With only a limited time to create an opera for the opening performance at the Aldeburgh Festival on 11 June 1960, Britten and Pears selected Shakespeare’s comic play, and by shortening and tightening it they were able to employ Shakespeare’s own text rather than rewriting it. The music, meanwhile, transforms the stage into the woods, and ...
First performed at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden on 1 December 1951, this adaptation of Herman Melville’s short story saw E. M. Forster writing large portions of prose while Eric Crozier focused on the dramatic execution. Accordingly, Billy Budd was one of the most meticulously researched and well-written librettos of any Benjamin Britten opera. Typically for ...
Composed in 1944–45 and first performed on 7 June 1945, Peter Grimes reopened London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre following the Second World War – at the request of managing director, soprano Joan Cross. This opera, and its success, provided the momentum that the post-war arts environment needed. From the moment Britten read ‘The Borough’ he began making plans ...
First performed in Venice on 14 September 1954 at Il Teatro La Fenice, this chilling ghost tale is based on Henry James’s short story, with a libretto written by Myfanwy Piper. The action ignites as a new governess arrives at Bly House to take care of two children, Miles and Flora. Depending on the stage director’s interpretation, ...
1913–76 English composer The finest English composer of his generation, Britten reacted against the folksong-derived pastoralism of his elder compatriots, finding inspiration in Purcell and influences as various as Mahler and Stravinsky. The international success of his opera Peter Grimes (1945) brought financial security, but he continued to appear as a pianist, accompanying his partner and outstanding ...
1913–76, English Lord Edward Benjamin Britten was one of England’s most important composers. Britten was a musical ambassador who, working with a close-knit group of collaborators, helped develop a thriving and vital British opera scene. Indeed, Peter Grimes (1945) heralded a new era for British music and for the post-war performing arts in general. A Musical Start ...
b. 1960, British George Benjamin is known as a composer who takes his time. His teachers included Olivier Messiaen, who compared his student with Mozart, but Benjamin has always taken time over his work, often taking a number of years to complete works of a few minutes. His first full-scale opera, Written on Skin, became ...
b. 1960 English composer Benjamin studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Messiaen and later at Cambridge with Goehr. While still at Cambridge he came to wider public attention with his orchestral piece Ringed by the Flat Horizon (1980). Since then he has composed slowly but fastidiously, forces ranging from solo (Three Miniatures for violin, 2001) and duo (Viola, ...
A musical ensemble is a group of two or more musicians who have come together to play music. In theory, an ensemble could contain any number of instruments in any combination, but in practice, certain combinations just don’t work very well, either for musical reasons or because of the sheer practicality of getting particular instruments and players ...
The guitar is a plucked stringed instrument played resting on the lap. Although it has a long history – thought by many to reach as far back as the ancient Greek lyre known as the kithara – it is best-known today in the design of the Spanish guitar-maker Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–92). The modern or classical guitar developed from the ...
The trumpet is one of the most ancient instruments still played today. Clear depictions of trumpets survive in Egyptian paintings and two trumpets – one of silver, the other of gold and brass – found in the tomb of Tutankhamun date back to at least 1350 BC. There are many examples of Roman and Greek trumpets which, like the ...
Tubular bells, also known as orchestral or symphonic chimes, are a set of tuned steel tubes with a chrome finish, hanging vertically in a stand with a pedal damper. The optimum range for a chromatic set of tubular bells is 11⁄2 octaves rising from middle C (c'–f''), as notes above or below this range are difficult to tune ...
The violin family is a group of fretless bowed stringed instruments that has its roots in Italy. Four instruments make up the family: the violin, the viola, the violoncello (commonly abbreviated to cello), and the double bass. The characteristic body shape is one of the most recognizable in music; the particular acoustic properties this shape imparts have made the ...
1898–1956, German A poet and playwright, Brecht was best known for his departure from the conventions of theatrical illusion to create ‘epic theatre’ as a tool for social commentary. At its least nuanced and most dogmatic, this amounted to a didactic forum for his communist cause. Eugen Bertolt Friedrich Brecht was born and raised in Bavaria, where ...
1914–94, English Armed with his experience as a stage director and as a producer for BBC Television (1936–39), Crozier helped create a new national identity for British opera while lending his expertise to composer Benjamin Britten. After all, if opera were to become viable in theatrical terms, then the composer, librettist and stage director would have to ...
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