Benjamin Britten | Artist
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist born 1913 in Lowestoft, Suffolk. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945). Britten's early musical life was dominated by the classical masters; his mother's ambition was for him to become the "Fourth B", after Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Through his association with composer Frank Bridge, Britten's musical horizons expanded. He discovered the music of Debussy and Ravel which gave him a model for an orchestral sound. Bridge also led Britten to the music of Schoenberg and Berg. Besides his growing attachments to the works of 20th century masters Britten, along with his contemporary Michael Tippett, was devoted to the English music of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, in particular the work of Purcell. In defining his mission as a composer of opera, Britten wrote "One of my chief aims is to try to restore to the musical setting of the English Language a brilliance, freedom and vitality that have been curiously rare since the death of Purcell." Among the closest of Britten's kindred composer spirits, even more so than Purcell, was Mahler, whose Fourth Symphony Britten heard in September 1930. At that time Mahler's music was little regarded and rarely played in English concert halls. Although he was a prolific composer of orchestral and chamber music, it is Britten's operas that are considered the most substantial and important part of his compositional legacy. Britten's operas are firmly established in the international repertoire and are performed worldwide more than those of any other composer born in the 20th century. Only Puccini and Richard Strauss come ahead of him if the list is extended to all operas composed after 1900. Over the 28 years between Peter Grimes and Death in Venice Britten's musical style changed, as he introduced elements of atonalism, though remaining essentially a tonal composer, and of eastern music, particularly gamelan sounds but also eastern harmonies. Together with his long-term partner the Tenor Peter Pears and the librettist and producer Eric Crozier, Britten founded the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, and he was responsible for the creation of Snape Maltings concert hall in 1967. In his last year, he was the first composer to be given a life peerage. Benjamin Britten passed away on the 4th of December 1976, aged 63, and is buried in St. Peter and St Paul's Church, Aldeburgh, Suffolk.
Artist Website: wikipedia/Benjamin_Britten
Featured Albums: Benjamin Britten
Related Artists: Peter Pears, Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich
