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

[Lateralthinking1]

You seem to be wallowing in innuendo & an odd sense of grievance, which says more about your psyche than Britten's. I think you have quoted Pears once, on one specific point. As far as inuendo is concerned my last post provided plenty of evidence. "In a few hours, I've dismissed him completely."? No, you've dismissed yourself as having anything coherent to say about Britten, & possibly anything else.

One specific example explained? A small plea. X said Y and implied Z. That's all I ask. Currently the knives are being thrown one after another. It feels to me like entirely unsubstantiated attack and total misrepresentation. In contrast, I have provided evidence at each stage. Flosshilde - do you actually have anything at all to back up the innuendo claim? What words concern you precisely?

If you believe that every gay man must be applauded, or else it is prejudice, I can't meet your demand because it isn't realistic or logical. In the case of Britten, homosexuality is not the issue anyway. Had he been married to a woman for 50 years and had seven children I would still be questioning his character in the light of what has been said, rather than attempting to censor all critique.

Peter Grimes

Amazon - 'In Britten's original conception, the motivation of Grimes is shadowy, ambiguous to the end.'

http://www.amazon.com/Britten-Peter-Grimes-~-Vickers/product-reviews/B00000J9GQ

Express - 'Finn’s lighting allows Grimes to make an impressive variety of shadowy entrances fitting his nature perfectly.'

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/254572/Opera-review-Peter-Grimes-Royal-Opera-House-London

NY Times - 'Grimes's shadowy desires were a means of intensifying to the utmost the Borough's detestation.'

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/11/arts/classical-music-in-grimes-low-tragedy-makes-for-great-opera.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Allmusic - 'All pieces that delve into the shadowy realms of expression'

http://www.allmusic.com/album/darknesse-visible-mw0002316378

Whatsonstage - 'The shadowy borough lours over the action'

http://www.whatsonstage.com/reviews/theatre/opera/E8831242116569/Peter+Grimes.html

The Turn of the Screw

Worldofopera - 'Yet, like the shadowy story of The Turn of the Screw......'

http://worldofopera.org/operas/operas/item/2162-innocence-in-the-balance-brittens-the-turn-of-the-screw

On Benjamin Britten

Tippett on Music/Google Books - 'and, with his back to me, this shadowy figure in the orchestral pit, rehearsing'

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=peter+grimes+shadowy&oq=peter+grimes+shadowy&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=peter+grimes+shadowy&hl=en&tbo=d&ei=g2z9UJqaKsPT0QWluYCADQ&start=20&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=55978fbc6e813477&biw=1024&bih=673

George Crabbe - 'When a new spirit in that world was found, a thousand shadowy forms came flitting round'

[Mary Chambers]

The subject of Britten and children has been thoroughly discussed in many places. Unless something new comes to light, there is no point in discussing it further. It doesn't make me feel uncomfortable at all, incidentally.

[Lateralthinking1]

Lat
Please, leave this thread or the Forum itself for, say 48 hours. You are going down the same way as before. We don’t want to lose you again.

Many thanks. That is kind of you. I appreciate it.

[Mary Chambers]

Apparently a battle is raging over the death theory. No doubt someone will soon call it the Battle of Britten. They probably already have. Journalists can cook up a drama over anything.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/battle-starts-to-rage-over-what-killed-britten-8461631.html

[Nick Armstrong]

No doubt someone will soon call it the Battle of Britten.

They did - in the first sentence of that article!

Trenchant comment underneath it: "Kildea has never been anything but a self serving publicist best remembered for his disastrous directorship of Wigmore Hall; his "evidence" is based on his interpretation of what x told y who told z etc, all these people being very conveniently dead. This is all just to sell his book in a field awash with Britten biographies. So the best thing for us all to do; not buy his book!"

[Mary Chambers]

They did - in the first sentence of that article!

So they did! Shows how carefully I read it

[Anna]

I may be missing something but - is it really important what BB died of? Presumably the only way to tell is either a) obtain his complete medical records from birth or b) exhume his body. It all seems unnecessary speculation with a bit of muck raking thrown in for good measure.

[Mary Chambers]

It all seems unnecessary speculation with a bit of muck raking thrown in for good measure.

That's exactly what it is. Unfortunately, speculation with a bit of sex thrown in sells books and newspapers.

[Lateralthinking1]

In fact, one of my earlier points was 'does it matter how he died?' I answered that question - 'no'. I had in my mind whether it mattered to his reputation as a composer. As with many of the points and questions I raised yesterday, no one commented. The way I asked that question was whether syphilis mattered. I doubt that there is logic in seeing it from any moral perspective. Given the way many people live their lives, a more appropriate cusp is good and bad fortune. If Britten contracted it, that was bad luck.

In contrast, the idolisers of Britten - and I use the word advisedly - do have a moral angle on it. They interpret the newspapers as depicting it as morally bad, only to some extent accurately, and in their reaction permit no scope for a neutral, factual acceptance or judgement. While I don't consider that it matters to his music or morally, I think it matters for the sake of establishing any truth. As some have pointed out, there are large numbers of biographies. None of them will be the same. Biographies are never identical. It is, of course, completely unacceptable to some of us to see shoulders being shrugged at known untruths like rheumatic fever.

I feel that there is a Soviet or even Nazi style censorship instinct being applied by many. I am concerned about the apparent deification which seems to require some sort of gagging order whenever the ornaments on his mantle piece are simply observed.

On my alleged opposition to pacifism, not true. I opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, consider WW1 to have been a terrible waste of life and was a member of Greenpeace. But I think WW2 became an absolute necessity with an added burden of duty.

On vinteuil's point which is not a bad one and deserving of a response, there is a question about where any line is drawn. Arguably good art may have emanated from those who have slaughtered millions. How much of it is the vinteuil home? None I presume.

[Serial_Apologist]

This point about lines being drawn is the clinching one for me, personally. What are the truths that are being served?

[Lateralthinking1]

This point about lines being drawn is the clinching one for me, personally. What are the truths that are being served?

So biography as a genre is now to deselect any possible or likely uncomfortable truths? The censorship committee has decided. Sorry, no. The greater evil here is in mob clampdown. The preparations are well under way for ensuring that Britten is to be one of the favoured composers if Griffin comes to power. Next he will have been married to a woman, had three kids, fought in the war and won medals for bravery, the absolute epitome of everything British and wonderful and woe betide if you dare to disagree.

[Serial_Apologist]

So biography as a genre is now to deselect any possible or likely uncomfortable truths? The censorship committee has decided. Sorry, no. The greater evil here is in mob clampdown. The preparations are well under way for ensuring that Britten is to be one of the favoured composers if Griffin comes to power. Next he will have been married to a woman, had three kids, fought in the war and won medals for bravery, the absolute epitome of everything British and wonderful and woe betide if you dare to disagree.

It all depends on what importance one puts on the syphilis.

[Lateralthinking1]

It all depends on what importance one puts on the syphilis.

Sorry but it doesn't. Not at all. It depends on whether an individual wants to question the nature of his death for whatever reason - did Warlock commit suicide or was he murdered? - and whether history is permitted to be wilfully doctored. If someone wrote a biography that didn't mention his homosexuality, some on the forum would be saying that it was a completely objectionable book. If Cameron's biography wiped out the child who sadly died, there would be absolute uproar. Completeness matters - absolutely.

[VodkaDilc]

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

Thropplenoggin's original question seems to have gone off at a regrettable tangent. Perhaps we need to look back to his final sentence:
"On these works alone, I'd say he merits his reputation as a great British composer."
Exactly - on these works, not on tittle-tattle about his private life.

[Anna]

It all depends on what importance one puts on the syphilis.

Whilst doing the family history I discovered from his records that one of my greatgrandfathers had syphilis when he joined the army at 18. It was treated, he married, end of story. I assume he had been sleeping around, possibly with prostitutes in Bideford rather than with some rent boys on Lundy Island. So the fact that he had a STD is really neither here nor there.