Britten on BBC4

[amateur51]

Radio 4 seems to have gone Britten mad too

yesterday http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03hvn5q
today http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03hvqlf

Many thanks for the links, mercia

[ardcarp]

Radio 4 seems to have gone Britten mad too

yesterday http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03hvn5q
today http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03hvqlf

Just caught about half of today's, (Curlew River/Ian Bostridge). Look forward to hearing it all when it comes up on i-player. Well done, Radio 4.

[Mary Chambers]

The Radio 4 programme about Curlew River was well worth hearing. I got home just in time.

Next week's Radio Times has an article by Michael Berkeley called Britten, my Father and Me, with a couple of nice photos. It's in the radio section. I haven't noticed anything more on television. Plenty on Radio 3, though.

[Mary Chambers]

Just noticed another inaccuracy in the Britten on Camera programme - "Like Noye's Fludde, The Burning Fiery Furnace is what Britten called a 'parable for church performance' ". No - he never used that description for Noye's Fludde. The church parables are something quite specific.

[ardcarp]

Radio 4 seems to have gone Britten mad too

yesterday http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03hvn5q
today http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03hvqlf

...and he even got woven into the R4 Afternoon (comedy) Drama. The scene was a windswept East Anglian salt-marsh, there were references to Ben, Peter, Curlew River, Peter Grimes...and even the pub landlady was called Ellen Orford. That ubiquitous Sea Interlude was present in the background.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03j5775

[Stunsworth]

Nothing to do with BBC4, but my La Scala Blu-Ray of Peter Grimes arrived this morning. That's a couple of hours this weekend sorted out.

[Barbirollians]

Terrific programme. Very sad he did not have his operation earlier poor chap.

[Barbirollians]

Didn't like the tenor in the Death and Venice extracts - very overwrought .

[Nick Armstrong]

Didn't like the tenor in the Death and Venice extracts - very overwrought .

Didn't come over at all well, did he? I agree Strange thing is, though... he was playing the role at ENO earlier this year, I was sitting in the front row of the stalls - and found his performance utterly gripping, ideally sung and enunciated - overwhelming. What happens to some voices down a microphone...??

[ardcarp]

Very sad he did not have his operation earlier poor chap.

Ye-e-e-s, but. Casting my mind back to the 70s, open-heart surgery carried a far higher risk in those days. Maybe Britten's putting off the operation was a pragmatic decision, i.e. the probability that he would have a few more years against the possibility of not surviving the operating table.

[Simon Biazeck]

Maybe Britten's putting off the operation was a pragmatic decision, i.e. the probability that he would have a few more years against the possibility of not surviving the operating table.

He wanted to finish Death in Venice, fearing, rightly, that he would not be well enough to complete it after the surgery.

[mercia]

In fairness that was given by the team from Rutter's own college where he was music director in the 70s and with which he still has strong connections.

What about the a capella chant that was credited to Dvorak?

(By Paxo that is, not the contestants}

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25031215

[jean]

How extraordinary!

It's here, fifteen minutes in if anyone wants to hear it for themselves:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03jgk8m/University_Challenge_2013_2014_Episode_19/

Almost exactly the same thing happened when they played the plainsong te lucis ante terminum and claimed Britten composed it - when, like Dvorak, he only used it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03jsk64/Countryfile_Suffolk/

It's sad that no-one can recognise plainsong any more - and strange, since it became fashionable through recordings by Spanish monks not so long ago.

[Hitch]

Thanks to a sputtering iPlayer, it took me three evenings to watch Benjamin Britten on Camera and Britten's Endgame. That I didn't give up is testimony to the quality of the documentaries. The first film brought home to me just how important classical music was to the BBC's television output. Will there be enough Beeb material to do justice to other modern composers in the future? The judicious and searching Britten's Endgame made one long for a stiff drink, but it was nevertheless instructive and enjoyable, shot through as it was with revealing interviews and musical excerpts. The doctor was memorable...

[Sir Velo]

Wonderful to see the classic footage of Richter and Britten slugging it out, going toe to toe in the finale of Mozart's sonata for two pianos. For someone who made Clifford Curzon seem the personfication of a relaxed performer, Britten seems remarkably at ease, even finding time to steal amused glances at Richter as the momentum increases.

Richter, OTOH, has a face of thunder, which I never understood until all was revealed by John Bridcut. A great story and one which finally makes sense!