Britten

[LMcD]

Excellent sleuthing LMcD . Quite hard to ident from two notes …

I googled 'Peter Pears accompanied by lute' and then clicked on Video. Unfortunately none of the accompanying comments provides further details about the broadcast.

[oliver sudden]

Probably this one then?

https://youtu.be/e3pB1LULzqE?feature=shared

[oliver sudden]

Specifically this version…

https://youtu.be/pbORh3JaCGg?feature=shared

[Ein Heldenleben]

I googled 'Peter Pears accompanied by lute' and then clicked on Video. Unfortunately none of the accompanying comments provides further details about the broadcast.

Yes well I googled Pears sings Britten which shows the importance of getting your search criteria right .

I then spent some time marvelling at the celebrated duo and then entered a RVW London Symphony style elegiac rumination on the cultural decline represented by the fact that most of the clips came from a Riverside Studios Hammersmith BBC broadcast done in the days when BBC did such things a a matter of course . I think they record Have I Got News For You there these days.

[LMcD]

Specifically this version…

https://youtu.be/pbORh3JaCGg?feature=shared

That's the one I found. (I'm rubbish at posting links, I'm afraid).

[oliver sudden]

Yes well I googled Pears sings Britten which shows the importance of getting your search criteria right .

I then spent some time marvelling at the celebrated duo and then entered a RVW London Symphony style elegiac rumination on the cultural decline represented by the fact that most of the clips came from a Riverside Studios Hammersmith BBC broadcast done in the days when BBC did such things a a matter of course . I think they record Have I Got News For You there these days.

I don’t know what exactly you saw but one of my favourites of their duo videos watchable on the Tube is their version of Tom Bowling.

I have tried to come up with some adjectives and deleted them all. So you’ll just have to go and watch it. (The arrangement wasn’t published until the turn of the century. I’m glad it was indeed published, since it’s a staple in my singing lessons and when it comes off it feels absolutely glorious.)

[Ein Heldenleben]

I don’t know what exactly you saw but one of my favourites of their duo videos watchable on the Tube is their version of Tom Bowling.

I have tried to come up with some adjectives and deleted them all. So you’ll just have to go and watch it. (The arrangement wasn’t published until the turn of the century. I’m glad it was indeed published, since it’s a staple in my singing lessons and when it comes off it feels absolutely glorious.)

Yes I did watch that as it happens . And it is a distillation of their collective genius. That is song is so abused at the Last Night Of The Proms and they transform it into something of late Schubert -like intensity.One more reason why renaming the Britten-Pears Foundation by dropping the latter is a disgrace. Composer and performer cannot meaningfully be separated.

[LMcD]

Yes I did watch that as it happens . And it is a distillation of their collective genius. That is song is so abused at the Last Night Of The Proms and they transform it into something of late Schubert -like intensity.One more reason why renaming the Britten-Pears Foundation by dropping the latter is a disgrace. Composer and performer cannot meaningfully be separated.

An informal Britten and Pears recital recorded in 1964 can be found at: BBCiPlayer Celebrity Recital.

[oliver sudden]

One more reason why renaming the Britten-Pears Foundation by dropping the latter is a disgrace. Composer and performer cannot meaningfully be separated.

Oh good lord they haven’t have they?!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Oh good lord they haven’t have they?!

It was mooted . I signed some sort of petition and it seems to have gone quiet.

[french frank]

It could well be either Dowland's 'What Then Is Love But Mourning?' or Rosseter's 'Fine Knacks For Ladies'' which featured on a programme broadcast in the USA on 24/2/1959.

Other way round: Fine knacks for Ladies is by Dowland, but Pears had just come to the end of Rosseter's What Then is Love but Mourning, During the Dowland Bream is visible all the time to the left of Pears's shoulder, but for the Rosseter Pears moves away to the right. The snatch we see in the Randolph video doesn't show Bream; also I took screen grabs of the very moment that Pears comes to the end of the Rosseter and also the brief snatch on the other clip.

Well, I had nothing else to do but seek the Truth ...

[LMcD]

Other way round: Fine knacks for Ladies is by Dowland, but Pears had just come to the end of Rosseter's What Then is Love but Mourning, During the Dowland Bream is visible all the time to the left of Pears's shoulder, but for the Rosseter Pears moves away to the right. The snatch we see in the Randolph video doesn't show Bream; also I took screen grabs of the very moment that Pears comes to the end of the Rosseter and also the brief snatch on the other clip.

Well, I had nothing else to do but seek the Truth ...

Thank you - it seems that I had all the necessary details, but not necessarily in the right order.

[oliver sudden]

Just stumbled upon this, which might or might not be of interest:

https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/how-the-queen-inspired-britten-to-start-composing-again-after-he-almost-died

[smittims]

Thansk, oliver. Much as I admired the late Queen, I'm afraid it all sounds a little exaggerated to me. A bit too 'Crawfy', if you see what I mean. It belongs with 'Beethoven was black, Jesus was gay, Anna Magdalena wrote the B minor Mass,' etc.

[Pulcinella]

Thansk, oliver. Much as I admired the late Queen, I'm afraid it all sounds a little exaggerated to me. A bit too 'Crawfy', if you see what I mean. It belongs with 'Beethoven was black, Jesus was gay, Anna Magdalena wrote the B minor Mass,' etc.

It's all well documented in John Bridcut's Essential Britten.
It does seem that both QEs took a keen interest in Britten's health at the time.