Benjamin Britten: biography

1951-1953

Britten’s last collaboration with Crozier came in 1951 when E. M. Forster joined them in writing a large-scale opera to mark the Festival of Britain. Billy Budd, op.50, based on the novella by Herman Melville, calls for a large cast of male singers and chorus and tells  the story of an ill-fated young foretopman accused of mutiny, from the point of view of his Captain, Edward Vere. In 1960 the opera was revised, condensing the original four acts into two.

The coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 was the occasion that prompted Britten’s next opera Gloriana, op.53. The Queen’s cousin the Earl of Harewood had recently read Lytton Strachey’s Elizabeth and Essex and suggested to Britten the story of Queen Elizabeth I’s turbulent relationship with Robert Devereux as the basis for an opera.

The libretto was written by William Plomer who included in the text excerpts from speeches made by Elizabeth I and the poem ‘Happy were he’ by the Earl of Essex. Despite its imaginative re-creation of 16th century court life on stage, the opera was not well received by its first audience of court dignitaries and politicians, though later audiences in that first season gave it the same wide acclaim as it received ten years later at its revival.

At the Leeds Festival of October 1953 Britten and Pears’s recital included the premiere of a new song cycle Winter Words op.52, setting of poems by Thomas Hardy. These evoke the landscape and moods of a West Country winter – such as the burial of the village choirmaster and a scene between a manacled convict and a boy with a violin on a train station at night.

1954-1956

Britten returned to chamber opera in 1954 with an adaptation of Henry James’s ghost story of a Governess who battles with two spirits (one, the former Governess, Miss Jessel, the other the recently deceased valet Peter Quint) for the souls of two children, The Turn of the Screw, op.54. The librettist was Myfanwy Piper, wife of the artist John Piper, who had designed many of the sets and costumes for the earlier operas. There are only seven singing parts (the tenor usually sings both the Prologue and the role of Quint) and the orchestra is small, but this brilliant piece of theatre fully succeeds in depicting the drama and suspense of James’s original tale. The opera was first performed at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, with David Hemmings as Miles, Pears as Quint and Jennifer Vyvyan as the Governess.

In 1955 Britten and Pears, with their friends the Prince and Princess of Hesse and the Rhine, toured the East, including a visit to the island of Bali where Britten was fascinated by the sound of the gamelan orchestra.  The aural impact was profound and in 1956 partly inspired his three-act ballet The Prince of the Pagodas, op.57, choreographed by John Cranko. Although written in a western idiom, the high proportion of percussion instruments in the orchestra, and the way in which these are used, reveals the influence of the gamelan. The story concerns a princess who is courted by four kings but eventually falls in love with a young prince whom she has released from a spell.

1957-1960

The eastern tour also influenced a song cycle written in 1957 for Pears and the guitarist Julian Bream – a series of Chinese poems translated by Arthur Waley, Songs from the Chinese, op.58. In this same year Britten and Pears exchanged residences with the artist Mary Potter who, for a number of years had lived in The Red House, adjacent to the Aldeburgh golf course. Despite the purchase in 1970 of a cottage in the village of Horham, to which Britten went from time to time to compose in greater peace and quiet, The Red House was to be their home for the remainder of their lives.

• Listen to Britten talk about his composing routine in Aldeburgh, at The History Channel

Mediaeval drama and Shakespeare were the sources for Britten’s next major vocal works. In 1958 he and Colin Graham adapted the Chester Miracle Play Noyes’ Fludde. This became op.59 – a work in which the orchestra includes recorders, and the percussion section is augmented by handbells and china mugs slung on strings. This, with the cast of Mr and Mrs Noye, their sons and their wives and a large contingent of animals and birds, allowed the involvement of many of the local schools and amateur music societies as well as professional musicians. As with Saint Nicolas the work includes hymns for audience participation: ‘Lord Jesus think on me’, ‘Eternal Father, strong to save’ and ‘The spacious firmament on high’.

In 1959 Britten and Pears adapted the text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the opera of that name, op. 64, cutting away a third of the original play and adding one line only: ‘compelling thee to marry with Demetrius’. The orchestration evokes a dream-like, ethereal world, but the composer is also always aware that this is a comedy and so the music reflects the humour as well as the legendary background of Shakespeare’s play. The character of Puck (a speaking role) is associated with a brisk trumpet voluntary.

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