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Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).
Born in Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy was Born in 1934. With the premiere of Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-scale operas for Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden, he wrote "chamber operas" for small forces, suitable for performance in venues of modest size. Among the best known of these is The Turn of the Screw (1954). Recurring themes in his operas include the struggle of an outsider against a hostile society and the corruption of innocence.
Britten's other works range from orchestral to choral, solo vocal, chamber and instrumental as well as film music. He took a great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, including the opera Noye's Fludde, a Missa Brevis, and the song collection Friday Afternoons. He often composed with particular performers in mind. His most frequent and important muse was his personal and professional partner, the tenor Peter Pears; others included Kathleen Ferrier, Jennifer Vyvyan, Janet Baker, Dennis Brain, Julian Bream, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Mstislav Rostropovich. Britten was a celebrated pianist and conductor, performing many of his own works in concert and on record. He also performed and recorded works by others, such as Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, Mozart symphonies, and song cycles by Schubert and Schumann.
Together with Pears and the librettist and producer Eric Crozier, Britten founded the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, and he was responsible for the creation of Snape Maltings concert hall in 1967. In his last year, he was the first composer to be given a life peerage.
The work of B. Britten marked the revival of opera in England, a new (after three centuries of silence) release of English music to the world stage. Based on national tradition and mastering the widest range of modern expressive means, Britten created many works in all genres.
Britten began writing from the age of eight. At the age of 12 he wrote Simple Symphony for string orchestra (2nd ed. - 1934). In 1929, Britten entered the Royal College of Music (Conservatory), where its leaders were J. Ireland (composition) and A. Benjamin (piano). In 1933, the Sinfonietta of a nineteen-year-old composer was performed, attracting the attention of the public. Following it, a number of chamber works appear, which are included in the programs of international music festivals and marked the beginning of the European fame of their author. These first compositions of Britten were inherent in the chamber sound, clarity and conciseness of the form, which brought the English composer closer to the representatives of the neoclassical direction (I. Stravinsky, P. Hindemith). In the 30s. Britten writes a lot of music for theater and cinema. Along with this, special attention is paid to chamber vocal genres, where the style of future operas gradually matures. The theme, color, choice of texts are extremely diverse: "Our ancestors are hunters" (1936) - satire, making fun of the nobility; cycle "Illumination" verses by A. Rambo (1939) and "Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo" (1940). Britten is seriously studying folk music, processes English, Scottish, French songs.
In 1939, at the beginning of the war, Britten went to the United States, where he was in the circle of advanced creative intelligentsia. As a response to the tragic events that unfolded on the European continent, the cantata “Ballad of Heroes” (1939) appeared, dedicated to the fighters against fascism in Spain. In the late 30s - early 40s. instrumental music dominates Britten's work: piano and violin concertos, symphony-requiem, Canadian Carnival for Orchestra, Scottish Ballad for two pianos and orchestra, 2 quartets, etc., are dominant at this time. Like I. Stravinsky, Britten makes free use of the heritage of the past: this is how the suites from the music of J. Rossini (“Musical Evenings” and “Musical Morning”) arise.
In 1942, the composer returned to his homeland and settled in the seaside town of Aldborough, on the south-east coast of England. Back in America, he received an order for the opera Peter Grimes, which he graduated in 1945. The production of the first opera by Britten was of particular importance: it marked the revival of the national musical theater, which had not given classical masterpieces since Purcell's time. The tragic story of the fisherman Peter Grimes, pursued by fate (plot by J. Crabbe), inspired the composer to create a musical drama of a modern, keenly expressive sound. The wide coverage of traditions followed by Britten makes the music of his opera diverse and capacious in terms of style. Creating images of hopeless loneliness, despair, the composer relies on the style of G. Mahler, A, Berg, D. Shostakovich. The mastery of dramatic contrasts, the realistic introduction of genre crowd scenes reminds us of G. Verdi. The sophisticated visual, colorful orchestra in seascapes dates back to the impressionism of K. Debussy. However, all this is combined with the original author's intonation, a sense of the specific flavor of the British Isles.
“Peter Grimes” was followed by chamber operas: “Desecration of Lucretia” (1946), a satire “Albert Herring” (1947) on the plot of G. Maupassant. Opera continues to attract Britten to the end of his days. In the 50's and 60's. “Billy Budd” (1951), “Gloriana” (1953), “Turn of the Screw” (1954), “Noah's Ark” (1958), “Midsummer Night's Dream” (1960, after the comedy by Shakespeare), chamber opera “The River Kerl” (1964), the opera “The Prodigal Son” (1968), dedicated to Shostakovich, and “Death in Venice” (1970, after T. Mann).
Britten is widely known as a musician enlightener. Like S. Prokofiev and K. Orfu, he creates a lot of music for children and young people. In his musical performance “Let's Make an Opera” (1948), viewers are directly involved in the performance process. The Purcell Variations and Fugues are written as a “youth orchestra guide” introducing the timbres of various instruments to listeners. By Purcell, as well as in general to the old English music, Britten turned repeatedly. He edited his opera Dido and Aeneas and other works, as well as a new version of The Beggar's Opera by G. Gay and J. Pepush.
One of the main themes of Britten's work - a protest against violence, war, the assertion of the value of the fragile and unprotected human world - received the highest expression in Military Requiem (1961), where, along with the traditional text of the Catholic service, W. Oden’s anti-war poems were used.
In addition to composing, Britten performed as a pianist and conductor, touring in different countries. He repeatedly visited the USSR (1963, 1964, 1971). One of the trips to Russia resulted in a cycle of songs for the words of A. Pushkin (1965) and the Third Cello Suite (1971), which uses Russian folk melodies. Having revived the English opera, Britten became one of the biggest innovators of this genre in the 20th century. “My cherished dream is to create such an operatic form, which would be equivalent to Chekhov's dramas ... I consider the chamber opera more flexible to express my innermost feelings. It gives you the opportunity to focus on human psychology. But it was precisely this that became the central theme of modern advanced art. ”