Benjamin Britten

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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 .

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“Music-Making in a Joyous Sense”: Democratization, Modernity, and Community at Benjamin Britten's Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts
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Peter Grimes Benjamin Britten
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Benjamin Britten: a Catalogue of the Orchestral Music
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The Inspiration Behind Compositions for Clarinetist Frederick Thurston
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Britten Connections a Guide for Performers and Programmers
Britten Connections A guide for performers and programmers by Paul Kildea Britten –Pears Foundation Telephone 01728 451 700 The Red House, Golf Lane, [email protected] Aldeburgh, Suffolk, IP15 5PZ www.brittenpears.org Britten Connections A guide for performers and programmers by Paul Kildea Contents The twentieth century’s Programming tips for 03 consummate musician 07 13 selected Britten works Britten connected 20 26 Timeline CD sampler tracks The Britten-Pears Foundation is grateful to Orchestra, Naxos, Nimbus Records, NMC the following for permission to use the Recordings, Onyx Classics. EMI recordings recordings featured on the CD sampler: BBC, are licensed courtesy of EMI Classics, Decca Classics, EMI Classics, Hyperion Records, www.emiclassics.com For full track details, 28 Lammas Records, London Philharmonic and all label websites, see pages 26-27. Index of featured works Front cover : Britten in 1938. Photo: Howard Coster © National Portrait Gallery, London. Above: Britten in his composition studio at The Red House, c1958. Photo: Kurt Hutton . 29 Further information Opposite left : Conducting a rehearsal, early 1950s. Opposite right : Demonstrating how to make 'slung mugs' sound like raindrops for Noye's Fludde , 1958. Photo: Kurt Hutton. Britten Connections A guide for performers and programmers 03 The twentieth century's consummate musician In his tweed jackets and woollen ties, and When asked as a boy what he planned to be He had, of course, a great guide and mentor. with his plummy accent, country houses and when he grew up, Britten confidently The English composer Frank Bridge began royal connections, Benjamin Britten looked replied: ‘A composer.’ ‘But what else ?’ was the teaching composition to the teenage Britten every inch the English gentleman.
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That to See How Britten Handles the Dramatic and Musical Materials In
BOOKS 131 that to see how Britten handles the dramatic and musical materials in the op- era is "to discover anew how from private pain the great artist can fashion some- thing that transcends his own individual experience and touches all humanity." Given the audience to which it is directed, the book succeeds superbly. Much of it is challenging and stimulating intellectually, while avoiding exces- sive weightiness, and at the same time, it is entertaining in the very best sense of the word. Its format being what it is, there are inevitable duplications of information, and I personally found the Garbutt and Garvie articles less com- pelling than the remainder of the book. The last two articles of Brett's, excel- lent as they are, also tend to be a little discursive, but these are minor reserva- tions. For anyone who cares for this masterwork of twentieth-century opera, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/oq/article/4/3/131/1587210 by guest on 01 October 2021 or for Britten and his music, this book is obligatory reading. Carlisle Floyd Peter Grimes/Gloriana Benjamin Britten English National Opera/Royal Opera Guide 24 Nicholas John, series editor London: John Calder; New York: Riverrun Press, 1983 128 pages, $5.95 (paper) The English National Opera/Royal Opera Guides, small paperbacks with siz- able contents, are among the best introductions available to the thirty-plus operas published in the series so far. Each guide includes some essays by ac- knowledged authorities on various aspects of its subject, followed by a table of major musical themes, a complete libretto (original language plus transla- tion), a brief bibliography, and a discography.
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