Word: britten
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...Taylor wore a this-hurts-me-more-than-you look: "The grumble that events are too many and the day too crowded is merely frivolous . . . More serious is the complaint that this festival has no natural focal point, as Salzburg has in Mozart, Bayreuth in Wagner, and Aldeburgh in Britten; this is true and perhaps a pity . . . but what sort of festival could be constructed out of purely Scottish material...
...music lovers have tried hard to keep abreast of Britain's fast-moving young (35) Composer Benjamin Britten. They have seen and heard three of his operas (Paul Bunyan, Peter Grimes, The Rape of Lucretia) among other things, had three operas and a score of other works to go. Last week, Serge Koussevitzky gave his Berkshire Music Center fans a chance to catch two Britten premi...
...Crozier had freely adapted his comic libretto from Guy de Maupassant's Le Rosier de Madame Husson. A bumpkin is chosen King of the May because in the village there is no girl virtuous enough to be Queen, eventually winds up on a roaring toot. To this, Composer Britten hitched a witty, somewhat Peter and the Wolf-ish score, in which each instrument seemed to portray (or mock) a character on stage. There were other Britten trademarks: well-fitting songs and exciting ensembles. Even so, some found Albert's humor, at least in Tanglewood's production...
...applause that rolled across the lawns from the great wedge-shaped Music Shed at week's end was still not extravagant, but it had warmed up by several degrees. Conductor Koussevitzky had let Amsterdam's Concertgebouw Orchestra give the world premiere of Britten's Spring Symphony last month, even though he had commissioned it. Last week he was prepared to do the symphony justice himself...
...title 'symphony' can only be broadly intended." There was little pure instrumental writing: the "symphony" was more a song cycle of 14 poems, from Spenser and Milton to W. H. Auden, to be sung by soloists and choruses, in various combinations and with a full orchestra. Britten had given the strings comparatively little to do; most of the burden fell on blaring brasses, on rustic horns and bucolic woodwinds. It was rich with unusual effects: while Soprano Frances Yéend sang John Clare's The Driving Boy, the chorus whistled an accompaniment. Even though Britten...