Benjamin Britten: biography
1961-1969
There is a sharp contrast between the comic writing for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the setting of the Missa pro Defunctis which Britten entitled War Requiem, op.66. This was composed for the consecration of the rebuilt St Michael’s Cathedral, Coventry, the original building having been almost totally destroyed during World War II. Britten incorporated into his setting of the Roman liturgy poems by the First World War poet, Wilfred Owen. The result is a work for large forces (soprano, tenor and baritone soloists, chorus, orchestra, chamber orchestra, boys’ choir and organ) which resounds with the composer’s own intense commitment to peace.
Britten and Pears standing amongst the ruins of Snape Maltings Concert Hall
By the mid-1960s the Aldeburgh Festival had found a new, much larger, main concert venue in the Maltings which had been part of Britten’s surroundings when he lived at Snape. In 1966 the building was leased, underwent a significant conversion into a concert hall and on 2 June 1967 was formally opened by the Queen at the beginning of the 20th Aldeburgh Festival. Two years later, on the first night of the 1969 Festival, a fire destroyed this beautiful building so that only the shell of the outer walls remained. Everyone rallied to help at this disaster. Concerts scheduled for the Maltings were resited in Blythburgh church, and by the next June the hall had been rebuilt and was ready for the Queen to return to re-open it at the first concert of the Festival of 1970.
Opening of Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 2 June 1967
Partly in response to the restrictions of space at Aldeburgh's Jubilee Hall which made opera performance difficult, Britten embarked in 1964 on an opera specifically for church performance. The creative influences here stem from his fascination with the mediaeval miracle plays and the Noh tradition which he had seen in Japan. Whilst there the composer had attended a performance of Sumidigawa, the drama of a madwoman’s search for her dead son. Britten and William Plomer adapted this story as Curlew River, op.71, the first of three Church ‘Parables’ which were all premiered in Orford Church. The second, The Burning Fiery Furnace, op.77 recounts the Biblical story of three Israelites, thrown into a furnace for their refusal to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s image of gold but saved from death by God. The third (1968) retells Christ’s parable The Prodigal Son, and was inspired in part by Britten's encountering Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal in the Hermitage. Plomer provided the texts for all three works.
Britten with Osian Ellis in Orford Church during rehearsals for the recording of The Burning Fiery Furnace, 1967
The Prodigal Son was dedicated to the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who was later to dedicate his own Fourteenth Symphony to Britten.
Many musicians were among Britten’s friends and numerous pieces were composed especially for them. In 1960, through an introduction made by Shostakovich during a concert at the Royal Festival Hall, he made the acquaintance of the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and, later, his wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. They became great friends and the song cycle to Pushkin texts, The Poet’s Echo, op. 76 (1965) was composed for them both; for Rostropovich Britten also wrote the Cello Sonata in C, op.65, three suites for solo cello (op. 72, 1964; op.80, 1967; op.87, 1974) and the Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, op.68 (1963). Julian Bream, who accompanied Pears on both lute and guitar, was the dedicatee of the solo guitar piece Nocturnal after John Dowland, op.70 of 1963 and Osian Ellis of the Suite for Harp, op.83 (1969).
Rostropovich, Britten, Vishnevskaya and Pears
Other works composed during this prolific decade testify both to Britten's industry and his sense of responsibility as an artist in the international community. They include the Cantata Misericordium written for the Red Cross, Voices Today for the United Nations, the Children's Crusade for Save the Children, and his last major voice and piano cycle Who are these Children? with its central pacifist theme.
Explore an animated timeline of Britten's life