Benjamin Britten

FROM: AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE 890 Broadway New York, New York 10003 (212) 477-3030 Kelly Ryan

BENJAMIN BRITTEN

Benjamin Britten was born at Lowestoft, England in 1913 and died in Aldeburgh in 1976. He began composing at the age of five and during the following five years he wrote six string quartets and ten piano sonatas. While he was still in school, he studied piano with Harold Samuel and composition with Frank Bridge. He then won a scholarship at the Royal College of Music, where his composition teacher was John Ireland and his piano teacher was Arthur Benjamin. Among his early published works were many choral works and solo songs. His Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge (for strings), was one of the early works which brought him into serious public notice (1937) and from the same period he began a considerable activity as a composer of music for over 20 documentary films, also providing incidental music for several stage plays.

In 1940, he completed his Sinfonia da Requiem and his Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo (for tenor and piano; much sung by Peter Pears, his friend and a frequent interpreter of Britten’s music).

Operatic activity became prominent from 1945, in which year his Peter Grimes was produced; it was followed by The Rape of Lucretia (1946), the comic opera Albert Herring (1947), a freely treated version of The Beggar’s Opera (1948), Let’s Make an Opera (for children, 1949), Billy Budd (1951), Midsummer

Night’s Dream (1960), Owen Wingrave (1971, for television, and in 1973 for the stage) and Death in

Venice (1973).

Britten’s important larger works include the War Requiem (1961), a Cello Symphony (1964, composed for Mstislav Rostropovich and first given in Moscow), The Children’s Crusade (1968) and his orchestral Suite on English Folk Tunes (1974).

(more)

BRITTEN – Page 2

Britten’s importance in post-War British cultural life was enhanced by his founding of the

English Opera Group in 1946 and the Aldeburgh Festival two years later. His career as a composer was matched by his outstanding ability as a performer: he was both a refined pianist and a spontaneous and fluent conductor

-30-

2019/2020

Sources: Oxford Companion to Music by Percy A. Scholes, 10th Editon; Oxford University Press, 1975

Wikipedia

Boosey & Hawkes