Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh, OM (November 22, 1913 – December 4, 1976) was a British composer, conductor and pianist.

Music

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. 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. In the original film there was a spoken commentary, but this is often omitted in concert performances and recordings.

Related Topics:
1946 - Film - Melody - Henry Purcell - Woodwind - String instrument - Brass instrument - Percussion - Fugue

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Britten was also an accomplished pianist, and sometimes performed at the piano 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".

Related Topics:
Chamber music - Lieder - Piano Concerto - Paul Wittgenstein - 1963

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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 (1964). 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.

Related Topics:
John Dowland - Guitar - 1964 - Lute song - Lute

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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 and sexuality. 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. For many musicians, however, his flawless technique, broad musical and human sympathies and ability to treat the most traditional of musical forms with freshness and originality places him near the head of composers of his generation.

Related Topics:
English - 20th century - 1930s - Mahler - Berg - Stravinsky - Humphrey Carpenter - 1992

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