"Britten's Boys" article in The Guardian

[Guest]

I thought forum members might be interested to see this article on Benjamin Britten by Martin Kettle in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...-cannot-ignore

It does raise some interesting questions about how the BBC will deal with this in the wake of Savile, especially given the forthcoming centenary celebrations.

[rauschwerk]

There was a discussion on last night's Front Row. Mark Lawson talked to Jonathan Reekie of Aldeburgh Music, then to Martin Kettle and Ian Bostridge.

I really cannot see why, in the wake of Savile, the BBC should deal with this issue any differently then before. Britten's sexuality has now been widely explored. A good many probably find Britten's sexual desires incomprehensible or just plain filthy, but no improper conduct on his part has been revealed and it's now 35 years since his death.

[Mary Chambers]

A very similar article had appeared in the Daily Mail. That was bad enough, but I don't really expect the Daily Mail journalists to be other than prurient sensationalists. I was truly shocked to see the Guardian publishing much the same type of thing, since I had thought it was a more intelligent paper. Martin Kettle was repeating things he had read, over-simplifying, and had not as far as I could see done enough research. It was several paragraphs before he admitted that there was no resemblance between Britten and Savile. There are many scathing comments about the article online.

Britten liked boys. That's been thoroughly looked into for over twenty years. No-one has accused him of doing anything he shouldn't, but my word, is the press hoping that someone will! Never mind his great music or the immense amount of good he did - for boys among others.

Ian Bostridge and Jonathan Reekie were very sensible on Front Row, I thought - unlike Mark Lawson, who clearly didn't have much clue what he was talking about.

[amateur51]

A very similar article had appeared in the Daily Mail. That was bad enough, but I don't really expect the Daily Mail journalists to be other than prurient sensationalists. I was truly shocked to see the Guardian publishing much the same type of thing, since I had thought it was a more intelligent paper. Martin Kettle was repeating things he had read, over-simplifying, and had not as far as I could see done enough research. It was several paragraphs before he admitted that there was no resemblance between Britten and Savile. There are many scathing comments about the article online.

Britten liked boys. That's been thoroughly looked into for over twenty years. No-one has accused him of doing anything he shouldn't, but my word, is the press hoping that someone will! Never mind his great music or the immense amount of good he did - for boys among others.

Ian Bostridge and Jonathan Reekie were very sensible on Front Row, I thought - unlike Mark Lawson, who clearly didn't have much clue what he was talking about.

Well said, Mary Chambers - I think Kettle has 'form' in this area

[mercia]

to take two sentences from that article

"No one with even a brief acquaintance of Britten's music can possibly miss the prominent and privileged place that music for the unbroken male voice occupies in his output".

I would change that to

No one with even a brief acquaintance of Britten's music can possibly miss the prominent and privileged place that music for the tenor voice occupies in his output.
Doing a quick calculation from wikipedia's list, I would say only four works of the ninety-six are exclusively for boy's voices

"The last thing his music needs is to be subverted by a pointless denial of his complex sexuality"

I would change that to

the last thing his music needs is to be subverted by a pointless obsession with his sexuality

[amateur51]

Well said, Mary Chambers - I think Kettle has 'form' in this area

I can't find my copy at the moment but Bridcut's Britten's Children contains a moving testimony from David Hemmings who created the part of Miles in Britten's Turn of the Screw about how he felt both safe and loved by Britten while they were working together, and indeed that if there were any trauma in their relationship it arose from Britten's discarding of him when his voice broke. I gained the impression that Hemmings grew to understand and appreciate this too.

[Nick Armstrong]

I can't find my copy at the moment but Bridcut's Britten's Children contains a moving testimony from David Hemmings who created the part of Miles in Britten's Turn of the Screw about how he felt both safe and loved by Britten while they were working together, and indeed that if there were any trauma in their relationship it arose from Britten's discarding of him when his voice broke. I gained the impression that Hemmings grew to understand and appreciate this too.

Yes, it was on again recently and will no doubt be re-broadcast in 2013. Well worth a watch. Hemmings was mesmerising and convincing. His reminiscence, shortly before he died, I think, and in that astonishing gravelly voice, of playing Miles, and of the end of the performances when he lay 'dead' in the bosom of the governess, brought tears to his and my eyes He obviously retained huge love and respect for Britten.

[Mary Chambers]

to take two sentences from that article

"No one with even a brief acquaintance of Britten's music can possibly miss the prominent and privileged place that music for the unbroken male voice occupies in his output".

I would change that to

No one with even a brief acquaintance of Britten's music can possibly miss the prominent and privileged place that music for the tenor voice occupies in his output.

Precisely. I am old enough to remember when his relationship with Pears was illegal and barely mentioned in public. Now, it seems hardly to merit a mention - not nearly shocking enough!

There is, however, a lovely new book of photos, Britten in Pictures, that gives Pears his proper place in Britten's life.

Writing for boys' voices, as Bostridge pointed out, is and was nothing extraordinary in English culture.

[MrGongGong]

I think the "problem" many people (and this includes some of the residents of Aldeburgh ) have with Britten is simply that he was a gay man.
I thought Jonathan Reekie was good on R4 last night , open and honest.
Maybe a poster saying "Britten was gay, get over it" on the Moot Hall ?
(Adnams of course)

[mercia]

not quite sure how we can expect children to become interested in music-making unless music is written exclusively for them

bit of a no-brainer I would have thought

[DracoM]

What I don't quite understand is how the various interviews that David Hemmings gave about his involvement as a lad with BB and music making are not cited. IIRC, he was almost effusive in his praise of BB, and his resolute refusal to endorse those who wanted to do precisely what Martin Kettle has just done. I mean, this is a man who as a kid was right there, and he seems to be adamant that nothing untoward took place.

Or am I misunderstanding this whole issue?

[visualnickmos]

...but no improper conduct on his part has been revealed and it's now 35 years since his death.

Which is why I feel the article after having read it is totally pointless and offensive. It smacks of a journalist snouting around for anything to sell a "news"paper by joining the bandwagon of stirring things up, and actually deflecting from the very real issues. This seems to be increasingly the case of British journalism; even more scurrilous in that this time it's The Guardian acting like a 'red top'
I said it was pointless, as it doesn't actually convey any facts - apart from what is already established.

[ahinton]

It just had to happen, didn't it? Because it so happens (I nearly wrote "as it 'appens" but then wisely and swiftly desisted) that the Savile business has finally been exposed just recently (although its continued investigations and repercussions will inevitably run on for many months or indeed possibly years to come) and it also happens to he the start of the Britten centenary year, the characters, behaviour and sexual proclivities of the two men must be dissected side by side for the benefit of the demi-monde of tabloid journalism. If only the Savile scandals had been exposed many years ago when they could and should have been (and, had they been, their duration would have been far less than was the case), I suspect that this futile sensationalism that is the attempted drawing together of Britten and Savile might never have occurred to anyone.

As many commentators have noted with due chagrin, Britten has been dead for almost 36 years and no one has ever come forward with evidence of sexual abuse on his part; it is this lack of evidence that perhaps sticks in the craw more than anything else when confronting the subject and it appears to be the distasteful and unjust legacy of the phenomenon of male homosexuality perpetuated as somehow inevitably synonymous with pædophilia (why? on what grounds? based upon what specific incontrovertible physiological / neuroscientific evidence?) that has provided the unfortunate backdrop for the Daily Wailings on the subject.

I do not usually take to Lebrecht's writings but, short of a handful of examples of his customary clever-clogs soundbitten catchphraseology and his shying away from due criticism of the chips off the Carpenter's block, he does write at least some good sense here in trying to put matters into perspective in terms both of Britten's musical legacy and the immense energies that he invested (often at the expense of his own health) into the practical applications of his generosity of spirit where the work of other composers was concerned (although I could have done without NL's insufficiently well thought out remarks about some of Britten's stage works).

Dutilleux wrote for boys' voices too (though obviously not as often as Britten) but, of course, he isn't homosexual so even the Daily Fail would presumably refrain from publishing assumptions about his sexually predatory nature towards boys.

I knew Britten, though not at all well, when a young man rather than a boy; not only did I fail to glean the remotest impression of him as the kind of man who might have had some inclination to take an unhealthy interest in boys, let alone commit acts of sexual predation upon them, I also found his musical broadmindness considerably greater than I had anticipated. At the time, I was a pupil of Searle and under influences of almost no English composer at all other, perhaps, than Byrd and Bridge) - a considerable distance, then, from the Britten milieu; this clearly interested him rather than met with his consternation and his enthusiastic remarks at that time about , for example, Chopin and Tippett were as welcome to the ear as they were somewhat surprising to encounter.

Britten's persona was indeed plagued with no shortage of insecurities, but neither that fact nor anything else about him or indeed his work as a composer, conductor, pianist, writer or promoter of the work of others constitutes an excuse for the kind of cheap tabloid jibes and muck-rakings that are too salacious and evidence-lite even to qualify to be dignified by the descriptor "journalism".

I wonder what kinds of unenlightening garbage the gutter press will try to dig up about Verdi, Wagner and Alkan who each share a bicentenary with Britten's centenary?...

[doversoul1]

I think the "problem" many people (and this includes some of the residents of Aldeburgh ) have with Britten is simply that he was a gay man.
I thought Jonathan Reekie was good on R4 last night , open and honest.
Maybe a poster saying "Britten was gay, get over it" on the Moot Hall ?
(Adnams of course)

That may be so but that’s not the same level of ‘problem’ as calling Britten a paedophile.

In short, does it matter that he was, by inclination if not in practice, a paedophile?

[visualnickmos]

to take two sentences from that article

"No one with even a brief acquaintance of Britten's music can possibly miss the prominent and privileged place that music for the unbroken male voice occupies in his output".

I would change that to

No one with even a brief acquaintance of Britten's music can possibly miss the prominent and privileged place that music for the tenor voice occupies in his output.
Doing a quick calculation from wikipedia's list, I would say only four works of the ninety-six are exclusively for boy's voices

"The last thing his music needs is to be subverted by a pointless denial of his complex sexuality"

I would change that to

the last thing his music needs is to be subverted by a pointless obsession with his sexuality

Excellently written. Wholeheartedly agree with you.