Benjamin Britten w/c 18 November 2013

[Mary Chambers]

I'm enjoying it, too, and I'm not blaming anyone except whoever did the research. The mistakes we've spotted are such simple things, nothing esoteric. It just seems strange.

[mercia]

I don't want to turn into a sad mistake-spotter, but I think we were just told that in the Prologue to the Serenade for TH&S the horn is offstage

I've listened again, so just for the record he said "the work starts with a prologue for natural horn, heard, to begin with, offstage"

[Stunsworth]

My understanding of COTW is that DM reads from a pre-prepared script, largely put together by researchers

Reading his tweets I get the impression that DM writes the scripts himself.

[Serial_Apologist]

Listening just now to "Abraham and Isaac", I am once more struck by Britten's showing the best of himself as a straightforward, mor-or-less diatonic composer. The only objection I find in the idiom is the composer's heavyhanded resort to contrary motion, probably assumed from misunderstanding Bartok's usage. (No constructivist, our Mr Britten!) In the excerpt he used simple intervals, depending as in Holst on what dissonance results from "unorthodox" modal scales; there is none of the gratuitous use of bitonality signalling Britten's self-consciously adopted modernism (which he always attributed to his teacher Bridge, for whom bitonality was integral to a weakening of tonal functions in the later works). And yet! - that Britten could so easily have let loose at various points, (note the third quartet!), is admirably demonstrated in the brilliant opening depicting the awakening of spring in the Spring Symphony - which thereafter so soon goes downhill into triteness and twee!

[Mary Chambers]

We had the whole of Abraham and Isaac, a substantial chunk of Turn of the Screw, but only passing mentions for Billy Budd and Gloriana. Various bits of gossip. It must be difficult to make programmes like these balanced, but I don't quite understand the thinking behind this. I suppose five hours just isn't enough time to give a real impression of any composer's work.

Very good Abraham from Rolfe Johnson, lovely sound from Michael Chance as Isaac, but I hope his words were clearer than they seemed to be on my radio.

SA, I don't find the Spring Symphony 'trite and twee'!

[ardcarp]

I'm intrigued by your analysis of Britten's compositional techniques in Abraham and Isaac, S-A. Just one thing to add, maybe. The text (a Mystery Play) was of the people and for the people and appealed to Britten precisely because of its lack of sophistication. (An example: as Abraham is about to stab Isaac he says, "To do this I am sorrye") I think Britten, above all tried to match the naivety of text with a certain naivety of musical style (call it faux naivete if you must).

I think it is a terrific piece, and I've seen audiences genuinely moved by it.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm intrigued by your analysis of Britten's compositional techniques in Abraham and Isaac, S-A. Just one thing to add, maybe. The text (a Mystery Play) was of the people and for the people and appealed to Britten precisely because of its lack of sophistication. (An example: as Abraham is about to stab Isaac he says, "To do this I am sorrye") I think Britten, above all tried to match the naivety of text with a certain naivety of musical style (call it faux naivete if you must).

I think it is a terrific piece, and I've seen audiences genuinely moved by it.

I know they say he did a lot for British opera, (while admitting I've never been into opera); I just think all this adulation is a bit OTT.

[Sir Velo]

I don't find the Spring Symphony 'trite and twee'!

Mary, it's probably "the merry cuckoo" and the "twit to-woo" business which sounds corny if you don't happen to know the original verses which Britten has set. Of course, the settings are taken from some of the finest English poets from the previous five centuries, and are all marvellously set by BB; from eerie evocations of the last hoary days of winter to joyous maytime celebrations.

[Mary Chambers]

A good knowledge of poetry does help with understanding Britten.

[Serial_Apologist]

I wonder what Britten's position on hunting with hounds would have been...

http://www.whosdatedwho.com/tpx_5999713/peter-warlock/tpx_22937166

4 minutes 22 seconds in.

[Sir Velo]

I think Our Hunting Fathers gives us a strong clue on that score.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think Our Hunting Fathers gives us a strong clue on that score.

But was Britten still the radical Auden associate in 1949 he had been in 1936 when composing Our Hunting Fathers?

[Mary Chambers]

I wonder what Britten's position on hunting with hounds would have been...

http://www.whosdatedwho.com/tpx_5999713/peter-warlock/tpx_22937166

4 minutes 22 seconds in.

I can't get that link.

Apparently in his last year at prep school Britten wrote an anti-hunting essay (the subject was 'Animals'), and extended it to include attacking other people in war. He got into trouble for it.

'Who are These Children?' composed 1969, also sets an anti-hunting poem.

[ardcarp]

I'm sure I'm not the only one with Oscar's "The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable" in mind.