I assure you 'poor Mary' does not feel harangued at all. She is however left somewhat speechless by post #161. I'd have liked to continue the discussion, but in these circumstances it's difficult, perhaps impossible. What a pity.
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One of the problems with assessing or re-assessing, Britten is the very British passtime of 'loving a loser and distrusting success'.
Take sport, boxing for example.
We never liked Chris Eubank. Undefeated at middleweight, unbeaten in his first ten years as a pro, a world champion for more than five years. We loved Frank Bruno and our 'Enery, who both seemed to get the snot knocked out of themselves every other fight.
Britten is technically a composer of the very highest calibre and produced the best works that came out of Britain in the 20th century. But, even worse, he was internationally recognised.
Re-appraisal? No. He is what he is (see sentence immediately above).
I will be happily compiling a list of the special works that I will play all day on his birthday!Comment
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Saw in BBC Music Magazine online about Britten suffering from Syphilis, wether this is true ort not or just sommeone trying to smear composer's rep, i dont know?Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
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I'm very glad that you do not feel harangued. Personally I've been stunned by the venom spat out by some of the contributors to this thread. I find it difficult to comprehend such nastiness directed to others on these boards, let alone the poison directed at Britten and the absurd comments about his music. That last remark, of course,can be said to be a matter of opinion, but where we differ we should be able to express our ideas in reasonable terms.Originally posted by Mary Chambers View Post
If we were all face to face in a debate, knowing each other's real identities, fair minded participants would probably walk out if the sheer nastiness as seen here infected the argument.Comment
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Bearing in mind that Britten was younger than the recently late Elliott Carter, what a shame he died at such an early age (whatever caused his death). What music we must have missed out on in recent decades.Del boy: “Get in, get out, don’t look back. That’s my motto!”Comment
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Yes, indeed - but what a shame that Elliott Carter died in his prime! He was more active than Britten in his last few years (OK, his health allowed this whereas Britten's interfered with it badly). Carter wrote no less than 20 works in his second century, three of which were composed only last year; he then contracted what must have been a particularly potent pneumonia because he couldn't recover from it ultimately - and it really got to irritate him because it stopped him from doing any more work which he'd clearly otherwise have done. He also developed a most remarkable, if not unique, way of reinventing himself in his eleventh decade that clearly eluded Britten during his seventh.Originally posted by Parry1912 View PostComment
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Please, no! Let us return to a "discussion" unpunctuated by the kind of rancourous, ill-researched, disproportionate and at times irrelevant contributions that have infected parts of this thread.Originally posted by johnb View PostComment
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For "passtime" you presumably mean "pastime" and, whilst I cannot disagree with your premise that such a pastime does indeed exist (and by no means only in the world of music), I don;t see that it needs to be a problem "with assessing or re-assessing, Britten" and let's not forget that those who may be doing so especially during his centenary year won't all be British in any case!Originally posted by Beef Oven View Post
Five words that generate two questions; the first is "must I?" and the second "which - boxing of sport?"; never mind!...Originally posted by Beef Oven View Post
The first and third of your statements here are unassailable, I think, but I would certainly question the second, since its implication that Britten's best work is somehow superior in all cases to the finest works by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Bax, Rubbra, Walton, Tippett, Arnold, Simpson and a host of later British composers would be impossible to justify - and I mean no disrespect to Britten's memory by so saying.Originally posted by Beef Oven View Post
He is indeed - but he's far from alone in that!Originally posted by Beef Oven View PostComment
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In Britten's case, I'm not grateful. In 'The Turn of the Screw' he questions the role of the state in matters of sexuality. Rather than drawing a clear distinction between legislation that was an abomination to male adults who wished to be intimate with each other, he deliberately sought to present the idea of rights for men to have sex with men, boys to be physically intimate with boys, and men to have sex or to be intimate with boys, as amounting to the same. Why should the state interfere in any of it, he asked? Except he didn't ask directly because the sentiments were to be sung by children. In other work there was also a yellow streak.Originally posted by mercia
The children were in part to sing in Latin words about which there is often linguistic confusion. Confusion of a very useful kind to a man of Britten's leanings. Specifically, there was a blurring of meaning of desire and misdeed in the piece - the child was made to be equivocal about whether he wanted to do something that an adult required of him or whether he should feel isolated and guilty for a sin. In the case of the latter the child is, with evil, evicted in confusion. There is a further linguistic twist as the words also describe an apple tree. That has echoes of Adam and Eve and about possibilities for growth perhaps destroyed. But if the child is left psychologically abused in an adult's sadistic game, how much is it drama and how much truth? To what extent can the child be believed as someone who has experienced such things in life? That is Britten's gleeful conundrum and he gets off on what he can get away with as the audience is taunted. It is all the more delicious for him as the discriminatory state accepts it like a fool.
The children lured to Suffolk - the lyrics are based not only on earlier literature but addenda penned by a ring of public school types and then twisted to suit Britten's own agenda - went there willingly, enthusiastically and with aspiration. They were told by the composer that they were fully in charge. Britten though had a preference in these dramas for uneducated kids from South London who could not comprehend the Latin. The connotations of adult-child sex could be delivered by them as arguably a desire in which the state had no right to interfere. They were duped in their own aspirations and then unceremoniously dumped. Most of the participants - perhaps all - did not then suffer from psychological turmoil. They had though been used to deliver Britten's anger towards his home country and its discriminatory regime, in the case of gay men despicable and in the case of predatory adults of whatever sexual orientation not at all so whatever he thought. It was the Guardian, not the Mail, which switched on some light:
Much as with Savile, there are numerous documented allegations about Britten and physical intimacy with young people. I could quote nearly ten and most are unsubstantiated, exactly as the lack of evidence proved to be an absolute godsend to Uncle Jim. His was a defensive wall of kids' discos, television shows, charities and patronage. Suffolk was effectively an early elitist version of 12 year olds dancing to glam rock and flashing lights in Thames Ditton. The sturdy defences of its aura depend quite a lot on the serious music and its patronage by the intelligentsia. A serious artist would not treat anyone without serious consideration surely?
Kildea's allegations are seen by some to be in bad taste not because syphilis is an unfortunate off colour aspect of some sexual interaction. It is that it reminds people vividly of the far more off colour aspect of sexuality that is child abuse. It threatens to reopen allegations made against Britten for 60 years. In 1934, a German youth aged 17 who had become a friend of Britten's at 13, and was then sexually involved with him, described him in correspondence as 'sex mad'. In the same year Harry Morris, a friend of the family who was then just 13, felt sufficiently threatened in his bedroom on holiday to hit the composer with a chair. He was admonished by his mother and the adults quickly came together to describe him as backward. Britten shared beds with youths in his 40s, encouraged them to swim naked with him and kissed them at the very least. There are some nuances of inappropriateness clearly but the line was virtually non-existent. It still is - and the fragility of it is why it hardens so quickly in Britten's supporters.
While in Britten's mind he may have been a pacifist, that is not supported by his predatory behaviour towards youths. Behaviour that was not only illegal before 1968 but would have been after 1968. Behaviour that would have been illegal in a man of any sexual orientation. Behaviour which when on the occasions that it was not overtly physical or illegal had a sadistic psychological element, disguised in Latin and a perverted pomp and ceremony. And, like Auden, he was in favour of Germany. On his return to England in 1942, he used his ability in music to avoid imprisonment. While the German youth had been dropped on getting older, and there was no sexual interest between the two of them, he was nevertheless invited to share a bed in that very year. The War Requiem came shortly after the only knock on Britten's door by the police. It was enough to make him feel that he needed to do something to avoid prison. The Requiem was a way of appeasing a discriminatory establishment. It was neutral in terms of Britain for it was never going to be patriotic. The need for that compromise hurt him and ensured he would never write as well again.Last edited by Guest; 24-01-13, 00:54.Comment
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oops, I seem to have fuelled the flames [not my intention]
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Allow me...Originally posted by mercia View Postoops, I seem to have fuelled the flames [not my intention]
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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What if anything is that supposed to mean and upon what specific evidence do you base it, either in general terms or (more importantly here) in the particular context of this thread?Originally posted by Beef Oven View PostComment
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