Britten and Wagner Anniversaries: Nothing to Celebrate?

[ahinton]

Chopin was an even bigger anit-semite than Wagner (something I learned on this forum) but few people seem to have a problem with him.

From whom did you learn that here? Not from me. I did draw attention to Chopin's anti-Semitism but pointed out in so doing that he was rather more discreet about that than Wagner ever was. I agree with whoever it was that Wagner was politically naïve and that his anti-Semitic expressions tend to come across more like noisy attention-seeking rants than anything else (not that this is meant as any kind of excuse). How you would seek to evaluate the comparative anti-Semitism of these two composers in quantitative terms and on what evidential grounds I have less than no idea.

Wagner was undoubtedly influenced by Chopin in musical terms. The point (that I've also already made here) is that we can no more be certain how different (if indeed at all) the music of Chopin or Wagner might have been had they not expressed anti-Jewish sentiments than we can about the kind of music Britten might have written had he been heterosexual (and let's not forget that his homosexuality, like that of Tippett and other contemporaries, needs to be seen in the context of its illegality in their native Britain for a large part of their lives). Bernstein has been mentioned. There was a considerable number of prominent gay composers in US during the past century; was the music of Elliott Carter and his elder contemporary Roger Sessions so different from that of the gay composers that you could immediately tell? The very idea is, of course, patently absurd.

Some people have a problem with Britten's hypersensitivity, but I find it rather endearing: you've got to love a bloke who'd cut a dinner guest after said guest had expressed a fondness for Rosenkavalier. :)

!!! It wasn't so funny, however, when Britten poured scorn upon the opera The Mines of Sulphur by the late and profoundly lamented Richard Rodney Bennett, however; Bennett was understandably hurt by this and concluded, charitably, that Britten didn't like other composers much. By the way, Bennett was gay, too; can you tell that from his jazz singing and playing, his operas, his three symphonies, the various concertos, his children's pieces or the famous waltz from Murder on the Orient Express?

[ahinton]

I'd go further and say the 2nd greatest Polish composer of all, behind you-know-who.

Well, of course, Chopin was not merely anti-Semitic, he was also half French (a fact that you'd never mention in polite Polish company, of course)...

[Richard Tarleton]

Some people have a problem with Britten's hypersensitivity, but I find it rather endearing: you've got to love a bloke who'd cut a dinner guest after said guest had expressed a fondness for Rosenkavalier. :)

Mandy, if this refers to the episode with Graham Johnson...the problem was not that Graham Johnson (then a very young accompanist) expressed a fondness for Rosenkavalier, but that, having mentioned a particular passage, he proceeded to hum it. Britten snapped that he knew the score of Rosenkavalier, thank you very much, or words to that effect. Johnson was of course mortified - it was quite cruel - and Pears pressed the hidden bell to summon the next course to cover the embarrassment of the moment. Not quite the same thing, the anecdote takes on a different hue.

Johnson evidently got over it.

[MrGongGong]

I recall my days as a music student. Regrettably, in our spare time, we spend much energy on insulting the music loved by whomever we were talking to.

I didn't insult any music

[Mary Chambers]

I first heard and loved much of Britten's music long before I knew anything about him as a person. I did find, though, that when I learnt more about him, a lot of things fell into place, particularly concerning his operas and to a lesser extent his song cycles.

Knowledge of a composer's life, times and personality must surely enhance our understanding of all but the purely abstract elements of his music. It's only the tabloid-ish speculative writings about aspects of his sexuality, such as that found in the Martin Kettle article, that I find objectionable. To paraphrase John Bridcut, a person cannot be belittled or condemned because of something some people imagine he might have thought.

[Lateralthinking1]

The point (that I've also already made here) is that we can no more be certain how different (if indeed at all) the music of Chopin or Wagner might have been had they not expressed anti-Jewish sentiments than we can about the kind of music Britten might have written had he been heterosexual (and let's not forget that his homosexuality, like that of Tippett and other contemporaries, needs to be seen in the context of its illegality in their native Britain for a large part of their lives). Bernstein has been mentioned. There was a considerable number of prominent gay composers in US during the past century; was the music of Elliott Carter and his elder contemporary Roger Sessions so different from that of the gay composers that you could immediately tell? The very idea is, of course, patently absurd.[/I]?

Sorry but I am not convinced by that argument or the one you put forward on the earlier thread. The first thread begins with a question about Britten and children. Several posts into that thread, you write about adult homosexuality. You say that you consider any doubts about Britten's behaviour with children emanate from prejudice against his adult sexual orientation and the associated illegality during his lifetime. At first, the argument appears persuasive. They were extremely difficult times for many and prejudice was rife. This thread too began with a question about Britten and children. I was the one who first mentioned here adult sexual orientation. I did so having been referred by a member of the forum to the previous thread. What I realised after a few moments of thought was that you had failed to explain why there should have been question after question about Britten and children when no such questions have ever arisen in connection with the many other homosexual composers who lived in that era.

You are now pursuing an argument which counters any notion that adult sexual orientation or any other behavioural trait can be identified in a composer's music. That appears to me to be a diversion from the question raised in the first post about Britten and children. I don't think that anyone has actually suggested that there is usually an identifiable link between a composer's adult sexual orientation and his music. Even if that were to be the case, it doesn't say anything about Britten and children. It seems to me that the subjects in much of Britten's work would be dark whoever had produced it. Darkness in art is not a sin and it can often be a virtue. However, "Peter Grimes" and particularly "The Turn of the Screw" are darker still given the questions about Britten and children. That is not a point about any link between adult sexual orientation and music. It is a point about Britten and children. Like many, I do not consider that where children are concerned, the term sexual orientation applies. The kindest word of several that might apply is illness. It might be that sensationalists in newspapers, and some people who read them, have a tendency to equate one adult sexual orientation with illness in connection with children. Most do not and it isn't supported by scientific evidence.

I am not wholly convinced about the oppression of Britten for his sexual orientation. Certainly I could not know the complexity of his situation. I accept that fully. But while that is a key defence put forward by his supporters, especially of the themes in his music, what I see is a bloke who lived openly with another man irrespective of the law. A man who had patronage at every level of society up to and including royalty. The exceptional nature of that privilege is possibly best indicated by a contrast with two leaders of political parties in the 1970s, one of whom was the Prime Minister. I feel that Britten was over-indulged. It is my view that he was angry because of experience in his own childhood far more than he was angry about oppression in adulthood. If he had an affectionate, inappropriate, leaning towards children, that would have been very unfortunate. However, he appears to have been emotionally cold towards them as indeed he could be towards adults. In character terms, none of it sounds at all appealing.

Can I just add that I know Britten's music means a lot to many people. Nothing I say here is likely to alter it and in many ways I am pleased. The last thing I would wish is that people should stop enjoying the music they love. It is disappointing to me that the questions that have been raised may well prevent me from learning about his music and appreciating it more. I can understand to some extent how thrilling it must have been for many to have witnessed a British musical phenomenon after the war. Many of us in some respects prefer the idea of living in what were arguably unquestioning times. The entire dialogue about the composer's character is without a doubt a very modern one, even if there has been talk for many decades. That needs to be borne in mind. I am in no doubt that fairness requires balance in any assessment. At the same time it is wrong to pretend the questions away.

[ahinton]

Sorry but I am not convinced by this argument or the one you put forward on the earlier thread. The first thread begins with a question about Britten and children. Several posts in to that thread, you write about adult homosexuality. You say that you consider any doubts about Britten's behaviour with children emanate from prejudice against his adult sexual orientation and the associated illegality during his lifetime. At first, the argument appears persuasive. They were extremely difficult times for many and prejudice was rife. This thread too began with a question about Britten and children. I was the one who first mentioned here adult sexual orientation. I did so having been referred by a member of the forum to the previous thread. What I realised after a few moments of thought was that you had failed to explain why there should have been question after question about Britten and children when no such questions have ever arisen in connection with the many other homosexual composers who lived in that era.

You are now pursuing an argument which counters any notion that adult sexual orientation or any other behavioural trait can be identified in a composer's music. That appears to me to be a diversion from the question raised in the first post about Britten and children. I don't think that anyone has actually suggested that there is usually an identifiable link between a composer's adult sexual orientation and his music. Even if that were to be the case, it doesn't say anything about Britten and children. It seems to me that the subject matter of much of Britten's work would be dark whoever produced it. Darkness in art is not a sin and it can often be a virtue. However, "Peter Grimes" and particularly "The Turn of the Screw" are darker still given the questions about Britten and children. That is not a point about any link between sexual orientation and music. It is a point about Britten and children. Like many, I do not consider that where children are concerned, the term sexual orientation applies. The kindest word of several that might apply is illness. It might be that sensationalists in newspapers, and some other people, have a tendency to equate a particular sexual orientation with illness in connection with children. Most do not and it isn't supported by scientific evidence.

I am not wholly convinced about the oppression of Britten for his sexual orientation. Certainly I could not know the complexity of his situation. But while this is a key defence put forward by his supporters, especially of the themes in his music, what I see is a bloke who lived openly with another man irrespective of the law. A man who had patronage at every level of society up to and including royalty. The exceptional nature of that privilege is possibly best indicated by a contrast with two leaders of political parties in the 1970s, one of whom was the Prime Minister. I feel that Britten was over-indulged. It is my view that he was angry because of experience in his own childhood far more than he was angry about oppression in adulthood. If he had an affectionate, inappropriate, leaning towards children, that would have been very unfortunate. However, he appears to have been emotionally cold towards them as indeed he could be towards adults. None of it sounds in character terms at all appealing.

Thank you for your considered comments which I nevertheless had to read over more than once because you confuse "Britten" with "Britain" on occasion and I had to figure out exactly what you meant.

The original question about Britten and children emerged, or so I understood, from consideration as to whether his homosexuality may have affected or otherwise influenced his attitude towards children. Your point about there being much more about Britten and children than about other homosexual British composers and children is a valid one but fails to take due account of the fact that Britten's meteoric rise to fame did not find favour with everyone by any means and I suspect that, as one of Britain's most famous post-WWII composers, Britten was a good deal more in the limelight than most others; Tippett, for example, who was also homosexual, was a very late developer - the very opposite of the prodigy Britten - and had made considerably less impact than his younger contemporary on the British new music scene until after A Midsummer Marriage whose final emergence was a decade or so later than that of Grimes. There was no shortage of backbiting about Britten, so I'm less than surprised that the questions that you mention didn't arise.

I agree broadly with most of what you write in your second paragraph. My observation that one cannot readily identify a composer's sexual orientation or even gender from his/her music is indeed something of an aside to the "Britten and children" matter but not entirely irrelevant to it. What informs some of Britten's stage works powerfully is an acute sense of injustice, which is something of one example of which he had first-hand experience, just as did other homosexuals, including composers, during the dark days of its illegality in Britain.

Your third paragraph also raises interesting ideas. I do not claim that Britten was necessarily more "oppressed" than was any other homosexual in Britain for his/her sexual orientation; they were all considered to be social outcasts by some. Britten's oppression was merely more noticeable because Britten himself was. Sharing one's home with someone of the same sex was not illegal; only homosexual practice was. Whilst most people readily identified the one with the other, that was their choice, albeit one arguably forced upon them by the climate at the time and the prevailing law.

There is no shortage of reliable reports that Britten could certainly be difficult, although I never found him to be so despite my musical aspirations and efforts at the time that I did know him being very far from what I understood his to be. I mentioned his railing at Bennett, yet he still encouraged Bennett's work to be performed at Aldeburgh. A man of considerable contradictions and internal difficulties who functioned as a thorough-going professional as composer, pianist and conductor who finally worked himself to death and who had to deal with a good deal more fame and fortune than most of his composer colleagues was never going to be an easy character to map and understand; it so happens, I believe, that too much has been made by some about his sexual orientation and attitude towards children and that some of this has served to cloud issues unhelpfully.

Might I now make a plea that due effort be made to restore some proportionality by putting Britten in his rightful place in this thread and considering his centenary alongside that of Lutosławski and the bicentenaries of Wagner, Verdi and Alkan?

[amateur51]

There is no shortage of reliable reports that Britten could certainly be difficult, although I never found him to be so despite my musical aspirations and efforts at the time that I did know him being very far from what I understood his to be. I mentioned his railing at Bennett, yet he still encouraged Bennett's work to be performed at Aldeburgh. A man of considerable contradictions and internal difficulties who functioned as a thorough-going professional as composer, pianist and conductor who finally worked himself to death and who had to deal with a good deal more fame and fortune than most of his composer colleagues was never going to be an easy character to map and understand; it so happens, I believe, that too much has been made by some about his sexual orientation and attitude towards children and that some of this has served to cloud issues unhelpfully.

A stonking paragraph, ahinton -

[doversoul1]

Lat
I think it may be worth reminding ourselves that the recent (media) interest in Britten and his sexual orientation was mainly brought out into the public, so to speak, in the wake of the Jimmy Savile case. Britten’s interest and relationship with children had been discussed and written about thoroughly amongst and by those who were interested in his music. It is the way in which the subject is talked about and not discussing the subject itself that is objectionable.

[Lateralthinking1]

Thank you for your considered comments which I nevertheless had to read over more than once because you confuse "Britten" with "Britain" on occasion and I had to figure out exactly what you meant.

The original question about Britten and children emerged, or so I understood, from consideration as to whether his homosexuality may have affected or otherwise influenced his attitude towards children. Your point about there being much more about Britten and children than about other homosexual British composers and children is a valid one but fails to take due account of the fact that Britten's meteoric rise to fame did not find favour with everyone by any means and I suspect that, as one of Britain's most famous post-WWII composers, Britten was a good deal more in the limelight than most others; Tippett, for example, who was also homosexual, was a very late developer - the very opposite of the prodigy Britten - and had made considerably less impact than his younger contemporary on the British new music scene until after A Midsummer Marriage whose final emergence was a decade or so later than that of Grimes. There was no shortage of backbiting about Britten, so I'm less than surprised that the questions that you mention didn't arise.

I agree broadly with most of what you write in your second paragraph. My observation that one cannot readily identify a composer's sexual orientation or even gender from his/her music is indeed something of an aside to the "Britten and children" matter but not entirely irrelevant to it. What informs some of Britten's stage works powerfully is an acute sense of injustice, which is something of one example of which he had first-hand experience, just as did other homosexuals, including composers, during the dark days of its illegality in Britain.

Your third paragraph also raises interesting ideas. I do not claim that Britten was necessarily more "oppressed" than was any other homosexual in Britain for his/her sexual orientation; they were all considered to be social outcasts by some. Britten's oppression was merely more noticeable because Britten himself was. Sharing one's home with someone of the same sex was not illegal; only homosexual practice was. Whilst most people readily identified the one with the other, that was their choice, albeit one arguably forced upon them by the climate at the time and the prevailing law.

There is no shortage of reliable reports that Britten could certainly be difficult, although I never found him to be so despite my musical aspirations and efforts at the time that I did know him being very far from what I understood his to be. I mentioned his railing at Bennett, yet he still encouraged Bennett's work to be performed at Aldeburgh. A man of considerable contradictions and internal difficulties who functioned as a thorough-going professional as composer, pianist and conductor who finally worked himself to death and who had to deal with a good deal more fame and fortune than most of his composer colleagues was never going to be an easy character to map and understand; it so happens, I believe, that too much has been made by some about his sexual orientation and attitude towards children and that some of this has served to cloud issues unhelpfully.

Might I now make a plea that due effort be made to restore some proportionality by putting Britten in his rightful place in this thread and considering his centenary alongside that of Lutosławski and the bicentenaries of Wagner, Verdi and Alkan?

Thank you for your reply. You will see that I have edited my post for spelling errors. It is early in the day. On the couple of occasions I wrote "Britain" - everywhere else I spelt his name correctly - I may have had this morning's interview with IDS on my mind. Britain's relationship with the British public can often feel as if we as the Government's "children" are forever being "cut"!

I do not agree that the main question raised was whether Britten's homosexuality had a bearing on his relationship with children. It was whether his relationship with children was inappropriate in any sense, if so to what extent, and whether that should have any impacts on both this year's commemoration and any understanding/appreciation of his music. I do agree that the questions should not be artificially separated from the broader context. There was, I believe, a sense that he was a bit teflon which gave fuel to his opponents. Both he and Tippett did not see war service but only the latter subsequently served time. Additionally, there would no doubt have been envy from less meteoric competitors whose own opinions may not necessarily have been pleasant or sound.

If we are to believe that he was motivated by injustice - and I do not dismiss that argument completely - then I think we should have the evidence for his ability to feel passionate about injustice to others. I would genuinely welcome it as I think this is an important strand. While life wasn't easy for him, he was arguably the most privileged and protected gay person in the country. His high profile appears to have been a huge advantage to him rather than a burden. He lived on a "high island". I suppose not fighting the war might be seen as an indication of caring about injustice. Is there more? It would certainly help to establish more of the substance. I am not wholly convinced that he worked himself to death although it might have been the case. His final years were largely characterised by writers' block so there is an argument that there were considerable pressures in terms of expectations.

[Quarky]

A very interesting thread, dealing with some highly complex issues, and I have found it useful for clarifying my thoughts.

A listener, i.e. this poster, me, needs to approach the issues with a clean pair of hands, so that he can distinguish between his prejudices and those matters associated with the music and the composer.

As far as I am concerned, I think my hands have been a little muddy in regard to Britten. Adore the music of Henze, but his sexual orientation does not concern me at all. Think my problems with Britten have been firstly that he makes no bones about his sexual orientation, so that I am forced to confront the issue when listening to his music. Secondly I tend usually to ignore questions of sexual orientation, but in the case of Britten, I found this particularly difficult, since having been born and brought up on the Eastern Seabord, with family connections to the sea and a grandmother coming from Blundeston, Britten is someone whom I might well encounter in the street or on the beach, or might even be a very distant relation.

May be as far as I am concerned the best tthing is to laugh this issue off, the alternative being not to play his music at all. Lateral Thinking referred to politics in the 70's. At the time there was a slogan "I'm backing Britain!" I do recall an orchestra manager suggesting this was particularly appropriate in the context of BB and PP.

[MrGongGong]

I first heard and loved much of Britten's music long before I knew anything about him as a person. I did find, though, that when I learnt more about him, a lot of things fell into place, particularly concerning his operas and to a lesser extent his song cycles.

Knowledge of a composer's life, times and personality must surely enhance our understanding of all but the purely abstract elements of his music. It's only the tabloid-ish speculative writings about aspects of his sexuality, such as that found in the Martin Kettle article, that I find objectionable. To paraphrase John Bridcut, a person cannot be belittled or condemned because of something some people imagine he might have thought.

which is somewhat at odds with those who seem to insist that the wider contexts of music are irrelevant

[Lateralthinking1]

Lat
I think it may be worth reminding ourselves that the recent (media) interest in Britten and his sexual orientation was mainly brought out into the public, so to speak, in the wake of the Jimmy Savile case. Britten’s interest and relationship with children had been discussed and written about thoroughly amongst and by those who were interested in his music. It is the way in which the subject is talked about and not discussing the subject itself that is objectionable.

A very interesting thread, dealing with some highly complex issues, and I have found it useful for clarifying my thoughts.

A listener, i.e. this poster, me, needs to approach the issues with a clean pair of hands, so that he can distinguish between his prejudices and those matters associated with the music and the composer.

As far as I am concerned, I think my hands have been a little muddy in regard to Britten. Adore the music of Henze, but his sexual orientation does not concern me at all. Think my problems with Britten have been firstly that he makes no bones about his sexual orientation, so that I am forced to confront the issue when listening to his music. Secondly I tend usually to ignore questions of sexual orientation, but in the case of Britten, I found this particularly difficult, since having been born and brought up on the Eastern Seabord, with family connections to the sea and a grandmother coming from Blundeston, Britten is someone whom I might well encounter in the street or on the beach, or might even be a very distant relation.

May be as far as I am concerned the best tthing is to laugh this issue off, the alternative being not to play his music at all. Lateral Thinking referred to politics in the 70's. At the time there was a slogan "I'm backing Britain!" I do recall an orchestra manager suggesting this was particularly appropriate in the context of BB and PP.

I think those comments are fair. Certainly the Daily Mail is unlikely to be the place for a just assessment. I am not banning his music from the house! He will never, though, be an RVW to me in all respects and there are many other British composers I would choose before him, including Tippett. I have no further comments but will be interested to read new contributions to the thread.

[ahinton]

It is early in the day. On the couple of occasions I wrote "Britain" - everywhere else I spelt his name correctly - I may have had this morning's interview with IDS on my mind.

Oh, dear! I shudder to think what effect that would have had!

Britain's relationship with the British public can often feel as if we as the Government's "children" are forever being "cut"!

Yes; I wonder how long it will be before families on "high" incomes" are asked to pay child benefit to the government - you know, a kind of tax on children...

I do not agree that the main question raised was whether Britten's homosexuality had a bearing on his relationship with children.

Well, that's as maybe but, until the Savile et al issues were suddenly catapulted to the surface, I am inclined to think that one of the left-overs from the dark days of illegal homosexuality in Britain was a perception that homosexuals might take unwelcome advantage of children as par for the course whereas heterosexuals would only do it exceptionally.

It was whether his relationship with children was inappropriate in any sense, if so to what extent, and whether that should have any impacts on both this year's commemoration and any understanding/appreciation of his music.

But unless he broke, or risked breaking, the law at the time in his relations with children, how might anyone reasonably determine what might or might not have been "inappropriate" about those relations, even assuming that the commenting onlooker was actually in possession of reliable evidence on the subject?

Whilst I do not seek to try entirely to cocoon Britten's or indeed anyone else music from the social climate of the time in which it was composed, I am acutely conscious of the plethora of pseudo-acedemic material out there that would seek to persuade us that it is possible to deduce all manner of things about a person's orientations, conduct and the like - even gender - directly from his/her music and my objection to this is that we simply do not have an established corpus of neuroscientific evidence that enables this to be done realistically; until and unless the outcomes of scientific research changes that situation fundamentally, this kind of posturing belongs in a world of fantasy.

I do agree that the questions should not be artificially separated from the broader context. There was, I believe, a sense that he was a bit teflon which gave fuel to his opponents. Both he and Tippett did not see war service but only the latter subsequently served time. Additionally, there would no doubt have been envy from less meteoric competitors whose own opinions may not necessarily have been pleasant or sound.

It's your final sentence here that is of the essence, I think. I'm not sure about teflon where Britten is concerned but there can be no doubt that the chagrin expressed by some of his older colleagues and compatriots at the meteoric rise that, as they largely saw it, led to his being grossly over-rated quite early in life.

If we are to believe that he was motivated by injustice - and I do not dismiss that argument completely - then I think we should have the evidence for his ability to feel passionate about injustice to others. I would genuinely welcome it as I think this is an important strand. While life wasn't easy for him, he was arguably the most privileged and protected gay person in the country. His high profile appears to have been a huge advantage to him rather than a burden. He lived on a "high island". I suppose not fighting the war might be seen as an indication of caring about injustice. Is there more? It would certainly help to establish more of the substance. I am not wholly convinced that he worked himself to death although it might have been the case. His final years were largely characterised by writers' block so there is an argument that there were considerable pressures in terms of expectations.

I think your view of Britten's "privileged position" is something of an exaggeration; it's far from untrue, but not as true as you seem to make it out to be! Yes, I have little doubt that he tried to take advantage of such privilege as his position gave him, but given his fame, he'd probably not have had to make much effort to achieve this in any case. As to his final years, I remember at the time that he'd invited Ronald Stevenson to Aldeburgh in the early 70s to perform his then new (and splendid) song-cycle Border Boyhood with Pears, he wrote to Stevenson that the completion of Death in Venice had nearly killed him; he was often ill during the time that I knew him and my remark about working himself to death was meant to be taken as meaning that he worked all too often in disregard for the health conditions that increasingly plagued him.

[amateur51]

I think those comments are fair. Certainly the Daily Mail is unlikely to be the place for a just assessment. I am not banning his music from the house! He will never, though, be an RVW to me in all respects and there are many other British composers I would choose before him, including Tippett. I have no further comments but will be interested to read new contributions to the thread.

Lat, all I can say is that with the coming tide of Britten to be heard and seen over the next year, it would be a great shame to fail to explore some of the extraordinary music that he wrote. Every time I hear a piece of his that is new to me, I am amazed by his creativity, just as I am when I listen to works by Wagner.

For example I have recently been listening to Britten's Curlew River on Spotify. Astonishing stuff and there will be performances of it in several parts of the country during the year. I wouldn't miss this opportunity for the world, not because Britten was British, not because he was gay, not because he struggled with his attraction to children, but because it's marvellous music and a fascinating tale and a remarkable response to another culture.