Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was a British
composer, conductor, and pianist.
Life
Britten was born in Lowestoft in Suffolk, the son of a
dentist and a talented amateur musician. His birthday, 22 November, is the feast-day of
Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music, and he showed musical gifts very early in life.
He began composing prolifically as a child, and was educated at Old Buckenham Hall School in Suffolk, a small all-boys prep school, and Gresham's School, Holt. In 1927, he began private lessons with
Frank Bridge. He also studied, less happily, at the Royal College of Music under John Ireland and
with some input from Ralph Vaughan Williams. Although ultimately held back by his
parents (at the suggestion of College staff), Britten had also intended to study with Alban
Berg in Vienna. His first compositions to attract wide attention were the Sinfonietta (Op.1), "A Hymn to the
Virgin" (1930) and a set of choral variations A Boy was Born, written in 1934 for the BBC
Singers. The following year he met W. H. Auden with whom he collaborated on the
song-cycle Our Hunting Fathers, radical both in politics and musical treatment, and other works. Of more lasting
importance was his meeting in 1936 with the tenor Peter
Pears, who was to become his musical collaborator and inspiration as well as his life partner.
In early 1939, the two of them followed Auden to America. There Britten composed Paul Bunyan, his first opera (to a libretto by Auden), as well
as the first of many song cycles for Pears; the period was otherwise remarkable for a number
of orchestral works, including Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (written in 1937 for
string orchestra), the Violin Concerto, and Sinfonia da Requiem (for
full orchestra).
Britten and Pears returned to England in 1942, Britten completing the choral works Hymn to Saint Cecilia (his last collaboration with Auden) and A Ceremony of Carols during the long sea voyage. He had already begun work on his opera
Peter Grimes based on the writings of Suffolk poet George Crabbe, and its premiere at Sadler's Wells in 1945
was his greatest success so far. However, Britten was encountering opposition from sectors of the English musical establishment
and gradually withdrew from the London scene, founding the English Opera Group in
1947 and the Aldeburgh Festival the following year, partly (though not solely) to
perform his own works.
Grimes marked the start of a series of English operas, of which Billy
Budd (1951) and The Turn of the Screw (1954) were particularly admired. These operas share common themes, with
that of the 'outsider' particularly prevalent. Most feature such a character, excluded or misunderstood by society; often this is
the protagonist, such as Peter Grimes and Owen Wingrave in their eponymous operas. An
increasingly important influence was the music of the East, an interest fostered by a tour with Pears in 1957, when Britten was
much struck by the music of the Balinese gamelan and by Japanese
Noh plays. The fruits of this tour include the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (1957) and
the series of semi-operatic "Parables for Church Performance": Curlew River (1964),
The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966) and The Prodigal Son (1968). The greatest success of
Britten's career was, however, the musically more conventional War Requiem, written
for the 1962 consecration of Coventry
Cathedral.
Britten developed close friendships with Dmitri Shostakovich and Mstislav Rostropovich in the 1960s, composing his Cello Suites for the latter and conducting the first Western performance of the former's
Fourteenth Symphony; Shostakovich dedicated the score to Britten and
often spoke very highly of his music. Britten himself had previously dedicated 'The Prodigal Son' (the third and last of the
'Church Parables') to Shostakovich.
In the last decade or so of his life, Britten suffered from increasing ill-health and his late works became progressively more
sparse in texture. They include the opera Death in Venice (1973), the
Suite on English Folk Tunes "A Time There Was" (1974) and Third String Quartet (1975), which drew on material from
Death in Venice, as well as the dramatic cantata Phaedra (1976), written
for Janet Baker.
Having previously declined a knighthood, Britten accepted a life
peerage on 2 July 1976 as Baron Britten, of Aldeburgh
in the County of Suffolk. A few months later he died of heart failure at his house in
Aldeburgh. He is buried in the churchyard of St Peter and
St Paul's Church there. His grave lies next to that of his partner, Sir Peter Pears. The
grave of Imogen Holst, a close friend of Britten, can be found directly behind.
Music
- See also: List of
compositions by Benjamin Britten, Category:Compositions by Benjamin Britten, and
Category:Operas by Benjamin Britten
One of Britten's best known works is The Young Person's Guide
to the Orchestra (1946), which was composed to accompany Instruments of the
Orchestra, an educational film produced by the British government, narrated and conducted by
Malcolm Sargent. It has the subtitle Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell,
and takes a melody from Henry Purcell's
Abdelazar as its central theme. Britten gives individual variations to each of the sections of the orchestra, starting
with the woodwind, then the string
instruments, the brass instruments and finally the percussion. Britten then brings the whole orchestra together again in a fugue before restating the theme to close the work. The original film's spoken commentary is often omitted in
concert performances and recordings.
Britten was an exceptionally accomplished pianist, and frequently performed in chamber
music or accompanying lieder. However, apart from the Piano
Concerto (1938) and the Diversions for piano and orchestra (written for Paul Wittgenstein in 1940), he wrote very little music for the instrument, and in a 1963 interview for
the BBC said that he thought of it as "a background instrument".
Britten's Church Music is also not inconsiderable: it contains 'classics' such as Rejoice in the Lamb, composed for St Matthew's Northampton (where the Vicar was Revd Walter Hussey)
as well as repertoire that is more recherche (like A Hymn to the Virgin, Missa Brevis for Boys voices and Organ). His work as a
conductor included not only his own music but also that of many other composers, notably Mozart, Elgar, and Percy
Grainger. Among the celebrated recordings which resulted are versions of Mozart's 40th Symphony and Elgar's
'The Dream of Gerontius' (with Pears as Gerontius), together with an album of
works by Grainger in which Britten features as pianist as well as conductor.
One of Britten's solo works that has an indisputably central place in the repertoire of its instrument is his Nocturnal
after John Dowland for guitar (1963). This work is
typically spare in his late style, and shows the depth of his life-long admiration for Elizabethan lute songs. The theme of the work, John Dowland's Come, Heavy Sleep, emerges in complete form at the
close of eight variations, each variation based on some feature, frequently transient or ornamental, of the song or its
lute accompaniment.
Awards
Reputation
The Scallop by
Maggi Hambling is a sculpture dedicated to Benjamin Britten on the
beach at
Aldeburgh. The edge of the shell is pierced with the words "I hear those voices that
will not be drowned" from
Peter Grimes.
Britten's status as one of the greatest English composers of the 20th century is now secure among professional critics. In the
1930s he made a conscious effort to set himself apart from the English musical mainstream, which he regarded as complacent,
insular and amateurish. Many critics of the time, in return, distrusted his facility, cosmopolitanism and admiration for
composers, such as Mahler, Berg, and Stravinsky, not considered appropriate models for a young English musician.
Even today, criticism of his music is apt to become entangled with consideration of his personality, politics (especially his
pacifism in World War II) and his sexuality.[1] The
publication of Humphrey Carpenter's biography in 1992, with its revelations of
Britten's often fraught social, professional and sexual relationships, has ensured that he will remain a controversial figure. In
2003, a selection of Britten's writings, edited by Paul Kildea, revealed other ways that he
addressed such issues as his pacifism.[2] A further study
along the lines begun by Carpenter is John Bridcut's Britten's Children, 2006,
which describes Britten’s infatuation with a series of pre-adolescent boys throughout his life, most
notably David Hemmings.
For many musicians, however, Britten's technique, broad musical and human sympathies and ability to treat the most traditional
of musical forms with freshness and originality place him at the head of composers of his generation. A notable tribute is a
piece by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt titled
Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten.
References
- Donald Mitchell, "Britten, (Edward) Benjamin, Baron Britten (1913–1976)", Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 18 October
2004: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30853
- Philip Brett. "Benjamin Britten", Grove Music Online,
ed. L. Macy (accessed October 18 2004), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
- Humphrey Carpenter, Benjamin Britten: a biography (London: Faber, 1992)
ISBN 0-571-14324-5
External links
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