Benjamin Britten

Home > Other > Benjamin Britten > Page 53
Benjamin Britten Page 53

by Neil Powell


  Wilkinson, Kenneth

  Wilkinson, Patrick

  Williams, Grace

  Williamson, Malcolm

  Wilson, Edmund

  Wilson, Nora

  Winkler, Max

  Wireless Singers

  Wireless Vocal Octet

  Wither, George

  Wittgenstein, Paul

  Wolfsgarten

  Wolpe, Berthold

  Wood, Anne

  Wood, Henry

  Wood, Richard

  Woodgate, Leslie

  Woolf, Virginia

  Woolford, John see Scherchen, Wulff

  Woolford, Pauline

  Wordsworth, William

  World Film News

  Wright, Basil

  Wright, Kenneth

  Wyss, Sophie

  Y

  Yeatman, R. J.

  Yeats, W. B.

  Yeomans, Walter

  Yorkshire Post

  Yoxford, Suffolk

  Z

  Zorian, Olive

  Zorian String Quartet

  Zurich

  Edith Britten with her four children, 1914

  Benjamin and his father aboard HMS Burslem, 1921

  The cast of The Water Babies with Benjamin on his mother’s knee, 1918

  The prodigy: Benjamin with multiple scores, c. 1921

  Prep schoolboy: with Francis Barton, 1928

  Public schoolboy: reading by a river, c. 1929

  Britten with Ethel and Frank Bridge, c.1930

  Wulff Scherchen, Britten and John Alston in Snape, c. 1938–9

  Britten with his sister Beth at her wedding, 1938

  Peggy Brosa, Antonio Brosa, Victor Kraft, Britten and Aaron Copland picnicking in America; Peter Pears behind the camera, c. 1939–40

  Pears and Britten in Brooklyn Heights, New York, where they shared a house with, among others, W. H. Auden, 1940

  Auden and Britten in New York at the time of rehearsals for Paul Bunyan, 1941

  Pears and Britten with his sister, Beth Welford, and his niece and nephew on Snape Bridge, 1943

  Britten at the gate of the Old Mill, Snape, 1946

  Britten and Eric Crozier with the set model for Peter Grimes, 1945

  ‘Now the Great Bear and Pleiades…’: the scene in The Boar from Peter Grimes with Pears in the title role, Sadler’s Wells, 1945

  Britten, Pears and the English Opera Group at Glyndebourne during rehearsals for Albert Herring, 1947

  Britten, Pears, Joan Cross, Otakar Kraus, Lesley Duff and Anna Pollak on tour across Europe with The Rape of Lucretia, 1947

  Britten in his Rolls with children from the cast of Let’s Make an Opera, 1949

  Pears, E. M. Forster, Robin Long (‘The Nipper’), Britten and Billy Burrell, 1948

  Pears and Britten shopping in Aldeburgh High Street, 1948

  Britten leaving the Concertgebouw after the premiere of his Spring Symphony at the Holland Festival, Amsterdam, 1949

  E. M. Forster, Britten and Eric Crozier working on Billy Budd in the study at Crabbe Street, Aldeburgh, 1949

  Imogen Holst conducting the Aldeburgh Music Club, including Britten and Pears, as part of ‘Music on the Meare’, Thorpeness, 1954

  Premiere of Noye’s Fludde, performed in the Aldeburgh Festival at St Bartholomew’s Church, Orford, 1958

  Pears, Prince Ludwig and Princess Margaret of Hesse and the Rhine and Britten in Balinese costume, Bali, 1956

  Britten, Pears, Princess Margaret and Prince Ludwig, Venice, 1957

  Britten accepting the Honorary Freedom of the Borough of Aldeburgh, 1962

  Britten and Colin Graham leaving The Red House in Britten’s Alvis, Aldeburgh, 1964

  Britten and Meredith Davies in discussion during rehearsals for the first performance of the War Requiem, Coventry Cathedral, 1962

  With soprano Galina Vishnevskaya after recording the War Requiem, London, 1963

  With viola player Cecil Aronowitz during a Decca recording session of The Burning Fiery Furnace, Orford Church, 1967

  With cellist Mstislav Rostropovich during the rehearsal for the first UK performance of Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Blythburgh Church, 1964

  Rehearsals for the television recording of Peter Grimes at the Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 1969

  Death in Venice: the final scene, with Pears (Aschenbach) and Robert Huguenin (Tadzio), Snape Maltings, 1973

  Britten and Pears at Snape, 1975

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  Pictures reproduced courtesy of the Britten-Pears Foundation (www.brittenpears.org): 1. PH/4/2; 2. PH/4/17; 3. PH/4/8; 4. PH/1/7; 5. PH/4/38; 6. PH/1/21; 7. PH/4/46; 8. PH/4/66; 9. PH/4/60; 10. © Peter Pears, PH/4/60PH/4/70; 11. PH/3/4; 12. PH/4/75; 13. PH/5/8; 17. PH/5/28; 18. PH/5/33; 22. PH/4/141; 24. © Marion Thorpe, PH/5/119; 25. © Kurt Hutton, PHPN/11/1/33; 26. PH/5/138; 27. PH/5/165; 28. © W. B. Allen, PH/4/283; 32. © Richard Adeney, PH/7/67; 34. PH/7/116A; 36. © Victor Parker, PH/3/114

  Pictures reproduced courtesy of Getty Images: 14. George Rodger/Time Life/Getty Images; 15. Alex Bender/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; 19. Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images; 20. Kurt Hutton/Getty Images; 21. Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images; 23. Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; 30. Erich Auerbach/Getty Images; 31. Erich Auerbach/Getty Images

  Pictures reproduced courtesy of the Harvard Theatre Collection: 16. Angus McBean Photograph (MS Thr 581) © Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University

  Pictures reproduced courtesy of Lebrecht: 29. Brian Seed/Lebrecht Music & Arts; 33. Brian Seed/Lebrecht Music & Arts; 35. Nigel Luckhurst/Lebrecht Music & Arts

  ALSO BY NEIL POWELL

  At the Edge

  Carpenters of Light

  A Season of Calm Weather

  True Colours

  The Stones on Thorpeness Beach

  Roy Fuller: Writer and Society

  The Language of Jazz

  Selected Poems

  George Crabbe: An English Life

  A Halfway House

  Amis & Son: Two Literary Generations

  Proof of Identity

  About the Author

  NEIL POWELL is the author of biographies of George Crabbe and Kingsley and Martin Amis, as well as seven collections of poetry. He has contributed to numerous journals and newspapers, including The Guardian and The Times Literary Supplement. Powell now lives in Aldeburgh, where Britten lived for the last thirty years of his life.

  BENJAMIN BRITTEN: A LIFE FOR MUSIC. Copyright © 2013 by Neil Powell. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.henryholt.com

  Cover art credit:

  Benjamin Britten with Peter Pears

  © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

  Benjamin Britten Plays the Piano

  © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

  Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears (1910–86)

  © Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears (1910–86), Meitner–Graf, Lotte (1901–73)/Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library

  Lines from ‘Underneath the abject willow’, ‘Out on the lawn I lie in bed’, and ‘As it is, plenty’ from COLLECTED POEMS OF W.H. AUDEN by W.H. Auden, copyright © 1976 by Edward Mendelson, William Meredith and Monroe K. Spears, Executors of the Estate of W.H. Auden. Used by permission of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.

  Lines from ‘Night covers up the rigid land’ copyright © 1936 by W.H. Auden, renewed.

  Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Powell, Neil, 1948–

  Benjamin Britten : a life for music / by Neil Powell.—First U.S. edition. pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-8050-9774-0

  1. Britten, Benjamin, 1913–1
976. 2. Composers—England—Biography. I. Title.

  ML410.B853P68 2013

  780.92—dc23

  [B] 2012051536

  e-ISBN 9780805097757

  Originally published in the U.K. in 2013 by Hutchinson

  First U.S. Edition August 2013

  First eBook edition: August 2013

 

 

 


‹ Prev