On An Overgrown Path

Benjamin Britten was born in the house seen in these photos on November 22nd, 1913. The house is 21, Kirkley Cliff Road, Lowestoft in Suffolk. It was Britten's home until 1934, by which time he had composed his Simple Symphony op. 4 , based on music written in the house between the ages of nine and twelve. The two photos above shows the attic room that was Britten's bedroom for twenty-one years, and it is here that he composed much of his early music. The top photo shows the room today; the lower one was taken by Britten himself in late 1934. On the writing desk, where he composed, can be seen a small bust of Beethoven. The North Sea, with its many moods, is a leitmotif that runs through all Britten's music. The breakers can be heard from his bedroom, and the photo was taken by me looking out to the shore on a typically grey and murky autumn day. This is the same view photographed by Britten himself in December 1934. The view to the sea is the same, but progres...

Benjamin Britten was born in the house seen in these photos on November 22nd, 1913. The house is 21, Kirkley Cliff Road, Lowestoft in Suffolk. It was Britten's home until 1934, by which time he had composed his Simple Symphony op. 4 , based on music written in the house between the ages of nine and twelve. The photos above shows the attic room that was Britten's bedroom for twenty-one years, and it is here that he composed much of his early music. The top photo shows the room today; the lower one was taken by Britten himself in late 1934. On the writing desk, where he composed, can be seen a small bust of Beethoven. The North Sea, with its many moods, is a leitmotif that runs through all Britten's music. The breakers can be heard from his bedroom, and the photo above was taken by me looking out to the shore on a typically grey and murky autumn day. Above is the same view photographed by Britten himself in December 1934. The view to the sea is the same, ...

'Everybody can make music. Everybody can compose, somehow. When you want to teach children sports, they play football, or get given a tennis racket, they don't simply watch. But when we want them to be involved in music, we ask them to sit passively. This is surely not the right concept' - Simon Rattle tells it like it is in today's Observer, in an article about the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's dance project with marginalised children. How true, and I read those words while still on an emotional high from making music for the first, and probably last time in a Britten performance in Snape Maltings under the baton of Stephen Layton . Tomorrow (December 4th) is the thirtieth anniversary of Benjamin Britten's death. Last night I was at a performance of his cantata St Nicholas as part of Aldeburgh's Britten Weekend , and my music making was a vocal contribution to the two congregational hymns in that wonderful work. They may only be congregational hymns,...

On An Overgrown Path’s traffic logs show that the UK and international media are actively researching the private life of Benjamin Britten. One of the many failings of the BBC in the Jimmy Savile scandal was to assume that a potentially damaging story would simply go away. So, although I would much prefer to be writing about other things, I am reluctantly returning to the subject of Britten . I am a huge admirer of Britten’s music , I have written in praise of Aldeburgh , and Snape is my local concert hall . But for some time I have had a growing discomfort about certain aspects of the composer's private life, and this means I do not share the dismissive attitude that prevails elsewhere in classical music towards its continued scrutiny. And it also means I object to being labelled as a “smut-stirrer” for believing the subject should not be off-limits . The aspects of Britten’s personal life under scrutiny are public knowledge. In his eloquent appreciation of Britten in Th...

Steel works, Snape Maltings fire: mixed media by Cavendish Morton linked from Island Arts It was a dark night, but as we came over the brow of the hill the sky was lit up by an orange glow, with a trial of thick smoke. If this was dramatic, seen from close to it was positively theatrical. Above our heads the black shell of the Maltings loomed like the flank of a stricken liner..... In the foreground, silhouetted against the bright lights, members of the English Opera Group chorus were collapsing into each other's arms. It was a devastating event, of course, but one whose aftermath - the triumphant rescue of the Idomeneo premiere at Blythburgh, and the Maltings rebuilding for the very next Festival - swiftly became part of the Aldeburgh legend. In 1965 the expanding Aldeburgh Festival urgently needed a purpose built concert hall. After much searching Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears found a disused maltings at Snape on the River Alde four miles upstream from Aldeburgh . Archit...

In the first half we had Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto , premiered in 1940 by Antonio Brosa and the New York Philharmonic conducted by John Barbirolli . The structure of the concerto is three movements with the final Passacaglia marked Andante Lento (un poco meno mosso). Its opponent in the second half was another 20th century masterpiece dating from 37 years earlier, Gustav Mahler's Symphony No 5 in C sharp minor, with its Rondo Finale marked Allegro - Allegro giocoso. The venue for last night's contest was Britten's own magical Snape Maltings , and the orchestra was the BPO. Everywhere else in the world BPO stands for Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra , but Aldeburgh is a parallel musical universe where the BPO is the Britten Pears Orchestra , a crack orchestra of young professionals whose spontaneous music-making puts to shame the autopilot efforts of the big name bands. Yes, they do take risks, as the early horn entry in the attaca between the last two movement...

In his Aspen Award acceptance speech Benjamin Britten explained that the magic of great music is only renewed when the listener is "in active sympathy" with the composer. That 'active sympathy' is a fragile and complex condition that Britten understood well when he created the Snape Maltings concert hall with its peerless acoustic and life-enhancing surroundings. So it is ironic that, for this writer, the very thing the Britten centenary celebrations are destroying is active sympathy. The latest contribution to the celebrations is Neil Powell's Benjamin Britten: A Life for Music . In his thoughtful review of the biography for Slate Seth Colter Walls draws attention to Neil Powell's unequivocal statement on the first page of the book that: "[Britten's] fondness for adolescent boys and his devotion to his partner, Peter Pears, represent distinct and complementary aspects of his sexual nature; his conduct in both cases was exemplary and is therefore...

Britten scholars accept John Bridcut 's book Britten's Children as a reliable and authoritative source. Bridcut recounts how in 1937 Benjamin Britten, then 24, took Harry Morris, a chorister aged 13, on holiday to Crantock in Cornwall. The following extracts are taken from the book*: ...Harry Morris left Cornwall early... In later life he told his wife Beryl and their son Tim that he had been alarmed by what he understood as a sexual approach from Britten in his bedroom. He said he screamed, and hit Britten with a chair. This brought Beth [Britten's sister] rushing into the room, who, he said, shouted at her brother. She and Ben left, and Beth locked the door. Harry got dressed, packed his bags, and sat waiting for the morning. Without speaking, Beth took him to the station, and dispatched him to London. When he reached home, he told his mother what had happened, but she told him off and refused to believe his story. He never told his father. John Bridcut quite reasonabl...

To celebrate his 50th birthday Benjamin Britten, who was not a fan of anniversary celebrations, was invited to write an article for the Sunday Telegraph . However the result - titled Britten looking back - was not what the newspaper expected, because it was devoted entirely to discussing the creative current that arced between Britten and his teacher Frank Bridge . Transmission - the process by which eternal wisdom passes from teacher to student - has been likened to an electric current arcing from one conductor (electrical not musical!) to another. The master's role is to transmit the teachings that lead to enlightenment, and although transmission is usually associated with Buddhism , it also occur in classical music . In 1963 Britten expressed his dislike of anniversaries when he asked a friend "What's so special about being 50?". So to celebrate his 100th birthday I am not following the well-worn path of eulogizing the man and his music, but instead offer Britte...