Word: brittens
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...past three years, Manhattan concert-and operagoers have heard plenty of English Composer Benjamin Britten's music (Peter Grimes, The Rape of Lucretia). This week, a Town Hall audience turned out to hear some Britten music played by the composer himself. As accompanist for English Tenor Peter Pears, who created the leading roles in all of Britten's major operas, "Benjy" proved himself as astute on the platform at the piano as he is in his parlor with a pen. When the nicely varied and nicely performed program of original Brittens, Britten-arranged Purcell and English folk songs...
...first time lean, tweedy Benjamin Britten, 35, had visited the U.S.; as an unknown composer he had lived in & around New York City for three years (1939-42). But it was the first time he had come as a world celebrity...
...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...
...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...