, 1933–5 (1936); St Felix School Choir, Southwold, cond. R.
Railton, BBC, 18 May 1949 [Lone Dog (I.R. McLeod), orig. composed
as part of group, pubd in appx of 1994 edn]
28 A Ceremony of Carols: 1 Procession, 2 Wolcum Yole! (anon.), 3 There
is no rose (anon.), 4a That yongë child (anon.), 4b Balulalow (J., J.
and R. Wedderburn), 5 As Dew in Aprille (anon.), 6 This Little Babe
(R. Southwell), 7 Interlude, 8 In Freezing Winter Night (Southwell), 9
Spring Carol (W. Cornish), 10 Deo gracias (anon.), 11 Recession; Tr
vv, hp, 1942, rev. 1943 (1943); Fleet Street Choir, G. Mason, cond.
T.B. Lawrence, Norwich Castle, 5 Dec 1942
30 Rejoice in the Lamb (festival cant., C. Smart), Tr, A, T, B, SATB, org,
1943 (1943); Choir of St Matthew's Church, Northampton, C. Barker,
cond. Britten, Northampton, St Matthew, 21 Sept 1943
— The Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard (anon.), male vv, pf,
1943 (1952); Chorus of Prisoners of War, B. Grayson and F. Henson,
cond. R. Wood, Eichstätt, Germany, 20 Feb 1944
32 Festival Te Deum (Bk of Common Prayer), Tr, SATB, org, 1944
(1945); P. Titcombe, Choir of St Mark's, Swindon, G.W. Curnow, cond.
J.J. Gale, Swindon, 24 April 1945
46 A Wedding Anthem (Amo ergo sum) (R. Duncan), S, T, SATB, org,
1949 (1950); Cross, Pears, cond. Britten, London, 29 Sept 1949
— Am stram gram (A. Roussin), (unison vv, pf)/SATB, 1954 (1973, in
Tempo, no.107); London, 4 March 1954 [orig. composed as theatre
incid music]
56a Hymn to St Peter, Tr, SATB, org, 1955 (1955); Norwich, 20 Nov 1955
56b Antiphon (G. Herbert), SATB, org, 1956 (1956); Tenbury Wells, 29
Sept 1956
63 Missa brevis, D, boys’ vv, org, 1959 (choral score 1959, fs 1960);
Westminster Cathedral Choir, org and cond. Malcolm, London, 22 July
1959
— Jubilate Deo, C (Ps c), SATB, org, 1961 (1961); Choir of St George's
Chapel, Windsor, W. Harris, Windsor, 16 July 1961
— Venite exultemus Domino (Ps xcv), SATB, org, 1961 (1983);
Westminster Abbey Choir, G. Morgan, cond. S. Preston, London, 2
Oct 1983
— Corpus Christi Carol, arr. 1v/unison vv, pf/org, 1961 (1961) [from A
Boy was Born, op.3, variation 5]
— Fancie (W. Shakespeare), unison vv, pf, 1961, rev. 1965 (1965); BBC,
2 March 1969
67 Psalm 150, children's chorus 2vv, insts, 1962 (1963); Old Buckenham
Hall School Choir and ens, cond. K. Foster, Thorpe Morieux, 29 July
1962
— A Hymn of St Columba: Regis regum rectissimi, SATB, org, 1962
(1963); Ulster Singers, R.A. McGraw, cond. H. Nelson, Co. Donegal, 2
June 1963
75 Voices for Today, anthem (Virgil and others), mixed vv (men, women,
children), org ad lib, 1965 (1965); simultaneous premières in London,
New York and Paris, 24 Oct 1965
— The Oxen (‘Christmas eve, and twelve of the clock’) (T. Hardy),
women's chorus 2vv, pf, 1967 (1968); East Coker Women's Institute
Choir, 25 Jan 1968
82 Children's Crusade, ballad (B. Brecht, trans. H. Keller), children's vv,
perc, 2 pf, org, 1969 (chorus score 1970, fs 1972); Wandsworth
School Choir and Orchestra, cond. R. Burgess, London, 19 May 1969
Britten, Benjamin: Works
chorus unaccompanied
— A Wealden Trio: the Song of the Women (F.M. Ford), carol, SSA, 1929–
30, rev. 1967 (1968); rev. version: Ambrosian Singers, cond. Ledger,
Aldeburgh, 19 June 1968
— A Hymn to the Virgin (anon., c1300), anthem, SATB double chorus,
1930, rev. 1934 (1935); Lowestoft, 5 Jan 1931
— The Sycamore Tree (trad.), carol, SATB, 1930, rev. 1934, 1967 (1968);
Lowestoft, 5 Jan 1931; rev. version, Ambrosian Singers, cond. Ledger,
Aldeburgh, 19 June 1968
— Christ's Nativity, Christmas suite: 1 Christ's Nativity (H. Vaughan), 2
Sweet was the song (W. Ballet's lute bk), 3 Preparations (Christ Church
 MS), 4 New Prince, New Pomp (Bible, R. Southwell), 5 Carol of King
Cnut (C.W. Stubbs); S, C, SATB, 1931 (1994); A. Barlow, A. Murray,
Britten Singers, cond. S. Wilkinson, Southwold, 14 June 1991
3 A Boy was Born (15th- and 16th-century carols, C. Rossetti), choral
variations, male vv, female vv, boys’ vv, 1932–3 (1934), rev. 1955, rev.
with org ad lib 1957–8 (1958); Wireless Chorus, Choirboys of St Mark's,
North Audley Street, cond. L. Woodgate, BBC, 23 Feb 1934
— Advance Democracy (R. Swingler), SSAATTBB, 1938 (1939)
— A.M.D.G. (G.M. Hopkins): 1 Prayer I, 2 Rosa mystica, 3 God's
Grandeur, 4 Prayer II, 5 O Deus, ego amo te, 6 The Soldier, 7 Heaven-
Haven; SATB, 1939 (1989); London Sinfonietta Chorus, cond. T.
Edwards, London, 22 Aug 1984 [orig. op.17, but number reassigned to
Paul Bunyan]
27 Hymn to St Cecilia (W.H. Auden), SSATB, 1941–2 (1942), rev. 1966
(1967); BBC Singers, cond. Woodgate, BBC, 22 Nov 1942
— A Shepherd's Carol (Auden), SATB, 1944 (1962); BBC Singers, cond.
Woodgate, BBC, 24 Dec 1944 [orig. composed for radio feature, A
Poet's Christmas]
— Chorale after an Old French Carol (Auden), SSAATTBB, 1944 (1992);
BBC Singers, cond. Woodgate, BBC, 24 Dec 1944 [orig. composed for
radio feature, A Poet's Christmas]
— Deus in adjutorium meum [from incid music to This Way to the Tomb]
(Ps lxx), SATB, 1945 (1983); Elizabethan Singers, cond. L. Halsey,
London, 26 Oct 1962
47 Five Flower Songs: 1 To Daffodils (R. Herrick), 2 The Succession of the
Four Sweet Months (Herrick), 3 Marsh Flowers (G. Crabbe), 4 The
Evening Primrose (J. Clare), 5 Ballad of Green Broom (anon.); SATB,
1950 (1951); cond. I. Holst, Dartington, 23 July 1950
— We are the darkness in the heat of the day [arr. of no.2 from The Heart
of the Matter] (E. Sitwell), SMezATB, c1956 (1997)
— Sweet was the Song [rev. of Christ's Nativity, no.2] (W. Ballet's lute bk),
carol, SSAA, 1966 (1966); P. Stevens, Purcell Singers, cond. I. Holst,
Aldeburgh, 15 June 1966
— Alleluia! For Alec's 80th Birthday, canon, 3-pt vv, 1971 (1972) [tribute to
Alec Robertson]
91 Sacred and Profane (8 medieval lyrics), SSATB, 1974–5 (1977); Wilbye
Consort, cond. Pears, Snape Maltings, 14 Sept 1975
Britten, Benjamin: Works
1–3 solo voices with 1 or 2 instruments
c60 unpubd juvenilia
— Beware! (3 early songs): 1 Beware!
(H.W. Longfellow, after Ger. text), 2 O
that I had ne'er been married (R. Burns),
3 Epitaph: The Clerk (H. Asquith);
medium v, pf, 1922–6, rev. 1967–8
(1985)
— Tit for Tat (5 settings from boyhood, W.
de la Mare): 1 A Song of Enchantment, 2
Autumn, 3 Silver, 4 Vigil, 5 Tit for Tat; 1v,
pf, 1928–31, rev. 1968 (1969); Shirley-
 Quirk, Britten, Aldeburgh, 23 June 1969
— The Birds (H. Belloc), medium v, pf,
1929–34 (1935); Wyss, Britten, BBC, 13
March 1936
— A Poison Tree (W. Blake), medium v, pf,
1935 (1994); H. Herford, I. Brown,
London, 22 Nov 1986
— When you're feeling like expressing your
affection (? W.H. Auden), high v, pf,
1935–6 (1994); L. Shelton, I. Brown,
Blythburgh Church, 15 June 1992
— Two Ballads: 1 Mother Comfort (M.
Slater), 2 Underneath the abject willow
(Auden); 2vv, pf, 1936 (1937); Wyss, B.
Bannerman, A Hallis, London, 15 Dec
1936
— Johnny (cabaret song, Auden), 1v, pf,
1937 (1980); H. Anderson, N. Franklin,
BBC, 29 June 1949
— Funeral Blues [from incid music to The
Ascent of F6] (cabaret song, Auden), 1v,
pf, 1937 (1980); Pears, Britten, Long
Island, NY, 14 Dec 1941
— Not even summer yet (P. Burra), high v,
pf, 1937 (1994); N. Burra, G. Thorne,
Berkshire, 3 Dec 1937
11 On This Island (5 songs, Auden): 1 Let
the florid music praise!, 2 Now the
leaves are falling fast, 3 Seascape, 4
Nocturne, 5 As it is, plenty; high v, pf,
1937 (1938); Wyss, Britten, London, 19
Nov 1937
— To lie flat on the back (Auden), high v,
pf, 1937 (1997); N. Mackie, J. Blakely,
BBC, 23 April 1985
— Night covers up the rigid land (Auden),
high v, pf, 1937 (1997); P. Rozario, G.
Johnson, London, 22 Nov 1985
— The sun shines down (Auden), high v, pf,
1937 (1997)
— Fish in the unruffled lakes (Auden), high
v, pf, 1938 (1997, ed. C. Matthews), rev.
1942–3 (1947); Pears, Britten, London,
28 Feb 1943
— The Red Cockatoo (A. Waley, after Po
Chü-i), high v, pf, 1938 (1994); Shelton,
Brown, Snape Maltings, 17 June 1991
— Tell me the Truth about Love (cabaret
song, Auden), 1v, pf, 1938 (1980); H.
Anderson, D. Ibbott, BBC, 14 June 1949
— A Cradle Song: Sleep, beauty bright (W.
Blake), S, C, pf, 1938 (1994), V. Bell, K.
Roland, J. West, Snape, 23 July 1994
— Calypso (cabaret song, Auden), 1v, pf,
1939 (1980); Pears, Britten, Long Island,
NY, 14 Dec 1941
22 Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo: 1
Sonetto XVI: Sì come nella penna e
nell'inchiostro, 2 Sonetto XXXI: A che più
debb'io mai l'intensa voglia, 3 Sonetto
XXX: Veggio co’ bei vostri occhi un dolce
lume, 4 Sonetto LV: Tu sa’ ch'io so,
signior mie, che tu sai, 5 Sonetto
XXXVIII: Rendete a gli occhi miei, o
fonte o fiume, 6 Sonetto XXXII: S'un
casto amor, s'una pietà superna, 7
Sonetto XXIV: Spirto ben nato, in cui si
specchia e vede; T, pf, 1940 (1943);
Pears, Britten, London, 23 Sept 1942
— What's in your mind? (Auden), high v, pf,
1941 (1997)
— Underneath the abject willow (Auden),
high v, pf, 1941 (1997) [recomposition of
duet version in Two Ballads, 1936]
— Wild with passion (T.L. Beddoes), high v,
pf, 1942 (1994); Shelton, Brown,
Blythburgh Church, 15 June 1992
— If thou wilt ease thine heart (Beddoes),
high v, pf, 1942 (1994); Shelton, Brown,
Blythburgh Church, 15 June 1992
— Cradle Song (Sleep, my darling, sleep)
(L. MacNeice), high v, pf, 1942 (1994);
Shelton, Brown, Blythburgh Church, 15
June 1992
35 The Holy Sonnets of John Donne: 1 Oh
my black Soule!, 2 Batter my heart, 3 Oh
might those sighes and teares, 4 Oh, to
vex me, 5 What if this present, 6 Since
she whom I loved, 7 At the round earth's
imagined corners, 8 Thou hast made
me, 9 Death, be not proud; high v, pf,
1945 (1947); Pears, Britten, London, 22
Nov 1945
— Evening, Morning, Night [from incid
music to This Way to the Tomb] (R.
Duncan), medium v, hp/pf, 1945 (1988)
— Birthday Song for Erwin (R. Duncan),
high v, pf, 1945 (1994); C. Hobkirk, R.
Jones, London, 22 Nov 1988
40 Canticle I ‘My beloved is mine’ (F.
 Quarles), high v, pf, 1947 (1950); Pears,
Britten, Westminster, 1 Nov 1947
41 A Charm of Lullabies: 1 A Cradle Song
(Blake), 2 The Highland Balou (Burns), 3
Sephestia's Lullaby (R. Greene), 4 A
Charm (T. Randolph), 5 The Nurse's
Song (J. Philip); Mez, pf, 1947 (1949); N.
Evans, F. de Nobel, The Hague, 3 Jan
1948
51 Canticle II ‘Abraham and Isaac’ (Chester
miracle play), A, T, pf, 1952 (1953);
Ferrier, Pears, Britten, Nottingham, 21
Jan 1952
52 Winter Words: Lyrics and Ballads of
Thomas Hardy: 1 At Day-Close in
November, 2 Midnight on the Great
Western, 3 Wagtail and Baby, 4 The
Little Old Table, 5 The Choirmaster's
Burial, 6 Proud Songsters, 7 At the
Railway Station, Upway, 8 Before Life
and After; high v, pf, 1953 (1954); Pears,
Britten, Leeds, 8 Oct 1953
55 Canticle III ‘Still Falls the Rain – the
Raids, 1940, Night and Dawn’ (E.
Sitwell), T, hn, pf, 1954 (1956); Pears, D.
Brain, Britten, London, 28 Jan 1955
— Farfield 1928–30 (J. Lydgate), 1v, pf,
1955 (1955)
— Three Songs from ‘The Heart of the
Matter’ (E. Sitwell): 1 Prologue ‘Where
are the seeds of the Universal Fire’, 2
Song ‘We are the darkness in the heat of
the day’, 3 Epilogue ‘So, out of the dark’;
T, hn, pf, 1956 (1994); Pears, D. Brain,
Britten, Aldeburgh, 21 June 1956
58 Songs from the Chinese (trans. A.
Waley): 1 The Big Chariot (from The Bk
of Songs), 2 The Old Lute (Po Chü-i), 3
The Autumn Wind (Wu-ti), 4 The Herd-
Boy (Lu Yu), 5 Depression (Po Chü-i), 6
Dance Song (from the Bk of Songs);
high v, gui, 1957 (1959); Pears, Bream,
Great Glemham, 17 June 1958
61 Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente: 1
Menschenbeifall, 2 Die Heimat, 3
Sokrates und Alcibiades, 4 Die Jugend,
5 Hälfte des Lebens, 6 Die Linien des
Lebens; 1v, pf, 1958 (1963); Pears,
Britten, BBC, 14 Nov 1958
— Um Mitternacht (J.W. von Goethe), high
 v, pf, ?1960 (1994); Shelton, Brown,
Blythburgh Church, 15 June 1992
— Corpus Christi Carol, 1v, pf, 1961 (1961)
[from A Boy was Born, op.3, variation 5]
— The Ship of Rio [from Three Two-Part
Songs, 1932] (W. de la Mare), arr.
medium v, pf, 1963 (1964)
74 Songs and Proverbs of William Blake:
Proverb I, London, Proverb II, The
Chimney-Sweeper, Proverb III, A Poison
Tree, Proverb IV, The Tyger, Proverb V,
The Fly, Proverb VI, Ah, Sun-flower!,
Proverb VII, Every Night and Every
Morn; Bar, pf, 1965 (1965); Fischer-
Dieskau, Britten, Aldeburgh, 24 June
1965
76 The Poet's Echo (A.S. Pushkin): 1 Echo,
2 My Heart, 3 Angel, 4 The Nightingale
and the Rose, 5 Epigram, 6 Lines written
during a sleepless night; high v, pf, 1965
(1967); Vishnevskaya, Rostropovich,
Moscow Conservatory, 2 Dec 1965
84 Who are these Children?: Lyrics,
Rhymes and Riddles by William Soutar:
1 A Riddle (The Earth), 2 A Laddie's
Sang, 3 Nightmare, 4 Black Day, 5 Bed-
time, 6 Slaughter, 7 A Riddle (The Child
You Were), 8 The Larky Lad, 9 Who are
these Children?, 10 Supper, 11 The
Children, 12 The Auld Aik; T, pf, 1969
(1972); Pears, Britten, Edinburgh, 4 May
1971 [Dawtie's Devotion, The Gully and
Tradition, orig. composed as part of
cycle, pubd in appx of 1997 edn]
86 Canticle IV ‘The Journey of the Magi’
(T.S. Eliot), Ct, T, Bar, pf, 1971 (1972);
Bowman, Pears, Shirley-Quirk, Britten,
Snape Maltings, 26 June 1971
89 Canticle V ‘The Death of Saint
Narcissus’ (Eliot), T, hp, 1974 (1976);
Pears, Ellis, Schloss Elmau, Upper
Bavaria, 15 Jan 1975
92 A Birthday Hansel (Burns): 1 Birthday
Song, 2 My Early Walk, 3 Wee Willie
Gray 4 My Hoggie, 5 Afton Water, 6 The
Winter, 7 Leezie Lindsay; high v, hp,
1975 (1978); Pears, Ellis, Schloss
Elmau, Upper Bavaria, 11 Jan 1976

See also Arrangements by Britten:

folksongs

Britten, Benjamin: Works

opera excerpts prepared in Britten's lifetime: choral
from Paul Bunyan, 1941: Inkslinger's Love Song, T, TB, orch [removed from
the opera 1974–5]; Lullaby of Dream Shadows, 2 S, 2 T, SATB, orch
[removed from the opera 1941]
from Peter Grimes, 1945: Oh, hang at open doors the net, vv (2 pts), pf,
1965 (1967); Old Joe has gone fishing, SATB, pf (1947); Song of the
Fishermen, SATB, pf (1947)
from The Little Sweep, 1949: Audience Songs, vv, pf (1950)
from Gloriana, 1953: Choral Dances, SATB (1954), BBC Midland Chorus,
cond. J. Lowe, BBC, 7 March 1954; Choral Dances, T, SATB, hp, 1967
(1982), Pears, Ambrosian Singers, O. Ellis, cond. Britten, London 1 March
1967
from Noye's Fludde, 1958: Tallis's Canon, SATB, acc. (1967); Eternal
Father, strong to save, unison vv, kbd (1967)

See also Arrangements by Britten: folksongs and Arrangements by others of Britten works

Britten, Benjamin: Works

opera excerpts: solo voice with accompaniment
from Paul Bunyan, 1941: Ballads, 1v, pf/gui, rev. and arr. 1974 (1978)
from Peter Grimes, 1945: Church Scene (Ellen's aria), S, pf/orch (vs 1945);
Embroidery Aria, S, pf/orch (vs 1945); Peter's Dreams, T, pf/orch (vs 1945)
from The Rape of Lucretia, 1946: Flower Song, C, pf/orch (vs 1947); The
Ride, T, pf/orch (1947); Slumber Song, S, pf/orch (1947)
from Gloriana, 1953: The Second Lute Song of the Earl of Essex (R.
Devereux), arr. I. Holst, 1v, pf (1954), Pears, Britten, Aldeburgh, 28 June
1953
from A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1960: Bottom's Dream, op.64a, B-Bar,
pf/orch (1965)

Other excerpts in opera aria volumes: soprano (1992), mezzo-soprano (1993), tenor
(1996), baritone and bass-baritone (forthcoming)

Britten, Benjamin: Works

chamber and solo instrumental
for 3 or more instruments
c50 unpubd juvenilia
— String Quartet, F, 1928 (1999); Sorrel Quartet, BBC, 21 Nov 1995
— Rhapsody, str qt, 1929 (1989); Alexandra Quartet, BBC, 6 Nov 1985
— Quartettino, str qt, 1930 (1984); Arditti Quartet, London Weekend
Television, 15 May 1983
— Movement, fl, ob, cl, b cl, bn, hn, 1930; Haffner Wind Ensemble,
Aldeburgh, 11 June 1993
— Rhapsodies, vn, va, pf, 1931
— String Quartet, D, 1931, rev. 1974 (1975); Gabrieli Quartet, Snape
Maltings, 7 June 1975
— Phantasy, str qnt, 1932 (1983); London, 22 July 1932
2 Phantasy, ob, vn, va, vc, 1932 (1935); L. Goossens, members of
International String Quartet, BBC, 6 Aug 1933
— Alla marcia, str qt, 1933 (1983); Macnaghten String Quartet, London, 11
Dec 1933 [first conceived as 1st movt of 5-movt suite, Alla quartetto
serioso: ‘Go play, boy, play’; rev. as Three Divertimenti, 1936; re-used
and expanded in ‘Parade’ from Les illuminations, 1939]
— Three Divertimenti: 1 March, 2 Waltz, 3 Burlesque; str qt, 1936 (1983);
Stratton Quartet, London, 25 Feb 1936 [rev. of earlier works; for
derivation see Banks, B1999]
25 String Quartet no.1, D, 1941 (1942); Coolidge String Quartet, Los
Angeles, 21 Sept 1941
36 String Quartet no.2, C, 1945 (1946); Zorian String Quartet, London, 21
Nov 1945
— Scherzo, rec qt, 1954 (1955); Aldeburgh, 26 June 1955
— Alpine Suite, rec trio, 1955 (1956); Aldeburgh, 26 June 1955
— Fanfare for St Edmundsbury, 3 tpt, 1959 (1969); Cathedral of Bury St
Edmunds, 10 June 1959
73 Gemini Variations, fl, vn, pf 4 hands [2/4 players], 1965 (1966); Z. and
G. Jeney, Aldeburgh, 19 June 1965
94 String Quartet no.3, 1975 (1977); Amadeus Quartet, Snape Maltings,
19 Dec 1976
for 1–2 instruments
c150 unpubd juvenilia
— Five Walztes [sic], pf, 1923–5, rev. 1969 (1970); A. Peebles, BBC, 10
Feb 1971
— Reflection, va, pf, 1930 (1997); P. Dukes, S. Rahman, BBC, 28 Nov
1995
— Elegy, va, 1930 (1985); N. Imai, Snape Maltings, 22 June 1984
— Three Character Pieces: 1 John, 2 Daphne, 3 Michael, pf, 1930
(1989); S. Briggs, Chester, 28 July 1989
— Fugue, A, pf, 1931 (1991)
— Twelve Variations, pf, 1931 (1986); M. Perahia, Snape Maltings, 22
June 1986
5 Holiday Diary, suite, pf, 1934 (1935); B. Humby, London, 30 Nov 1934
[orig. title: Holiday Tales]
— Two Insect Pieces: 1 The Grasshopper, 2 The Wasp, ob, pf, 1935
(1980); J. Craxton, M. Wright, Manchester, 7 March 1979
6 Suite, vn, pf, 1934–5 (1935); A. Brosa, Britten, BBC, 13 March 1936
— Two Lullabies: 1 Lullaby, 2 Lullaby for a Retired Colonel, 2 pf, 1936
(1990); P. Frankl, T. Vásáry, Snape Maltings, 22 June 1988
— Theme for Improvisation, org, 1936 (1936); A. Marchal, London, 12
Nov 1936
— Temporal Variations, ob, pf, 1936 (1980); N. Caine, A. Hallis, London,
15 Dec 1936
— Reveille, concert study, vn, pf, 1937 (1983); Brosa, F. Reizenstein,
London, 12 April 1937
— Moderato and Nocturne, pf, 1940 (1986), G. Benjamin, Aldeburgh, 16
 June 1983 [movts 1 and 2 of Sonatina romantica]
23/1 Introduction and Rondo alla burlesca, 2 pf, 1940 (1944); E. Bartlett, R.
Robertson, New York, 5 Jan 1941
23/2 Mazurka elegiaca, 2 pf, 1941 (1942); Bartlett, Robertson, New York, 9
Dec 1941
— Themes for Improvisation, org, 1945 (1945); M. Dupré, BBC, 24 July
1945
— Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria, org, 1946 (1952); A.
Wyton, Northampton, 21 Sept 1946
48 Lachrymae: Reflections on a Song of John Dowland, va, pf, 1950
(1951), rev. 1970 (1974); W. Primrose, Britten, Aldeburgh, 20 June
1950 [see also orchestral, op.48a]
49 Six Metamorphoses after Ovid: 1 Pan, 2 Phaeton, 3 Niobe, 4
Bacchus, 5 Narcissus, 6 Arethusa, ob, 1951 (1952); J. Boughton,
Thorpeness, 14 June 1951
65 Sonata, C, vc, pf, 1960–61 (1961); Rostropovich, Britten, Aldeburgh,
7 July 1961
— Night Piece (Notturno), pf, 1963 (1963); Leeds, 19 Sept 1963
70 Nocturnal after John Dowland: Reflections on ‘Come, heavy sleep’,
gui, 1963 (1965); J. Bream, Aldeburgh, 12 June 1964
72 Suite no.1, vc, 1964 (1966); Rostropovich, Aldeburgh, 27 June 1965
80 Suite no.2, vc, 1967 (1969); Rostropovich, Snape Maltings, 17 June
1968
83 Suite, hp, 1969 (1970); Ellis, Aldeburgh, 24 June 1969
87 Suite no.3, vc, 1971, rev. 1974 (1976); Rostropovich, Snape Maltings,
21 Dec 1974
— Tema ‘Sacher’, vc, 1976 (1990), Rostropovich, Zürich, 2 May 1976
concerto cadenzas
J. Haydn: Cello Concerto, C, hVIIb/I, 1964 (1966); Rostropovich, Blythburgh
Church, 18 June 1964 [cadenzas to movts 1 and 2]
W.A. Mozart: Piano Concerto, E , k482, 1966 (1967); Richter, Tours,
France, July 1966 [cadenzas to movts 1 and 3]
Britten, Benjamin
ARRANGEMENTS BY BRITTEN
folksongs
1 or 2 voices with 1 or 2 instruments
listed as published volumes in order of publication date

Folk Song Arrangements, vol.i, British Isles: 1 The Salley Gardens, 2 Little
Sir William, 3 The Bonny Earl o’ Moray, 4 O can ye sew cushions?, 5 The
trees they grow so high, 6 The Ash Grove, 7 Oliver Cromwell; high/medium
v, pf, 1941–2 (1943)
Folk Song Arrangements, vol.ii, France: 1 La Noël passée (The Orphan and
King Henry), 2 Voici le printemps, 3 Fileuse, 4 Le roi s'en va-t'en chasse, 5
La belle est au jardin d'amour, 6 Il est quelqu'un sur terre, 7 Eho! Eho!, 8
Quand j'étais chez mon père (Heigh ho! heigh hi!); high/medium v, pf, 1942
(1946)
Folk Song Arrangements, vol.iii, British Isles: 1 The Plough Boy, 2 There's
none to soothe, 3 Sweet Polly Oliver, 4 The Miller of Dee, 5 The Foggy,
Foggy Dew, 6 O Waly, Waly, 7 Come you not from Newcastle?;
high/medium v, pf, 1945–6 (1948)
Folk Song Arrangements, vol.iv, Moore's Irish Melodies: 1 Avenging and
bright, 2 Sail on, sail on, 3 How sweet the answer, 4 The minstrel boy, 5 At
the mid hour of night, 6 Rich and rare, 7 Dear harp of my country!, 8 Oft in
the stilly night, 9 The Last Rose of Summer, 10 O the sight entrancing; high
v, pf, 1957 (1960)
Folk Song Arrangements, vol.v, British Isles: 1 The Brisk Young Widow, 2
Sally in our Alley, 3 The Lincolnshire Poacher, 4 Early one morning, 5 Ca’
the yowes; high v, pf, 1951–9 (1961)
Folk Song Arrangements, vol.vi, England: 1 I will give my love an apple, 2
Sailor-Boy, 3 Master Kilby, 4 The Soldier and the Sailor, 5 Bonny at Morn, 6
The Shooting of his Dear; high v, gui, 1956–8 (1961)
[Four English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians:] 1 Love Henry,
2 What's Little Babies Made of? 3 The Maid Freed from the Gallows, 4 The
Frog and the Mouse; pf acc., 1967 (1968)
Eight Folk Song Arrangements: 1 Lord! I married me a wife, 2 She's like the
swallow, 3 Lemady, 4 Bonny at Morn, 5 Bugeilio'r Gwenith Gwyn (I was
lonely and forlorn), 6 David of the White Rock, 7 The False Knight upon the
Road, 8 Bird Scarer's Song; high v, hp, 1976 (1980)
Tom Bowling and Other Song Arrangements: for 1v, pf: 1 Tom Bowling [arr.
of song and text by C. Dibdin], c1959, 2 Greensleeves, ?1941, 3 The
Crocodile, c1941, 4 Pray Goody, ?1945–6, 5 The holly and the ivy, 6 I
wonder as I wander [arr. of song collected by J.J. Niles], ?1940–41, 7 Dink's
Song; for 2vv, pf: 8 Soldier, won’t you marry me?, c1958, 9 The Deaf
Woman's Courtship; for 1v, vc, pf: 10 The Stream in the Valley (Da unten im
Tale), c1946; (2000)

solo voice with orchestra

The Salley Gardens [vol.i/1], high v, str, 1942 (2000); Pears, New London
Orchestra, cond. A. Sherman, London, 13 Dec 1942
The Salley Gardens [vol.i/1], high/medium v, bn/vc, hp/pf, str, c1955 (2000)
Little Sir William [vol.i/2], high v, orch, 1942 (2000); Pears, New London
Orchestra, cond. Sherman, London, 13 Dec 1942
The Bonny Earl o’ Moray [vol.i/3], high v, orch, 1942 (2000); Pears, New
London Orchestra, cond. Sherman, London, 13 Dec 1942
O can ye sew cushions? [vol.i/4], high v, orch, 1944 (2000); H. Cook, BBC
Midland Light Orchestra, cond. R. Jenkins, BBC, 6 Nov 1944
Oliver Cromwell [vol.i/7], high v, orch, 1942 (2000); Pears, New London
Orchestra, cond. Sherman, London, 13 Dec 1942
La Noël passée [vol.ii/1], 1v, str (2000)
Five French Folk Songs: 1 Fileuse, 2 Le roi s'en va-t’en chasse, 3 La belle
est au jardin d'amour, 4 Eho! Eho!, 5 Quand j’étais chez mon père [vol.ii/3,
4, 5, 7, 8]; Bar, orch, 1945–6 (2000); M. Singher, Chicago SO, cond. Busch,
Chicago, 23 Dec 1948
The Plough Boy [vol.iii/1], high v, orch, 1946 (2000)
O Waly, Waly [vol.iii/6], high v, str (2000)
Come you not from Newcastle? [vol.iii/7], high v, orch, ?1959 (2000)
choral
The Salley Gardens [vol.i/1], unison vv, pf (1955); Chorus and Orchestra of
the Schools Music Association, cond. Boult, London, 6 May 1956
Oliver Cromwell [vol.i/7], unison vv, pf (1959)
The holly and the ivy, SATB, 1957 (1957); Haddo House Choral Society,
cond. J. Gordon, BBC, 22 Dec 1957
King Herod and the Cock, unison vv, pf, 1962 (1965); London Boy Singers,
Britten, Aldeburgh 16 June 1962
The Twelve Apostles, T, unison vv, pf, 1962 (1981), London Boy Singers,
Britten, Aldeburgh 16 June 1962
purcell realizations and editions
in order of date of arrangement unless otherwise stated

instrumental ensemble
The Golden Sonata, z810, 2 vn, vc, pf, 1945 (1946); O. Zorian, M. Lavers,
N. Semino, Britten, London, 21 Nov 1945
Chacony, g, z730, str qt/str orch, 1947–8, rev. 1963 (1965); Collegium
Musicum Zürich, cond. Britten, Zürich, 30 Jan 1948
solo vocal (realized and edited by Britten and Pears)
Orpheus Britannicus (with orchestra)

Suite of Songs from Orpheus Britannicus: 1 Let sullen discord smile, z321/6
(from Tate: Birthday Song for Queen Mary), 2 Why should men quarrel?,
z630/4d (from Dryden and Howard: The Indian Queen), 3 So when the
glittering Queen of Night, z333/11 (from D'Urfey: The Yorkshire Feast
Song), 4 Thou tun'st this world, z328/6 (from N. Brady: A Song for St
Cecilia's Day), 5a ‘Tis holiday, z321/5 (from Tate: Birthday Song for Queen
Mary), 5b Sound Fame thy brazen trumpet, z627/22 (from T. Betterton and
Dryden: Dioclesian); high v, orch, 1946 (1956)
Three Songs: 1 Hark the ech'ing air!, z629/48b (anon., from The Fairy
Queen), 2 Not all my torments, z400 (anon.), 3 Take not a woman's anger
ill, z609/11 (from Gould: The Rival Sisters); high v, orch, 1963

Orpheus Britannicus (with piano)

Five Songs: 1 I attempt from Love's sickness to fly, z630/17h (from J.
Dryden and R. Howard: The Indian Queen), 2 I take no pleasure, z388
(anon.), 3 Hark the ech'ing air!, z629/48b (anon. from The Fairy Queen), 4
Take not a woman's anger ill, z609/11 (from R. Gould: The Rival Sisters), 5
How blest are shepherds, z628/15b (from Dryden: King Arthur); high v, pf,
1939–59 (1960)
Seven Songs: 1 Fairest Isle, z628/38 (from Dryden: King Arthur), 2 If music
be the food of love, z379C (H. Heveningham), 3 Turn then thine eyes, z425
(anon.), 4 Music for a while, z583/2 (from Dryden: Oedipus), 5 Pious
Celinda, z410 (W. Congreve), 6 I'll sail upon the Dog-star, z571/6 (from T.
D'Urfey: A Fool's Preferment), 7 On the Brow of Richmond Hill, z405
(D'Urfey); high/medium v, pf, 1943–5 (1947)
Six Duets: 1 Sound the trumpet, z323/3 (? from N. Tate: Birthday Song for
Queen Mary), 2 I spy Celia, z499 (anon.), 3 Lost is my quiet, z502 (anon.),
4 What can we poor females do?, z518 (anon.), 5 No, resistance is but
vain, z601/2a (A. Henly), 6 Shepherd, leave decoying, z628/16b (from
Dryden: King Arthur); high and low vv, pf, 1945–?1954 (1961)
Six Songs: 1 Mad Bess, z370 (anon.), 2 If music be the food of love, z379A
(Heveningham), 3 There's not a swain of the plain, z587 (Henly), 4 Not all
my torments, z400 (anon.), 5 Man is for the woman made, z605/3 (P.A.
Motteux), Sweeter than roses, z585/1 (from R. Norton: Pausanius);
high/medium v, pf, 1943–5 (1947)
Harmonia sacra
The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation, z196 (N. Tate), high v, pf, 1944 (1947)
Saul and the Witch at Endor, z134 (anon.), S, T, B, pf, 1945 (1947)
Job's Curse, z191 (J. Taylor), high v, pf, 1948 (1950)
Three Divine Hymns: 1 Lord, what is man?, z192 (W. Fuller), 2 We sing to
Him, z199 (N. Ingelo), 3 Evening Hymn, z193 (Fuller); high/medium v, pf,
1944–5 (1947)
Two Divine Hymns and Alleluia: 1 A Morning Hymn, z198 (Fuller), 2
Alleluia, zS14 (J. Weldon), 3 In the black dismal dungeon of despair, z190
(Fuller); high v, pf, 1944–59 (1960)
Odes and Elegies
The Queen's Epicedium, z383 (Herbert), high v, pf, 1944 (1946)
other solo vocal (listed as published volumes in order of
publication date)
When night her purple veil, zD201 (secular cant., anon.), Bar, 2 vn,
continuo, 1965 (1977)
Let the dreadful engines of eternal will, z578/3 (T. D'Urfey), Bar/T, pf, 1971
(1993)
A Miscellany of Songs: 1 The Knotting Song, z371 (C. Sedley),
high/medium v, pf, 1939, 2 O solitude, z306 (K. Philips), high/medium v, pf,
1955, 3 Celemene, pray tell me, z584 (D'Urfey), S, T, pf, 1946, 4 Dulcibella,
whene'er I sue for a kiss, z485 (A. Henly), S/T, B, pf, 1971, 5 When Myra
sings, z521 (G. Granville), S/T, B, pf, 1971 (1993)
Three Purcell Realizations: 1 Dialogue of Corydon and Mopsa, z629/22
(anon., from The Fairy Queen), 2vv, pf, 1950, 2 In these delightful, pleasant
groves, z600/1d (T. Shadwell), S, C, T, B, pf, 1968, 3 You twice ten-
hundred deities, z630.13a (J. Dryden, R. Howard), Bar, vn, vc, pf, 1948
(forthcoming)

See also stage: Purcell realizations

other arrangements
in order of date of arrangement

orchestra, vocal-orchestral
E. Carpenter: England Arise! (opt. text: Carpenter), orch, vv ad lib, ?1939
(1939)
G. Mahler: What the Wild Flowers Tell me [arr. of Sym. no.3, movt 2], red.
orch, 1941 (1950); BBC Scottish Orchestra, cond. G. Warrack, BBC, 14
Nov 1942
F. Schubert: The Trout [arr. of Die Forelle d550] (C.F.D. Schubart, Eng.
trans.), 1v, 2 cl, str, 1942
R. Schumann: Spring Night [arr. of Frühlingsnacht, op.39 no.2] (F.
Eichendorff, Eng. trans.), 1v, orch, 1942
God Save the Queen, orch, 1971; English Chamber Orchestra, cond.
Britten, Snape Maltings, 13 June 1971
choral
The National Anthem, double SATB, orch, 1961 (vs 1961), red. orch 1967;
Leeds Festival Chorus, Royal Liverpool PO, cond. Pritchard, Leeds, 7 Oct
1961
J.S. Bach: St John Passion [arr. of bwv245], ed. Britten and I. Holst (trans.
Pears and I. Holst), S, Mez, T, B, SATB, 2 fl, 2 ob + ob d'amore, bn, org,
lute, str, 1967; cond. Britten, London, 26 July 1967
solo vocal
F. Schubert: Gretchens Bitte [completion of d564] (from J.W. von Goethe:
Faust, pt I, trans. A. Porter), version 1: S, pf, 1938 (1998), M. Blyth, BBC,
27 Dec 1938; version 2: high v, pf, c1942, Pears, Britten, 1943
C. Dibdin: Tom Bowling (Dibdin), high v, pf, 1959 (2000); Pears, Britten,
Aldeburgh, 22 June 1959
J.S. Bach: Five Spiritual Songs [arr. of songs from Geistliche Lieder] (trans.
Pears): 1 Gedenke doch, mein Geist, zurücke, bwv509, 2 Kommt, Seelen,
dieser Tag, bwv479, 3 Liebster Herr Jesu, bwv484, 4 Komm, süsser Tod,
bwv478, 5 Bist du bei mir, bwv508; high v, pf, 1969 (1971); Pears, Britten,
Blythburgh Church, 18 June 1969
J. Blow: Oh! that mine eyes would melt (anon.), high v, hp/pf, 1975 (1998);
Pears, O. Ellis, Cardiff, 19 March 1976
J. Clarke: A Divine Hymn (Blest be those sweet regions) (anon.), high v,
hp/pf, 1975–6 (1998)
W. Croft: A Hymn on Divine Musick (anon.), high v, hp/pf, 1976 (1998);
Pears, Ellis, Cardiff, 19 March 1976
P. Humfrey: Hymn to God the Father (J. Donne), high v, hp/pf, 1975–6
(1998); Pears, Ellis, 20 Aug 1976
Humfrey: Lord! I have sinned (J. Taylor), high v, hp/pf, 1975–6 (1998)
chamber
F. Bridge: There is a Willow Grows Aslant a Brook [arr. of orch work, h173],
va, pf, 1932 (1990); N. Imai, R. Vignoles, Isle of Man, 27 Aug 1988

See also stage: realizations and completions

Britten, Benjamin
ARRANGEMENTS BY OTHERS OF BRITTEN WORKS
>orchestral, vocal-orchestral
Love from a Stranger: Music from the Film [1936], transcr. C. Matthews,
orch, c1995 (2000); BBC Concert Orchestra, cond. C. Davis, London, 20
May 1995
Temporal Variations [1936], arr. C. Matthews, ob, str orch, c1994 (1995); N.
Daniel, English Chamber Orchestra, cond. S. Bedford, Snape Maltings, 12
June 1994
Suite, from King Arthur [1937], arr. P. Hindmarsh, orch, c1995 (1996); RAM
SO, cond. L. Köhler, Snape Maltings, 21 Oct 1995 [orig. composed as radio
incid music]
Concert Suite, from The Sword in the Stone [1939], arr. O. Knussen and C.
Matthews, chamber ens, c1983 (1989); Aldeburgh Festival Chamber
Ensemble, cond. O. Knussen, Snape Maltings, 14 June 1983 [orig.
composed as radio incid music]
Suite, from Johnson over Jordan [1939], arr. P. Hindmarsh, orch, c1990
(1993); Northern Sinfonia, cond. O. de la Martinez, BBC, 25 Feb 1990 [orig.
composed as theatre incid music]
The Rescue of Penelope: concert version of the music to the radio drama
The Rescue [1943] (E. Sackville-West, after Homer: Odyssey), arr. C. de
Souza with D. Mitchell and C. Matthews, spkr, S, Mez, T, Bar, orch (1998);
BBC SO, cond. N. Cleobury, Snape Maltings, 23 Oct 1993
A Charm of Lullabies [1947], arr. C. Matthews, Mez, orch; M. Forrester,
Indianapolis SO, cond. R. Leppard, Indianapolis, 17 Jan 1991
Five Courtly Dances, from Gloriana [1953], arr. D. Stone, school orch, 1963
(1965) [arr. of 3rd movt of Symphonic Suite, op.53a]
Prelude and Dances, from The Prince of the Pagodas [1956], arr. N. Del
Mar, op.57b, orch, c1963 (1980); BBC Scottish Orch, cond. Del Mar, BBC,
26 Dec 1963
Suite, from The Prince of the Pagodas [1956], arr. D. Mitchell and M.
Cooke, orch, c1997; Deutsches SO Berlin, cond. V. Ashkenazy,
Amsterdam, 4 June 1997
Suite, from Death in Venice [1973], arr. S. Bedford, op.88a, orch, c1984
(1993); English Chamber Orchestra, cond. S. Bedford, Snape Maltings, 13
June 1984
Welcome Suite, from Welcome Ode [1976], arr. T. Osborne, str orch (1994)
band
Russian Funeral [1936], arr. R. Farr, brass band (1987); Grimethorpe
Colliery Band, cond. Farr, Framlingham, 15 June 1984
Soirées musicales [1936], arr. T. Conway Brown, military band (1946)
Spider and the Fly, from Johnson over Jordan [1939], arr. D. Barry, brass
band (1993); cond. P. Hindmarsh, Spenmoor, Co. Durham, 18 Nov 1990
Paul Bunyan Overture [1941], arr. C. Fussell, concert band (1985)
The Courtly Dances, from Gloriana [1953], arr. J. Bach, sym. band (1995)
The Building of the House [1967] (opt. text: Ps cxxvii), arr. T. Marciniak,
concert band, SATB ad lib (1977)
choral
Friday Afternoons [1935], arr. H. Tircuit, SSA, orch
Old Abram Brown, from Friday Afternoons [1935], arr. SATB, pf (1947?)
Five Choruses, from Paul Bunyan [1941]: 1 Prologue I, 2 Prologue II, 3
Blues, 4 Hymn, 5 Litany; arr. SATB, pf (1978)
Carry her over the water, from Paul Bunyan [1941], arr. C. Matthews,
SSATTBB (1980)
A Ceremony of Carols [1942], arr. J. Harrison, SATB, hp/pf (1948)
Rejoice in the Lamb [1943], arr. I. Holst, Tr, A, T, B, SATB, org, orch; A.
Deller, P. Pears, T. Anthony, org R. Downes, Aldeburgh Festival Choir and
Orchestra, cond. I. Holst, Aldeburgh, 20 June 1952
Rejoice in the Lamb [1943], arr. E. Walters, SSAA, org (1973); Liverpool, 3
July 1966
Agnus Dei, from War Requiem [1962], arr. P. Brunelle, T, SATB, org (1989)
O can ye sew cushions?, arr. I. Holst, SSA, pf (1955)
Three Folk Songs: 1 The Bonnie Earl O'Moray [sic], 2 The Salley Gardens,
3 Oliver Cromwell; arr. E. Walters, TTBB, pf (1986)
solo vocal
Funeral Blues from The Ascent of F6 [1937], Johnny [1937], Tell me the
Truth about Love [1938] and Calypso [1939]: arr. D. Runswick, female v, a
sax, tpt, perc, vn, db; Aldeburgh, 8 June 1990
The Salley Gardens [vol.i/1], The Foggy, Foggy Dew [vol.iii/5], O Waly,
Waly [vol.iii/6], The Lincolnshire Poacher [vol.v/3]; arr. G. Nestor, 1v, gui
(1984)
Four Burns Songs, from A Birthday Hansel [1975], arr. C. Matthews, high v,
pf (1978)
Eight Folk Song Arrangements [1976], arr. C. Matthews, medium v, pf
(1980)
chamber and solo instrumental
Playful Pizzicato and Sentimental Saraband, from Simple Symphony
[1934], arr. H. Ferguson, pf 4 hands (1972)
Soirées musicales [1936], arr. B. Easdale, 2 pf (1938)
The Clock on the Wall, from On the Frontier [1938], arr. D. Runswick, a sax,
tpt, perc, pf, vn, db; Aldeburgh, 8 June 1990
Spider and the Fly, from Johnson over Jordan [1939], arr. D. Runswick, a
sax, tpt, perc, pf, vn, db; Aldeburgh, 8 June 1990
Blues, from Paul Bunyan [1941], arr. D. Runswick, a sax, tpt, perc, pf, vn,
db; Aldeburgh, 8 June 1990
This Little Babe, from A Ceremony of Carols [1942], arr. C. Norton, pf
(1989)
Boogie-Woogie, from This Way to the Tomb [1945], arr. D. Runswick, a
sax, tpt, perc, pf, vn, db; Aldeburgh, 8 June 1990
Theme, from The Young Person's Guide [1945], arr. C. Norton, pf (1989)
Theme, from The Young Person's Guide [1945], arr. R. Brison, pf 4 hands
(1990)
Morris Dance, from Gloriana [1953], arr. I. Holst, 2 descant rec (1957)
March, from Gloriana [1953], arr. I. Holst, descant rec (1959)
Concord, from Gloriana [1953], arr. C. Norton, pf (1989)
Most MSS at GB-ALb

Principal publishers: Boosey & Hawkes, Faber, OUP, Chester

For further details see Banks (B1999)

Britten, Benjamin
WRITINGS
‘“As You Like It”: Walton's Music’, World Film News, i/7 (1936), 46
only
‘An English Composer sees America’, Tempo [New York], i/2 (1940),
1–3
‘England and the Folk-Art Problem’, MM, xviii (1941), 71–5
‘Au revoir to the U.S.A.’, MM, xix (1942), 100–1
‘On Behalf of Gustav Mahler’, Tempo [New York], ii/2 (1942), 5 only;
repr. in Tempo [London], no.120 (1977), 14–15
‘Conversation with Benjamin Britten’, Tempo, no.6 (1944), 4–5
‘Introduction’, Peter Grimes, ed. E. Crozier (London, 1945), 7–8
with M. Tippett: 250th Anniversary of the Death of Henry Purcell:
Homage (London, 1945)
‘How to Become a Composer’, The Listener (7 Nov 1946)
‘Foreword’, The Rape of Lucretia: a Symposium, ed. E. Crozier
(London, 1948), 7–8
‘A Note on the Spring Symphony’, Music Survey, ii (1949–50), 237
only
‘How I Became a Composer’, The Radio Listener's Week-End Book
(London, n.d.), 108–12
‘Freeman of Lowestoft’, Tempo, no.21 (1951), 3–5
‘Verdi: a Symposium’, Opera, ii (1951), 113–15
‘A Composer in our Time’, Adam International Review, nos.224–6
(1952), 14–16
‘Variations on a Critical Theme’, Opera, iii (1952), 144–6
‘Three Premieres’, Kathleen Ferrier: a Memoir, ed. N. Cardus
(London, 1954), 54–61
with I. Holst: The Story of Music (London, 1958/R1968 as The
Wonderful World of Music)
‘Dennis Brain (1921–1957)’, Tempo, new ser., no.46 (1958), 5–6
‘On Realizing the Continuo in Purcell's Songs’, Henry Purcell: 1659–
1695, ed. I. Holst (London, 1959), 7–13
‘On Writing English Opera’, Opera, xii (1961), 7–8
Speech on receiving an honorary degree from Hull University, London
Magazine, new ser., iii/7 (1963), 89–91
‘Britten Looking Back’, Sunday Telegraph (17 Nov 1963); repr. in
Musical America, no.84 (1964), 4–6
On Receiving the First Aspen Award (London, 1964/R)
‘A Composer in Russia’, Sunday Telegraph (24 Oct 1965)
‘Tributes and Reminiscences’, Michael Tippett: a Symposium on his
60th Birthday, ed. I. Kemp (London, 1965), 29–30
‘Early Influences: a Tribute to Frank Bridge’, Composer, no.19 (1966),
2–3
‘Frank Bridge (1879–1941)’, Faber Music News (1966), aut., 17–20
‘Britten on Aldeburgh and the Future’, Opera (1967), festival issue, 7–
9
‘No Ivory Tower’, ON, xxxiii/23 (1968–9), 8–11
‘Some Notes on Forster and Music’, Aspects of E.M. Forster: Essays
and Recollections Written for his Ninetieth Birthday, ed. O.
Stallybrass (London, 1969), 81–6
‘“Oedipus Rex” and “Lady Macbeth”’, Tempo, no.120 (1977), 11–12
Britten on Music, ed. P. Kildea (Oxford, forthcoming)
Britten, Benjamin
BIBLIOGRAPHY
a: letters and diaries
b: catalogues of works and source books
c: life
d: criticism
e: operas
f: other works
Britten, Benjamin: Bibliography
a: letters and diaries
L. Foreman: From Parry to Britten: British Music in Letters 1900–
1945 (London, 1987)
D. Mitchell and P. Reed, eds.: Letters from a Life: Selected Letters
and Diaries of Benjamin Britten (London, 1991, 2/1998)
J.K. Law: ‘“I must get a better composer … but how?”: the Early
Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten’, OQ, ix/2 (1992), 31–51
D. Mitchell: ‘Schoenberg in Lowestoft: a Chronology Compiled from
Britten's Pocket Diaries (1928–1939)’, Sundry Sorts of Music
Books: Essays on the British Library Collections Presented to
O.W. Neighbour, ed. C. Banks, A. Searle and M. Turner (London,
1993), 354–62
P. Reed, ed.: The Travel Diaries of Peter Pears (1936–1978)
(Woodbridge, 1995/R)
Britten, Benjamin: Bibliography
b: catalogues of works and source books
Benjamin Britten: a Complete Catalogue of his Works (London, 1963,
2/1973)
J. Evans, P. Reed and P. Wilson: A Britten Source Book (Aldeburgh
and Winchester, 1987/R)
C.H. Parsons: A Benjamin Britten Discography (Dyfed, 1990)
B. Ford, ed.: Benjamin Britten's Poets: the Poetry he Set to Music
(Manchester, 1994, 2/1996)
P. Hodgson: Benjamin Britten: a Guide to Research (New York,
1996)
P. Banks and others, compilers: Benjamin Britten: a Catalogue of
the Published Works (Aldeburgh, 1999)
Britten, Benjamin: Bibliography
c: life
G. Cockshott: ‘English Composer Goes West’, MT, lxxxii (1941), 308
only
E.W. White: Benjamin Britten: a Sketch of his Life and Works
(London, 1948, 2/1954; Ger. trans., 1948)
A. Gishford, ed.: Tribute to Benjamin Britten on his Fiftieth Birthday
(London, 1963)
R.M. Schafer: ‘Benjamin Britten’, British Composers in Interview
(London, 1963), 113–24
M. Tippett: ‘Benjamin Britten: a Birthday Tribute’, Composer, no.12
(1963), 6–7
S. Lazarov: Bendzhamin Britten (Sofiya, 1965)
A. Tauragis: Bendzhamin Britten (Moscow, 1965)
I. Holst: Britten (London, 1966, 3/1980)
M. Hurd: Benjamin Britten (London, 1966)
P.M. Young: Benjamin Britten (London, 1966)
E.W. White: Benjamin Britten: his Life and Operas (London, 1970,
2/1983)
R. Blythe, ed.: Aldeburgh Anthology (Aldeburgh, 1972)
A. Kendall: Britten (London, 1973)
L. Kovnatskaya: Bendzhamin Britten (Moscow, 1974)
M. Tippett: ‘A Tribute to Benjamin Britten’, The Listener (16 Dec
1976); repr. in About the House, v/2 (1977), 56–7
I. Holst: ‘Working for Benjamin Britten’, MT, cxviii (1977), 202–6
D. Mitchell and J. Evans, eds.: Benjamin Britten, 1913–1976:
Pictures from a Life (London, 1978)
‘Peter Pears Talks about Benjamin Britten’, Keynote, ii/2 (1978), 6–15
A. Blyth: Remembering Britten (London, 1981)
R. Duncan: Working with Britten: a Personal Memoir (Bideford, 1981)
C. Headington: Britten (London, 1981, 2/1996)
M. Kennedy: Britten (London, 1981, 2/1993)
G. Schmiedel: Benjamin Britten: für Sie porträtiert (Leipzig, 1983)
T. Bray: ‘Frank Bridge and his “Quasi-Adopted Son”’, MR, xlv (1984),
135–8
D. Mitchell: ‘Outline Model for a Biography of Benjamin Britten’,
Festschrift Albi Rosenthal, ed. R. Elvers (Tutzing, 1984), 239–51
M. Thorpe, ed.: Peter Pears: a Tribute on his 75th Birthday (London,
1985)
Beth Britten: My Brother Benjamin (Bourne End, 1986)
P. Evans: ‘Benjamin Britten’, The New Grove Twentieth-Century
English Masters, ed. S. Sadie (London, 1986), 237–96
S. Bedford: ‘Composer and Conductor: Annals of a Collaboration’,
OQ, iv/3 (1986–7), 60–74
H. Carpenter: Benjamin Britten: a Biography (London, 1992)
N. Evans and E. Crozier: ‘After Long Pursuit’, OQ, x/3 (1993–4), 5–
17
M. Saremba: ‘Und wo bleibt das Positive, Herr Britten? Benjamin
Britten (1913–76)’, Elgar, Britten & Co.: eine Geschichte der
britischen Musik in zwölf Portraits (Zürich, 1994), 275–318
X. de Gaulle: Benjamin Britten, ou L'impossible quiétude (1996)
M. Oliver: Benjamin Britten (London, 1996)
H. Metzelaar: ‘Who Sent Benjamin Britten Hundreds of Eggs from
Holland?’, Key Notes, xxxi/3 (1997), 17–21
J. Wake-Walker, ed.: Time & Concord: Aldeburgh Festival
Recollections (Saxmundham, 1997)
M. Garnham: As I Saw it: Basil Douglas, Benjamin Britten and the
English Opera Group 1955–1957: a Personal Memoir (London,
1998)
Britten, Benjamin: Bibliography
d: criticism
N. Lopatnikoff: ‘England's Young Composers’, MM, xiv (1936–7),
204–7
H. Boys: ‘The Younger English Composers, v: Benjamin Britten’,
MMR, lxviii (1938), 234–7
J.A. Westrup: ‘The Virtuosity of Benjamin Britten’, The Listener, xxviii
(1942), 93
C. Mason: ‘Britten: Another View’, MMR, lxxiii (1943), 153
S. Goddard: ‘Benjamin Britten’, British Music of Our Time, ed. A.L.
Bacharach (Harmondsworth, 1946), 209–18
H. Keller: ‘Britten and Mozart: a Challenge in the Form of Variations
on an Unfamiliar Theme’, ML, xxix (1948), 17–30
C. Mason: ‘Benjamin Britten’, MT, lxxxix (1948), 73–5, 107–10, 139–
42
H. Keller: ‘Resistances to Britten's Music: their Psychology’, Music
Survey, ii (1949–50), 227–36; repr. in Music Survey: New Series,
1949–52, ed. D. Mitchell and H. Keller (London, 1981)
C. Stuart: ‘Britten “The Eclectic”’, Music Survey, ii (1949–50), 247–
50; repr. in Mitchell and Keller, op. cit.
P. Hamburger: ‘Mainly about Britten’, Music Survey, iii (1950–51),
98–107; repr. in Mitchell and Keller, op. cit.
D. Mitchell and H. Keller, eds.: Benjamin Britten: a Commentary on
his Works from a Group of Specialists (London, 1952) [incl. The
Earl of Harewood: ‘The Man’, 1–8’; D. Mitchell: ‘The Musical
Atmosphere’, 9–58; P. Pears: ‘The Vocal Music’, 59–73; G.
Malcolm: ‘The Purcell Realizations’, 74–82; H.F. Redlich: ‘The
Choral Music’, 83–100; A. Oldham: ‘Peter Grimes I: the Music;
the Story not Excluded’, 101–10; H. Keller: ‘Peter Grimes II: the
Story; the Music not Excluded’, 111–24; E. Stein: ‘Peter Grimes
III: Opera and Peter Grimes’, 125–31; N. Del Mar: ‘The Chamber
Operas’, 132–85; G. Malcolm: ‘Dido and Aeneas’, 186–97; E.
Stein: ‘Billy Budd’, 198–210; P. Hamburger: ‘The Chamber
Music’, 211–36; B. Neel: ‘The String Orchestra’, 237–44; E.
Stein: ‘The Symphonies’, 245–56; J. Chissell: ‘The Concertos’,
257–65; G. Auric: ‘The Piano Music I: its Place in Britten's
Development’, 266–8; A.E.F. Dickinson: ‘The Piano Music II:
Critical Survey’, 269–75; I. Holst: ‘Britten and the Young’, 276–
86; L. Berkeley: ‘The Light Music’, 287–94; W. Mann: ‘The
Incidental Music’, 295–310; E.W. White: ‘Bibliography of Britten's
Incidental Music’, 311–13; P. Hamburger: ‘The Pianist’, 314–18;
H. Keller: ‘The Musical Character’, 319–51; D. Shawe-Taylor:
‘Discography’, 352–60]
E. Stein: ‘Britten Seen against his English Background’, Orpheus in
New Guises (London, 1953), 149–63
P. Tranchell: ‘Britten and Brittenites’, ML, xxxiv (1953), 124–32
D. Brown: ‘Stimulus and Form in Britten's Works’, ML, xxxix (1958),
218–26
A. Whittall: ‘Benjamin Britten’, MR, xxiii (1962), 314–16
H. Keller: ‘The World around Britten’, Tempo, nos.66–7 (1963), 32–4
R. Strode: ‘Benjamin Britten and the Recorder’, Recorder and Music
Magazine, i (1965), 262–3
P. Evans: ‘Sonata Structures in Early Britten’, Tempo, no.82 (1967),
2–13
P. Garvie: ‘Darkly Bright: Britten's Moral Imagination’, Canada Music
Book, no.1 (1970), 59–66
D. Handel: ‘Britten's Use of the Passacaglia’, Tempo, no.94 (1970),
2–6
F. Routh: ‘Benjamin Britten’, Contemporary British Music: the
Twenty-Five Years from 1945 to 1970 (London, 1972), 203–29
P. Evans: ‘Britten's Fourth Creative Decade’, Tempo, no.106 (1973),
8–17
H. Keller: ‘Benjamin Britten and the Rôle of Suffering’, Frontier, xvi
(1973), 235–9
W. Thomas: ‘Britten as Humanist: a Redefinition’, Composer, no.60
(1977), 9–11
P. Evans: The Music of Benjamin Britten (London, 1979, 2/1996)
A. Whittall: ‘The Study of Britten: Triadic Harmony and Tonal
Structure’, PRMA, cvi (1979–80), 27–41
D. Mitchell: Britten and Auden in the Thirties: the Year 1936 (London,
1981)
H. Aguilar: ‘A Dangerous Faith: Benjamin Britten's Language’,
Parnassus, x (1982), 135–70
A. Whittall: The Music of Britten and Tippett (Cambridge, 1982,
2/1990)
C. Mark: ‘Simplicity in Early Britten’, Tempo, no.147 (1983), 8–14
C. Palmer, ed.: The Britten Companion (London, 1984) [incl. D.
Mitchell: ‘What do we know about Britten now?’, 21–45; I. Holst:
‘Working for Benjamin Britten (I)’, 46–50; R. Strode: ‘Working for
Benjamin Britten (II)’, 51–61; J. Culshaw: ‘“Ben”: a Tribute to
Benjamin Britten’, 62–7; C. Palmer: ‘The Ceremony of
Innocence’, 68–83; B. Britten and D. Mitchell: ‘Mapreading’, 87–
96; W. Mellers: ‘Paul Bunyan: the American Eden’, 97–103; P.
Pears: ‘On Playing Peter Grimes’, 104–7; C. Palmer: ‘Chaos and
Cosmos in Peter Grimes’, 108–19; C. Headington: ‘The Rape of
Lucretia’, 120–26; E. Stein: ‘Albert Herring’, 127–32; P. Brett:
‘Salvation at Sea: Billy Budd’, 133–43; W. Mellers: ‘Turning the
Screw’, 144–52; W. Mellers: ‘Through Noye's Fludde’, 153–60; I.
Holst: ‘Entertaining the Young: The Little Sweep’, 161–4; D.
Mitchell: ‘Small Victims: The Golden Vanity and Children's
Crusade’, 165–9; D. Mitchell: ‘Public and Private in Gloriana’,
170–76; B. Britten: ‘The Composer's Dream’, 177–80; W.
Mellers: ‘The Truth of the Dream’, 181–91; D. Mitchell: ‘Catching
on to the Technique in Pagoda-Land’, 192–210; D. Mitchell: ‘The
Church Parables (I): Ritual and Restraint’, 211–14; R. Holloway:
‘The Church Parables (II): Limits and Renewals’, 215–26; J.
Evans: ‘Owen Wingrave: a Case for Pacifism’, 227–37; D.
Mitchell: ‘Death in Venice: the Dark Side of Perfection’, 238–49;
C. Palmer: ‘Towards a Genealogy of Death in Venice’, 250–67;
P. Porter: ‘Composer and Poet’, 271–85; G. Johnson: ‘Voice and
 Piano’, 286–307; C. Palmer: ‘Embalmer of the Midnight: the
Orchestral Song-Cycles’, 308–28; A. Milner: ‘The Choral Music’,
329–46; E. Roseberry: ‘The Purcell Realizations’, 356–66; D.
Mitchell: ‘The Chamber Music: an Introduction’, 369–74; E.
Roseberry: ‘The Solo Chamber Music’, 375–82; D. Matthews:
‘The String Quartets and Some Other Chamber Works’, 383–92;
C. Palmer: ‘The Orchestral Works: Britten as Instrumentalist’,
393–410; J. Evans: ‘The Concertos’, 411–24]
C. Mark: ‘Contextually Transformed Tonality in Britten’, MAn, iv
(1985), 265–87
M. Bowen: ‘Britten und Tippett: die Erneuerung in der englischen
Musik’, ÖMz, xli (1986), 155–64
B. Docherty: ‘Aschenbach's Wilderness’, Tempo, no.157 (1986), 9–
11
W.R. Maust: Benjamin Britten's Music of Conscience and
Compassion (Waterloo, 1987)
M. Cooke: ‘Britten and Bali’, JMR, vii (1988), 307–39
M. Cooke: ‘Britten and the Shō’, MT, cxxix (1988), 231–3
M. Kennedy: ‘Under the Influence: Britten's Debt to Mahler:
Enthusiasm, Advocacy and Inspiration’, The Listener (18 Aug
1988)
P. Griffiths: ‘A Mind Withdrawing: Britten’s Music and the Lure of
Might-Have-Beens’, Times Literary Supplement (28 June 1991)
R. Holloway: ‘Strange Victor: the Abyss in Britten’s Soul and the
Triumph of his Will’, Times Literary Supplement (13 Nov 1992)
P. Rupprecht: Tonal Stratification and Conflict in the Music of
Benjamin Britten (diss., Yale U., 1993)
L. Whitesell: Images of Self in the Music of Benjamin Britten (diss.,
SUNY, 1993)
A. Whittall: ‘The Signs of Genre: Britten's Version of Pastoral’,
Sundry Sorts of Music Books: Essays on the British Library
Collections Presented to O.W. Neighbour, ed. C. Banks, A.
Searle and M. Turner (London, 1993), 363–74
C. Mark: ‘Britten and the Circle of Fifths’, JRMA, cxix (1994), 268–97
S. Robinson: ‘“You absolutely owe it to England to stay here”:
Copland as Mentor to Britten, 1939–1942’, Context, viii/sum.
(1994–5), 3–11
C. Mark: Early Benjamin Britten: a Study of Stylistic and Technical
Evolution (New York, 1995)
P. Reed, ed.: On Mahler and Britten: Essays in Honour of Donald
Mitchell on his 70th Birthday (Woodbridge, 1995) [incl. M. Cooke:
‘From Nō to Nebuchadnezzar’, 135–45; D. Drew: ‘Britten and his
Fellow Composers: Six Footnotes for a Seventieth Birthday’,
146–66; O. Knussen: ‘The Key to the Parade’, 170–71; L.
Kovnatskaya: ‘Notes on a Theme from Peter Grimes’, 172–85; E.
Mendelson: ‘The Making of Auden's Hymn for St Cecilia's Day’,
186–92; K. Mitchell: ‘Edinburgh Diary 1968’, 193–212; C. Palmer:
‘Towards a Genealogy of Death in Venice’, 213–28; M. Piper:
‘Venice, 1954’, 229–30; P. Reed: ‘On the Sketches for Billy
Budd’, 231–52; E. Roseberry: ‘“Abraham and Isaac” Revisited:
 Reflections on a Theme and its Inversion’, 253–66; E. Said: ‘Not
All the Way to the Tigers: Britten's Death in Venice’, 267–74; S.
Ketukaenchan: ‘A (Far Eastern) Note on Paul Bunyan’, 275–9; R.
Strode: ‘Writing and Copying: a Superficial Survey of Benjamin
Britten's Music’, 280–89; A. Whittall: ‘Along the Knife-Edge: the
Topic of Transcendence in Britten's Musical Aesthetic’, 290–98]
L. Brauneiss: ‘Zur Akualität Benjamin Brittens’, Musiktheorie, xi
(1996), 125–37
P. Brett: ‘Toeing the Line: Britten's Relationship to the Pastoral
Tradition’, MT, cxxxvii (1996), 7–13
G. Elliott: ‘Britten and Plainsong’, Melos [Stockholm], nos.19–20
(1997), 18–36
D. Mitchell: ‘Benjamin Britten: the Quiet Innovator’, Melos
[Stockholm], nos.19–20 (1997), 4–17
S. Robinson: ‘“An English Composer sees America”: Benjamin
Britten and the North American Press, 1939–42’, American
Music, xv (1997), 321–51
A. Tuchowski: ‘Between Modernity and Tradition: the Tritone as a
“diabolus in musica” in Britten's Works’, Melos [Stockholm],
nos.19–20 (1997), 72–8
M. Cooke: Britten and the Far East: Asian Influences in the Music of
Benjamin Britten (Woodbridge, 1998)
C. Pond: Words and Music in Benjamin Britten: Englishness,
Authenticity and Irony (diss., U. of Leeds, 1998)
A. Whittall: ‘Cross-Currents and Convergencies: Britten, Maxwell
Davies and the Sense of Place’, Tempo, no.204 (1998), 5–11
M. Cooke, ed.: The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten
(Cambridge, 1999) [incl. C. Mark: ‘Juvenilia (1922–1932)’, 11–35;
P. Kildea: ‘Britten, Auden and “Otherness”’, 36–53; P. Reed:
‘Britten in the Cinema: Coal Face’, 54–77; S.A. Allen: ‘“He
Descended into Hell”’: Peter Grimes, Ellen Orford and Salvation
Denied’, 81–94; A. Whittall: ‘The Chamber Operas’, 95–112; A.
Malloy-Chirgwin: ‘Gloriana: Britten's “Slighted Child”’, 113–28; M.
Cooke: ‘Britten and Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream’,
129–46; C. Hindley: ‘Eros in Life and Death: Billy Budd and
Death in Venice’, 147–64; M. Cooke: ‘Distant Horizons: from
Pagodaland to the Church Parables’, 167–87; D. Mitchell:
‘Violent Climates’, 188–216; A. Ashby: ‘Britten as Symphonist’,
217–32; E. Roseberry: ‘The Concertos and Early Orchestral
Scores: Aspects of Style and Aesthetic’, 233–44; P. Rupprecht:
‘The Chamber Music’, 245–59; R. Woodward: ‘Music for Voices’,
260–75; S.A. Allen: ‘Britten and the World of the Child’, 279–91;
E. Roseberry: ‘Old Songs in New Contexts: Britten as Arranger’,
292–305; J. LeGrove: ‘Aldeburgh’, 306–17]
J. Day: Englishness in Music: from Elizabethan Times to Elgar,
Tippett and Britten (London, 1999)
P. Brett: ‘The Britten Era’ [the 1997 Proms Lecture], Decomposition:
Post-Disciplinary Performance, ed. S.-E. Case, P. Brett and S.L.
Foster (Bloomington, IN, forthcoming)
P. Kildea: Selling Britten: Music and the Market Place (Oxford,
forthcoming)
Britten, Benjamin: Bibliography
e: operas
general
J. Klein: ‘Britten and English Opera’, MO, lxxii (1948–9), 517–18
H.F. Redlich: ‘The Significance of Britten's Operatic Style’, Music
Survey, ii (1949–50), 240–45; repr. in Music Survey: New Series,
1949–52, ed. D. Mitchell and H. Keller (London, 1981)
E. Stein: ‘Benjamin Britten's Operas’, Opera, i (1950), 16–21
Benjamin Britten: das Opernwerk, Musik der Zeit, no.11 (Bonn, 1955)
D. Mitchell: ‘Britten's Revisionary Practice: Practical and Creative’,
Tempo, nos.66–7 (1963), 15–22
P. Howard: The Operas of Benjamin Britten (London, 1969)
E.W. White: Benjamin Britten: his Life and Operas (London, 1970,
2/1983)
D. Herbert, ed.: The Operas of Benjamin Britten (London, 1979)
H. Keller: ‘Zu Benjamin Brittens Opernschaffen’, ÖMz, xxxvi (1981),
379–87
J. Kuhnel: ‘Die Novelle als Opernvorwurf: zur Dramaturgie einiger
Opern Benjamin Brittens’, Oper und Operntext, ed. J.M. Fischer
(Heidelberg, 1985), 227–60
G. Elliott: ‘The Operas of Benjamin Britten: a Spiritual View’, OQ, iv/3
(1986–7), 28–44
E. McDonald: ‘Women in Benjamin Britten's Operas’, OQ, iv/3
(1986–7), 83–101
S. Corse: Opera and the Uses of Language: Mozart, Verdi and
Britten (Cranbury, NJ, 1987)
J.K. Law: ‘The Dialogics of Operatic Adaptation: Reading Benjamin
Britten’, Yearbook of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Fine Arts, i
(1989), 407–27
P. Brett: ‘Eros and Orientalism in Britten's Operas’, Queering the
Pitch: the New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, ed. P. Brett, E.
Wood and G.C. Thomas (London, 1994), 235–56
M. Kennedy: ‘Britten's Operas: 20 Years On’, Opera, xlvii (1996),
1004–11
M. Wilcox: Benjamin Britten's Operas (Bath, 1997)
Peter Grimes
E. Crozier, ed.: Peter Grimes (London, 1945/R)
E. Stein: ‘Opera and “Peter Grimes”’, Tempo, 1st ser., no.12 (1945),
2–6; repr. in Orpheus in New Guises (London, 1953), 110–17
C. Stuart: Peter Grimes (London, 1947)
F. Abbiati: Peter Grimes (Milan, 1949)
H. Keller: ‘Britten: Thematic Relations and the “Mad” Interlude's 5th
Motif’, Music Survey, iv (1951–2), 332–4; repr. in Music Survey:
New Series, 1949–52, ed. D. Mitchell and H. Keller (London,
1981)
J.W. Garbutt: ‘Music and Motive in “Peter Grimes”’, ML, xliv (1963),
334–42
A. Payne: ‘Dramatic Use of Tonality in Peter Grimes’, Tempo,
nos.66–7 (1963), 22–6
P. Garvie: ‘Plausible Darkness: Peter Grimes after a Quarter of a
Century’, Tempo, no.100 (1972), 9–14
P. Brett: ‘Britten and Grimes’, MT, cxviii (1977), 995–1000
L'avant-scène opéra, no.31 (1981) [Peter Grimes issue]
P. Brett, ed.: Peter Grimes (Cambridge, 1983/R)
N. John, ed.: Peter Grimes; Gloriana (London, 1983) [ENO opera
guide]
P. Brett: ‘Grimes and Lucretia’, Music and Theatre: Essays in Honour
of Winton Dean, ed. N. Fortune (Cambridge, 1987), 353–65
C. Hindley: ‘Homosexual Self-Affirmation and Self-Oppression in
Two Britten Operas’, MQ, lxxvi (1992), 143–68
P. Banks, ed.: The Making of Peter Grimes (Woodbridge, 1995) [incl.
B. Britten: ‘Introduction’, 1–3; P. Pears: ‘Peter Grimes’, 5–6; E.
Crozier: ‘Notes on the Production of Benjamin Britten's “Peter
Grimes”’, 7–19; P. Reed: ‘A “Peter Grimes” Chronology, 1941–
1945’, 21–50; P. Brett: ‘“Peter Grimes”: the Growth of the
Libretto’, 53–78; P. Reed: ‘Finding the Right Notes’, 79–115; R.
Strode: ‘The Later History of the Composition Draft’, 117–23; D.
Mitchell: ‘“Peter Grimes”: Fifty Years On’, 125–65; P. Banks:
‘Bibliographic Notes and Narratives’, 167–228; facs. of complete
composition sketch]
H. Keller: Three Psychoanalytic Notes on Peter Grimes (London,
1995)
The Rape of Lucretia
W.H. Haddon Squire: ‘The Aesthetic Hypothesis and “The Rape of
Lucretia”’, Tempo, no.1 (1946), 1–9
H. Searle: ‘Britten's Lucretia’, MM, xxiii (1946), 284 only
H. Keller: The Rape of Lucretia; Albert Herring (London, 1947)
E. Crozier, ed.: The Rape of Lucretia: a Symposium (London, 1948)
D. Mitchell: ‘A Note on the “Flower Aria” and “Passacaglia” in
“Lucretia”’, Music Survey, iii (1950–51), 276–7; repr. in Music
Survey: New Series, 1949–52, ed. D. Mitchell and H. Keller
(London, 1981)
Earl of Harewood: ‘Das Lucretia-Libretto’, Musik der Zeit, no.11
(1955), 35–8
R. Duncan: ‘The Problems of a Librettist: is Opera Emotionally
Immature?’, Composer, no.23 (1967), 6–9
P. Brett: ‘Grimes and Lucretia’, Music and Theatre: Essays in Honour
of Winton Dean, ed. N. Fortune (Cambridge, 1987), 353–65
M. Mertz: History, Criticism and the Sources of Benjamin Britten's
Rape of Lucretia (diss., Harvard U., 1990)
N. Evans and E. Crozier: ‘After Long Pursuit’, OQ, xi/2 (1994–5), 9–
16
T. Power: ‘Opera as Literature: The Rape of Lucretia’, Irish Musical
Studies, iv (1996), 232–46
Albert Herring
H. Keller: The Rape of Lucretia; Albert Herring (London, 1947)
E. Stein: ‘Form in Opera: “Albert Herring” Examined’, Tempo, no.5
(1947), 4–8; repr. in Orpheus in New Guises (London, 1953),
118–23
G. Larner: ‘Albert from Aldeburgh’, Records and Recording, viii/1
(1964–5), 10–12
R.T. Bledsoe: ‘Chastity and Darkness in “Albert Herring”’, Mosaic,
xviii/4 (1985), 125–33
E. Crozier and others: ‘An Albert Herring Anthology’, Glyndebourne
Festival Opera 1985, 113–23 [programme book]
P. Brett: ‘Character and Caricature in “Albert Herring”’, MT, cxxvii
(1986), 545–7
D. Mitchell: ‘The Serious Comedy of Albert Herring’, OQ, iv/3 (1986–
7), 45–59
J.K. Law: ‘Daring to Eat a Peach: Literary Allusion in Albert Herring’,
OQ, v/1 (1987–8), 1–10
M. Kennedy: ‘How Albert Became Our Kind of Thing’, Glyndebourne
Festival Opera 1990, 121–7 [programme book]
P. Brett: ‘Albert Herring: Britten's Celebration of Liberation’,
Performing Arts, xxvi/4 (1992), 21–6
E. Crozier: ‘The Writing of Albert Herring’, Opera L.A., ix/3 (1992), 3–
5
C. Hindley: ‘Not the Marrying Kind: Britten's “Albert Herring”’, COJ, vii
(1994), 159–74
Billy Budd
Tempo, no.21 (1951) [Billy Budd issue]
D. Mitchell: ‘More off than on “Billy Budd”’, Music Survey, iv (1951–
2), 386–408; repr. in Music Survey: New Series, 1949–52, ed. D.
Mitchell and H. Keller (London, 1981)
C. Campbell: ‘Second Thoughts on “Billy Budd”’, Adam International
Review, nos.224–6 (1952), 19–21
E. Crozier: ‘Writing an Opera’, Adam International Review, nos.224–
6 (1952), 17–19
I. Holst: ‘Billy Budd’, Foyer, ii (1952), 28–32
A. Porter: ‘Britten's “Billy Budd”’, ML, xxxiii (1952), 111–18
E. Stein: ‘Billy Budd’, Benjamin Britten: a Commentary on his Works
from a Group of Specialists, ed. D. Mitchell and H. Keller
(London, 1952), 198–210; repr. in Opera, iii (1952), 206–14, 249
only, and in Orpheus in New Guises (London, 1953), 124–36
P. Brett: ‘Salvation at Sea: Britten's Billy Budd’, San Francisco Opera
Magazine (1978), 61–2, 88 only, 101–3
A. Porter: ‘Some Other Budds’, About the House, v/8 (1979), 47–51
N. Bradley: ‘The Non-Clinical Test of a Clinical Theory: Billy Budd,
Novel and Libretto’, International Review of Psycho-Analysis
(1980), 233–49
J.K. Law: ‘“We have ventured to tidy up Vere”: the Adapter's
Dialogue in Billy Budd’, Twentieth Century Literature, xxxi (1985),
297–314
E. Crozier: ‘The Writing of “Billy Budd”’, OQ, iv/3 (1986–7), 11–27
C. Hindley: ‘Love and Salvation in Britten's “Billy Budd”’, ML, lxx
(1989), 363–81
A. Whittall: ‘“Twisted Relations”: Method and Meaning in Britten's
“Billy Budd”’, COJ, ii (1990), 145–71
B. Emslie: ‘Billy Budd and the Fear of Words’, COJ, iv (1992), 43–59
M. Cooke and P. Reed, eds.: Benjamin Britten: Billy Budd
(Cambridge, 1993)
L'avant-scène opéra, no.158 (1994) [Billy Budd issue]
C. Hindley: ‘Britten's Billy Budd: the “Interview Chords” Again’, MQ,
lxxviii (1994), 99–126
P. Rupprecht: ‘Tonal Stratification and Uncertainty in Britten's Music’,
JMT, xli (1996), 311–46
S. McKellar: ‘Re-Visioning the “Missing” Scene: Critical and Tonal
Trajectories in Britten's Billy Budd’, JRMA, cxxii (1997), 258–80
P. Reed: ‘On the Sketches for Billy Budd’, Melos [Stockholm],
nos.19–20 (1997), 48–63
T. and J. Uppman: ‘Novel Approach’, Stagebill (1997), Feb, 20–22
Gloriana
J. Klein: ‘Some Reflections on “Gloriana”’, Tempo, no.29 (1953), 16–
21
A. Porter: ‘Britten's “Gloriana”’, ML, xxxiv (1953), 277–87
Opera, iv (1953), 455–69 [symposium on Gloriana]
Tempo, no.28 (1953) [Gloriana issue]
W. Plomer: ‘Let's Crab an Opera’, London Magazine, new ser., iii/7
(1963), 101–4
H. Keller and S. Walsh: ‘Two Interpretations of Gloriana as Music
Drama’, Tempo, no.79 (1966–7), 2–9
J. Klein: ‘Britten's Major Setback’, MO, xc (1966–7), 13–14
W. Plomer: ‘The Gloriana Libretto’, Sadler's Wells Magazine, iv
(1968), 8–9
N. John, ed.: Peter Grimes; Gloriana (London, 1983) [ENO opera
guide]
P.F. Alexander: ‘The Process of Composition of the Libretto of
Britten's “Gloriana”’, ML, lxvii (1986), 147–58
P. Banks, ed.: Britten's Gloriana: Essays and Sources (Woodbridge,
1993)
R. Holloway: ‘“Gloriana” and “The Beggar's Opera”’, Tempo, no.189
(1994), 39–41
The Turn of the Screw
E. Stein: ‘“The Turn of the Screw” and its Musical Idiom’, Tempo,
no.34 (1955), 6–14
L. Landgraf: ‘Bemerkungen des Übersetzers’, Neues Forum, vii
(1957–8), 119–23
P. Howard, ed.: The Turn of the Screw (Cambridge, 1985)
M. Stimpson: ‘Drama and Meaning in The Turn of the Screw’, OQ,
iv/3 (1986–7), 75–82
C. Hindley: ‘Why does Miles Die? A Study of Britten's “The Turn of
the Screw”’, MQ, lxxiv (1990), 1–17
M. Schulz: ‘An Unending Horror: Henry James's and Benjamin
Britten's Turn(ings) of the Screw’, Yearbook of Interdisciplinary
Studies in the Fine Arts, ii (1990), 37–48
P. Brett: ‘Britten's Bad Boys: Male Relations in The Turn of the
Screw’, Repercussions, i/2 (1992), 5–25
L. Whitesell: ‘Doubt and Failure in Britten's The Turn of the Screw’,
Indiana Theory Review, xiii/2 (1992), 41–87
L'avant-scène opéra, no.173 (1996) [The Turn of the Screw/Owen
Wingrave issue]
A Midsummer Night's Dream
P. Evans: ‘Britten's New Opera: a Preview’, Tempo, nos.53–4 (1960),
34–48
D. Mitchell: ‘In and Out of Britten's Dream’, Opera, xi (1960), 797–
801
E. Roseberry: ‘A Note on the Four Chords in Act II of A Midsummer
Night's Dream’, Tempo, nos.66–7 (1963), 36–7
R. Warren: A Midsummer Night's Dream: Text and Performance
(London, 1983)
W. Riehle: ‘Benjamin Brittens Oper A Midsummer Night's Dream aus
heutiger Sicht’, Jb Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft (1984),
149–63
D. Mitchell and P. Reed: ‘“A Midsummer Night's Dream” Anthology’,
Glyndebourne Festival Opera 1989, 133–41 [programme book]
L'avant-scène opéra, no.146 (1992) [A Midsummer Night's Dream
issue]
Performing Arts, xxvi/9 (1992) [A Midsummer Night's Dream issue]
P. Brett: ‘Britten's Dream’, Musicology and Difference: Gender and
Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed. R.A. Solie (Berkeley, 1993),
259–80
M. Cooke: ‘Britten and Shakespeare: Dramatic and Musical Cohesion
in “A Midsummer Night's Dream”’, ML, lxxiv (1993), 246–68
W.H. Godsalve: Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream (London,
1995)
church parables
E. Vermeulen: ‘Höhepunkt des Holland-Festivals: “Curlew River” von
Britten’, Melos, xxxi (1964), 313–14
W.T. Flynn: ‘Britten the Progressive’, MR, xliv (1983), 44–52
M. Mayer: A Structural and Stylistic Analysis of the Benjamin Britten
Curlew River (diss., Columbia U. Teachers College, 1983)
P.F. Alexander: ‘A Study of the Origins of Britten's “Curlew River”’,
ML, lxix (1988), 229–43
C. Hindley: ‘Homosexual Self-Affirmation and Self-Oppression in
Two Britten Operas’, MQ, lxxvi (1992), 143–68
C. Hindley: ‘Britten's Parable Art: a Gay Reading’, History Workshop
Journal, xl (1995), 63–90
M. Cooke: ‘Eastern Influences on Britten's The Prodigal Son’, Melos
[Stockholm], nos.19–20 (1997), 37–45
W.A. Sheppard: ‘Britten's Parables’, Revealing Masks: Exotic
Influences and Ritualized Performance in Modernist Music
Theater (Berkeley, forthcoming)
Owen Wingrave
P. Evans: ‘Britten's Television Opera’, MT, cxii (1971), 425–8
H. Raynor: ‘Owen Wingrave’, MR, xxxii (1971), 271–3
S. Sadie: ‘Owen Wingrave’, MT, cxii (1971), 663–6
B. Schiffer: ‘Benjamin Brittens neue Fernsehoper’, Melos, xxxviii
(1971), 313–14
D. Cescotti: ‘Pacifismo in musica: il caso di Owen Wingrave di
Benjamin Britten’, Ottocento e oltre: scritti in onore di Raoul
Meloncelli, ed. F. Izzo and J. Streicher (Rome, 1993), 591–601
S. McClatchie: ‘Benjamin Britten, “Owen Wingrave” and the Politics
of the Closet: or, “He shall be straightened out at Paramore”’,
COJ, viii (1994), 59–75
‘A Collaboration Recalled: Myfanwy Piper Talks to Roderick Dunnett’,
Opera, xlvi (1995), 1158–64
A. Whittall: ‘Breaking the Balance’, MT, cxxxvii (1996), 4–7
L'avant-scène opéra, no.173 (1996) [Owen Wingrave/The Turn of the
Screw issue]
S. McKellar: ‘Music, Image and Ideology in Britten's “Owen
Wingrave”: Conflict in a Fissured Text’, ML, lxxx (1999), 390–410
Death in Venice
J. Blades: ‘Making Percussion Instruments for Benjamin Britten’, The
Listener (15 June 1972)
P. Evans: ‘Britten's “Death in Venice”’, Opera, xxiv (1973), 490–96
T.J. Reed: ‘Death in Venice’, About the House, iv/3 (1973), 44–7
B. Schiffer: ‘Thomas Manns Aschenbach lernt durch Britten singen?’,
Melos, xl (1973), 358–69
C. van Zwol: ‘Death in Venice, de laatste opera van Benjamin
Britten’, Luister, xxi (1973), 16–19
S.M. Stroff: ‘Britten's Death in Venice: if it isn't Opera, what is it?’,
New Jersey Music & Arts, xxx/5 (1975), 36–8
G. Schmidgall: ‘Death in Venice’, Literature as Opera (New York,
1977), 321–55
J. Evans: ‘Britten's Venice Workshop’, pt i: ‘The Sketch Book’,
Soundings, xii (1984–5), 7–24; pt ii: ‘The Revisions’, xiii (1985),
51–77
J. Evans: ‘Death in Venice: the Apollonian/Dionysian Conflict’, OQ,
iv/3 (1986–7), 102–15
D. Mitchell, ed.: Death in Venice (Cambridge, 1987)
R. Travis: ‘The Recurrent Figure in the Britten/Piper Opera “Death in
Venice”’, Music Forum, vi (1987), 129–246
S. and L. Corse: ‘Britten's “Death in Venice”: Literary and Musical
Structures’, MQ, lxxiii (1989), 344–63
C. Hindley: ‘Contemplation and Reality: a Study in Britten's “Death in
Venice”’, ML, lxxi (1990), 511–23
C. Hindley: ‘Platonic Elements in Britten's “Death in Venice”’, ML,
lxxiii (1992), 407–29
B. Diana: Il sapore della conoscenza: Benjamin Britten e ‘Death in
Venice’ (Turin, 1997)
other operas
H. Keller: ‘Britten's Beggar's Opera’, Tempo, no.10 (1948–9), 7–13
D. Mitchell: ‘Britten's “Let's Make an Opera” op.45’, Music Survey, ii
(1949–50), 86–8; repr. in Music Survey: New Series, 1949–52,
ed. D. Mitchell and H. Keller (London, 1981)
I. Holst: ‘Britten's “Let's Make an Opera!”’, Tempo, no.18 (1951–2),
12–16
E. Roseberry: ‘The Music of “Noye's Fludde”’, Tempo, no.49 (1958),
2–11
E. Stein: ‘Britten's New Opera for Children: “Noye's Fludde”’, Tempo,
no.48 (1958), 7–8
H. Raynor: ‘Paul Bunyan’, MR, xxxviii (1977), 112–15
W.H. Auden: Paul Bunyan (London, 1988) [libretto with introductory
essay by D. Mitchell]
P. Reed: ‘A Rejected Love Song from “Paul Bunyan”’, MT, cxxix
(1988), 283–8
C. Hindley: ‘Britten, Auden and Johnny Inkslinger’, Perversions, ii
(1994), 42–56
R. Holloway: ‘“Gloriana” and “The Beggar's Opera”’, Tempo, no.189
(1994), 39–41
Britten, Benjamin: Bibliography
f: other works
orchestral
E. Stein: ‘Brittens Sinfonien’, Musik der Zeit, no.7 (1954), 46–53
N. Del Mar: ‘The Orchestral Music’, London Magazine, new ser., iii/7
(1963), 96–101
P. Evans: ‘Britten's Cello Symphony’, Tempo, nos.66–7 (1963), 2–15
J. Warrack: ‘Britten's Cello Symphony’, MT, cv (1964), 418–19
L. Berkeley: ‘Views from Mont Juic’, Tempo, no.106 (1973), 6–7
D. Mitchell: ‘Catching on to the Technique in Pagoda-Land’, Tempo,
no.146 (1983), 13–24
D. Mitchell: ‘An After Word on Britten's Pagodas: the Balinese
Sources’, Tempo, no.152 (1985), 7–11
E. Roseberry: ‘Britten's Piano Concerto: the Original Version’,
Tempo, no.172 (1990), 10–18
L. Kovnatskaya: ‘Russian Funeral through Russian Ears’,
International Journal of Musicology, ii (1993), 321–33
G. Weiss-Aigner: ‘Zum Violinkonzert von Benjamin Britten: eine
ungewöhnliche thematische Konzeption im Brennpunkt
melodischer Entwicklungslinien und rhythmischer Profile’, Neues
musikwissenschaftliches Jb, iv (1995), 159–206
J. Duchen: ‘Pastoral Puzzle’, The Strad, cviii (1997), 628–9
choral
H. Searle: ‘Growing Pains in England’, MM, xvi (1939), 220–24
I. Holst: ‘Britten's “Saint Nicolas”’, Tempo, no.10 (1948), 23–5
R. Manning: From Holst to Britten: a Study of Modern Choral Music
(London, 1949)
D. Mitchell: ‘A Note on St. Nicolas: Some Points of Britten's Style’,
Music Survey, ii (1949–50), 220–26; repr. in Music Survey: New
Series, 1949–52, ed. D. Mitchell and H. Keller (London, 1981)
L. Berkeley: ‘Britten's “Spring Symphony”’, ML, xxxi (1950), 216 only
E. Stein: ‘Britten's “Spring Symphony”’, Tempo, no.15 (1950), 19–24
S. Bradshaw: ‘Britten's “Cantata academica”’, Tempo, nos.53–4
(1960), 22–34
E. Roseberry: ‘Britten's “Missa brevis”’, Tempo, nos.53–4 (1960),
11–16
R. Myers: ‘Carmen basiliense’, Adam International Review, nos.289–
90 (1961), 4–6
P. Evans: ‘Britten's “War Requiem”’, Tempo, nos.61–2 (1962), 20–39
A. Robertson: ‘Britten's “War Requiem”’, MT, ciii (1962), 308–10
A. Whittall: ‘Tonal Instability in Britten's “War Requiem”’, MR, xxiv
(1963), 201
M. Dawney: ‘Some Notes on Britten's Church Music’, Tempo, no.82
(1967), 13–20
M. Boyd: ‘Britten, Verdi and the Requiem’, Tempo, no.86 (1968), 2–6
J. Churchill: ‘The Sacred Works of Benjamin Britten’, Music: the
AGO and RCCO Magazine, xi/11 (1977), 40–43
M. Stimpson: ‘Britten's Last Work’, Tempo, no.155 (1985), 34–6
D. Jarman: War Requiem: the Film (London, 1989)
E. Lundergran: Benjamin Britten's War Requiem: Stylistic and
Technical Sources (diss., U. of Texas, Austin, 1991)
M. Cooke: Britten: War Requiem (Cambridge, 1996)
songs and song cycles
P. Pears: ‘Britten, der Erneuerer des englischen Liedes’, Musik der
Zeit, no.7 (1954), 21–30
I. Holst: ‘Britten's Nocturne’, Tempo, no.50 (1958), 14–22
J. Noble: ‘Britten's “Songs from the Chinese”’, Tempo, no.52 (1959),
25–9
D. Brown: ‘Britten's Three Canticles’, MR, xxi (1960), 55
E. Roseberry: ‘Britten's Purcell Realizations and Folksong
Arrangements’, Tempo, no.57 (1961), 7–28
H. Wood: ‘Britten's Hölderlin Songs’, MT, civ (1963), 781–3
S. Northcote: Byrd to Britten: a Survey of English Song (London,
1966)
I. Holst: ‘Purcell Made Practicable’, Music and Musicians, xvii/10
(1968–9), 48 only
A. Whittall: ‘Tonality in Britten's Song Cycles with Piano’, Tempo,
no.96 (1971), 2–11
A.S. Jacobson: Analysis of ‘Journey of the Magi’, Benjamin Britten
(thesis, U. of London, 1980)
C. Mark: ‘Britten's Quatre chansons françaises’, Soundings, x (1983),
23–35
E. Simeon: ‘Les illuminations de Benjamin Britten’, Revue d'études
rimbaldiennes, iv (1986), 102–10
B. Docherty: ‘Sentence into Cadence: the Word-Setting of Tippett
and Britten’, Tempo, no.166 (1988), 2–11
M. Kremin: ‘“Happy were he … ”: Benjamin Brittens Werke für Gitarre
und Gesang’, Gitarre & Laute, x/6 (1988), 49–56
E. Simeon: ‘Arthur Rimbaud e Benjamin Britten: Villes II ovvero la
nostalgia della forma chiusa’, Rimbaud: le poème en prose et la
traduction poétique, ed. S. Sacchi (Tübingen, 1988), 123–31
B. Docherty: ‘Syllogism and Symbol: Britten, Tippett and English
Text’, CMR, v (1989), 37–63
E. Simeon: ‘Rimbaud in musica: tre versioni di Départ’, Confronto
letterario, vii (1990), 271–82
D. Mitchell: ‘Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal: Britten's Other
Serenade’, Horn Call, xxii/1 (1991), 9–14
E. Speranza: ‘“Inglese italianato, diavolo incarnato”: brevi note, con
alcune licenze, su Britten e Michelangelo’, Esotismo e scuole
nazionali: itinerari musicali tra l'Europa e le Americhe (Rome,
1992), 83–107
B. Docherty: ‘“When Feeling Becomes Thought”: Britten, Text and
Biography 1928–31’, Tempo, no.184 (1993), 24–9
A. Whittall: ‘The Signs of Genre: Britten's Version of Pastoral’,
Sundry Sorts of Music Books: Essays on the British Library
Collections Presented to O.W. Neighbour, ed. C. Banks, A.
Searle and M. Turner (London, 1993), 363–74
M. Prictor: ‘The Poems of Thomas Hardy as Song’, Context, vi
(1993–4), 34–42
B. Docherty: ‘“We Know for Whom we Mourn”: Britten, Auden and
the Politics of 1936’, Tempo, no.192 (1995), 22–7
chamber and solo instrumental
H. Keller: ‘Benjamin Britten's Second Quartet’, Tempo, 1st ser., no.18
(1947), 6–8
P. Evans: ‘Britten's Cello Sonata’, Tempo, no.58 (1961), 8–16
F. Waterman: ‘Britten's New Piano Piece’, Tempo, nos.66–7 (1963),
34–6
J. Lloyd Webber: ‘The Cello Music of Benjamin Britten’, The Strad,
lxxxvi (1975–6), 387–91
C. Matthews: ‘Britten's Indian Summer’, Soundings, vi (1977), 42–50
D. Matthews: ‘Britten's Third Quartet’, Tempo, no.125 (1978), 21–4
S. Banfield: ‘“Too Much of Albion?”: Mrs Coolidge and her British
Connections’, American Music, iv (1986), 59–87
A. Payne: ‘Britten and the String Quartet’, Tempo, no.163 (1987), 2–6
M. Donley: ‘Britten's Nocturnal’, Classical Guitar, v/9 (1987–8), 18–22
C. Lo Presti: ‘Il Nocturnal di Britten: note di ricerca per una teoria
dell'opera eseguita’, Il Fronimo, no.64 (1988), 10–37
M. Giani: ‘“Agghiacciante simmetria”: tritono e variazione in sviluppo
nel Nocturnal, op.70 di Benjamin Britten’, Il Fronimo, no.67
(1989), 45–51
K. van Slogteren: ‘Benjamin Britten: Six Metamorphoses after Ovid,
für Oboe Solo’, Tibia: Magazin für Freunde alter und neuer
Bläsermusik, xv (1990), 268–73
T. Seedorf: ‘Tonalität und Form in Benjamin Brittens 3.
Streichquartett’, Musiktheorie, vi (1991), 245–56
M. Greet: ‘Inconclusive Conclusions: Ambiguity, Semiotics and
Britten's Third String Quartet’, Context, vi (1993–4), 43–8
E. Speranza: ‘Britten e le Metamorfosi di Ovidio’, I fiati, i/2 (1994),
46–51
radio, film and theatre music
B. Wright: ‘Britten and Documentary’, MT, civ (1963), 779–80
E.W. White: ‘Britten in the Theatre’, Tempo, no.107 (1973), 2–8
P. Reed: The Instrumental Music of Benjamin Britten: a Study and
Catalogue of his Music for Film, Theatre and Radio (diss., U. of
East Anglia, 1987)
La cosa vista (1988), July, 23–48 [symposium on Night Mail]
P. Reed: ‘A Cantata for Broadcasting: Britten's “The Company of
Heaven”’, MT, cxxx (1989), 324–31