The online version of a travelling exhibition that aims to introduce the life and work of Benjamin Britten to a wide range of people in Suffolk - and place him in context as a composer rooted in that county. The exhibition was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund as part of part of our project 'Concert Programmes as a Window onto our Cultural Heritage'.

The 2005 Britten-Pears Library exhibition is designed to form part of the national SeaBritain 2005 celebrations, a year-long festival of events highlighting every aspect of our maritime heritage. It brings together a sequence of paintings, manuscripts and literary exhibits from the Britten-Pears collection, exploring connections between the composer, his librettists, and the sea, and encompassing materials relating to Billy Budd, The Golden Vanity and the shanty arrangements of Percy Grainger, some of which were featured in the Aldeburgh Festival. Central to the theme is a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the first performance of Peter Grimes, marked by a first showing of pages from a recently acquired collection of Britten’s sketches for the opera and of David Myerscough-Jones's set designs for the 1969 BBC/Snape production of the opera. The exhibition also marks the centenary of the birth of Michael Tippett, with the manuscripts of The Heart’s Assurance and Boyhood’s End on display to coincide with their performance at the Festival. It also celebrates another significant English opera on a naval theme, Berkeley's Nelson of 1954, marking the acquisition on loan by the Britten-Pears Library of the Berkeley family papers.

Rumours and Visions The 2004 Festival exhibition, curated by Andrew Plant, is in the form of three linked components but is primarily a ‘visual cycle’ inspired by Britten’s 1939 Rimbaud cycle Les Illuminations for high voice and strings. The overall title of the exhibition and its subheadings are taken from the translated text of this work and the titles of individual songs. There is also a large-scale exploration of some abandoned works by the composer (‘rumours’); and a celebration of responses to Britten’s music by other artists (‘visions’). For copyright and other reasons it has not been possible to mount the entire exhibition on the website. The original catalogue numbers have been retained, however, so the online visitor will notice a few gaps in the sequence.

Britten’s autograph composition sketch for the opera Albert Herring was purchased by the Britten-Pears Library in 2003 with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund. This exhibition affords a glimpse both into the manuscript itself and also into the wealth of archival materials held by the Britten-Pears Library related to this work. Britten composed Albert Herring between December 1946 and April 1947, the opera being planned and written to launch the first season of the English Opera Group in June 1947.

A recent visit to the Britten-Pears Library by the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club prompted the assembly of this small exhibition. Based on archival materials held at the Library, it charts in photographs and documents some of the ups and downs of Britten’s life as an enthusiastic driver from 1936-1964

This online version of the exhibition Wild Echoes is still under construction.