"Benjamin Britten at 100 - time for a new appraisal?"

[Guest]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jan/13/benjaimin-britten-100-new-appraisal

This seems a sort of muddled article, really.

I'm new to Britten and not all of what I've heard does it for me. But the 'Serenade for Horns, Tenor & Strings', especially with Anthony Rolfe Johnson, had an immediate impact. I also think the three string quartets and three cello suites are brilliant, forward-looking works that have something new to offer in these musical forms. I wonder if anyone's heard the latest Hyperion release featuring Alban Gerhardt/Andrew Manze in Britten's cello works?

On these works alone, I'd say he merits his reputation as a great British composer, and I'm only skimming the surface of his oeuvre.

[Mary Chambers]

I have found it fascinating to watch (so to speak) Britten turn from a very famous, dynamic, influential but to me rather mysterious living person, as he was in my childhood and youth - I was 36 when he died - into a historical figure. I always found most of his music bewitching, and the more I learned about it and him the more bewitched I became. I watch with interest from the sidelines as younger generations air their views on him. I am not detached enough to 'assess' his standing now myself, but I'm delighted to see how widespread his music now is.

I must say I find Thomas Ades's view that his operas are 'obvious' absolutely hilarious.

[kernelbogey]

I've never really got Britten and for long held the opinion that his reputation has been exaggerated, partly because he's British. I was, however, pleasantly surprised by Death in Venice, which I saw semi-staged at St Endellion, with Philip Langridge memorable as Aschenbach, only a few months before he died. I wouldn't say I was knocked out by it but it severely challenged that long-held prejudice.

I saw Peter Grimes at Covent Garden with Vickers about twenty years back; also Budd which I didn't like. I do like the Serenade for Horns, Tenor & Strings, however and Les illuminations.

I'll listen to as much as I can of this year's centenary broadcasts to see if I should dismantle that prejudice. I'd be interested to know what other consider to be the pinnacles of BB's oeuvre.

[Mary Chambers]

I've never really got Britten and for long held the opinion that his reputation has been exaggerated, partly because he's British.

That wouldn't explain why his works are performed in so many other countries. He is far more internationally admired and performed than any other British composer.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'd be interested to know what other consider to be the pinnacles of BB's oeuvre.

Too many, perhaps. I'd certainly include the Serenade/Illuminations/Nocturne CD in my Desert Island suitcase; Grimes, Screw and Venice from the operas; the Sinfonia da Requiem, the War Requiem, the three String Quartets and Phaedra.

That'll do for today - tomorrow, I'll remember all the three works he wrote with Ferrier's voice in mind (Lucretia, A Spring Symphony and Abraham and Isaac), which will also remind me of the other Canticles and the song cycles (especially Winter Words, On This Island and the Donne and Michelangelo settings)!


And thanks to Thropplenoggin for the "nudge" towards the 'cello works - I hardly know these!

[VodkaDilc]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013...-new-appraisal
.

Looking at the date on this (today - a non-Guardian day), I am hoping that it will appear in tomorrow's paper. (Is that how it works?) I'm looking forward to reading it. I am afraid I will never feel at ease reading a newspaper article on a computer screen. (I can't be the only person to have recently received a letter from Rhinegold saying that Classical Music magazine is going to appear online as an additional option. I just find the process of reading on a screen so unsatisfactory after seeing a magazine/newspaper.)

No doubt about BB's greatness in my mind - though I recall my piano teacher in the mid 1960s (born in about 1903) saying he couldn't see what all the fuss was about. "If Benjamin Dale had lived longer, he'd have been much greater than Britten!"

[Beef Oven]

Too many, perhaps. I'd certainly include the Serenade/Illuminations/Nocturne CD in my Desert Island suitcase; Grimes, Screw and Venice from the operas; the Sinfonia da Requiem, the War Requiem, the three String Quartets and Phaedra.

That'll do for today - tomorrow, I'll remember all the three works he wrote with Ferrier's voice in mind (Lucretia, A Spring Symphony and Abraham and Isaac), which will also remind me of the other Canticles and the song cycles (especially Winter Words, On This Island and the Donne and Michelangelo settings)!




And thanks to Thropplenoggin for the "nudge" towards the 'cello works - I hardly know these!

All the works you mention are wonderful (and may I take my hat off to you for mentioning 'Phaedra'). Maybe it's easier to list works that are not 'pinnacles'!

I want to give mention to Friday Afternoons, A ceremony Of Carols, A Boy Was Born and Noye's Fludde - 'lesser' (?) works that set out Britten's simple genius. Maybe that's because my first exposure to Britten's music was as a young person.

[VodkaDilc]

I'd be interested to know what other consider to be the pinnacles of BB's oeuvre.

Ian Bostridge's choice appeared in The Guardian last week:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jan/09/ian-bostridge-best-benjamin-britten?INTCMP=SRCH

As for mine, as Mary says, there are too many pinnacles to mention: I'd go for Grimes, Screw, War Requiem, Budd, Death in Venice, Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, Noye's Fludde - and, perhaps not a pinnacle, but a great favourite for me: St Nicolas.

My aim for the anniversary year is to get to know the song cycles and canticles better.

[teamsaint]

The Violin Concerto is a piece i wouldn't want to be without.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Violin Concerto is a piece i wouldn't want to be without.

... and St Nicholas has special memories for me, too: we performed it as part of our school Christmas concert in 1976 - just a couple of weeks after the composer died.

[Mary Chambers]

As Mary says, there are too many pinnacles to mention

I didn't actually say that, but I easily might have done!

Articles in The Observer often appear online under the Guardian's name.

[VodkaDilc]

I didn't actually say that, but I easily might have done!
.

Sorry. I thought you or someone else had said something like that. So many of the relatively minor works are so good too - such as Ceremony of Carols, Rejoice in the Lamb and (why are they so under-rated?) the 'parables for church performance", Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal Son.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sorry. I thought you or someone else had said something like that.

... and (why are they so under-rated?) the 'parables for church performance", Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal Son.

, and

[MrGongGong]

Ouch

http://www.overgrownpath.com/2013/01/pricey-grimes.html

[EdgeleyRob]

Britten is the reason I am a British music nut.
Aged around 17 the Sinfonia da Requiem and Sea Interludes blew me away.
Up to that point I thought classical music had only been written by Germans and Russians.
Britten is nothing but pinnacles IMO.