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8 unusual facts about Benjamin Britten


A Young Person's Guide to King Crimson

Its name is most likely derived either from the famous orchestral work The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra from composer Benjamin Britten or the 1960s television series Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, created by conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein.

Andrew Földi

During his years on the roster, Foldi appeared as Schigolch in the company premieres of Alban Berg's Lulu (directed by John Dexter, 1977, which was published on DVD in 2010) and Dansker in Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd (1978) as well as playing Dr. Bartolo in the premiere of Günther Rennert's Met staging of Le Nozze di Figaro (1975).

Edith Coates

On June 7, 1945 she portrayed Auntie in the world premiere of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes at the Sadler's Wells Theatre.

Music Survey

Though it was published for only five years and in that time had only a small circulation, it had a remarkable impact on British musical and musicological life in the 1950s, and was instrumental in providing a home for the time's pro-Benjamin Britten and pro-Arnold Schoenberg writing, as well as launching the critical and editorial careers of Donald Mitchell and Hans Keller.

OperaUpClose

Outside of the mainstream, OperaUpClose has presented Puccini's La fanciulla del West directed by Robert Chevara; Benjamin Britten's The Turn Of The Screw directed by Edward Dick; and Claudio Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea directed by Mark Ravenhill.

The Sword in the Stone

The BBC broadcast a six-part radio dramatisation in 1939, with incidental music by Benjamin Britten.

Thomas Hemsley

In 1960 he created the role of Demetrius in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with the English Opera Group at Aldeburgh.

Wordless functional analysis

Keller produced more than a dozen of these analytic scores, with the works analysed being by Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Benjamin Britten.


André Obey

Obey's play Le Viol de Lucrèce was drawn on by Ronald Duncan for the libretto of Benjamin Britten's opera The Rape of Lucretia.

Anne Sharp

In March 1947 she became a founder member of Benjamin Britten's English Opera Group, singing Britten roles at Glyndebourne, Sadler's Wells, Lucerne, Scheveningen, Oslo and Copenhagen as well as the company's home base at Aldeburgh.

Armin Schibler

He later went to England to perfect his training where he would meet notable contemporaries Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett.

Arnold Voketaitis

Voketaitis remained a regular performer with the NYCO up through 1981, singing such roles as Creon in Igor Stravinsky's Oedipus rex, Giorgio Germont in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata, Olin Blitch in Carlisle Floyd's Susannah, and Theseus in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream among others.

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

The full ASO Chorus has thrice visited Berlin, giving three performances on each occasion of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem (2003), Hector Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts (2008), and Johannes Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem (2009) with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under ASO Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles.

Brig of Dread

It is also mentioned in The Ballad of Judas Iscariot by Robert Buchanan, and Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings by English composer Benjamin Britten.

Britten's Children

Britten's Children is a scholarly 2006 book by John Bridcut that describes the English composer Benjamin Britten's relationship with several adolescent boys.

Charles Cotton

Benjamin Britten set Cotton's The Evening Quatrains to music in his Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings in 1943.

Charles MacKay

While he had some involvement in the planning of the 2009 festival season, the 2010 season is based on MacKay's programming and contains nods of appreciation and dedication to John Crosby, SFO's founding director (by opening his season with Madame Butterfly, Crosby's 1957 opening night and the opening night of new 1968 theatre after the 1967 fire) and to Richard Gaddes (by including a Benjamin Britten opera, Albert Herring in the line-up).

Chester Mystery Plays

In the 20th century, the Noah's Flood play was set operatically by both Benjamin Britten (Noye's Fludde) and Igor Stravinsky (The Flood).

Ernst Roth

He translated operas and choral works to German, including compositions by Henry Barraud, Benjamin Britten, Alberto Ginastera, Zoltán Kodály, Bohuslav Martinů, Igor Strawinsky, Alexander Tcherepnin and William Walton.

Fairhaven Singers

The choir performs mainly in Cambridge but has also appeared several times at Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk, including concerts at the Aldeburgh Festival and Britten's War Requiem at the Britten Festival; at major venues in London, including St Martin-in-the-Fields and St John's Smith Square; and at various concert venues in Europe.

Freedom Defence Committee

An open letter requesting urgent funds was published in the 18 September 1948 issue of Socialist Leader and was signed by Benjamin Britten, E. M. Forster, Augustus John, Orwell, Read and Osbert Sitwell.

Friday Afternoons

Friday Afternoons is a collection of 12 songs by Benjamin Britten, composed 1932–35 for the pupils of Clive House School, Prestatyn, where his brother, Robert, was headmaster.

Gordon Wry

He notably portrayed the role of Bob Boles in the Canadian premiere of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes for the opening of the CBC Opera Company's second season with William Morton in the title role, Edmund Hockridge as Captain Balstrode, Frances James as Ellen Orford, and Eric Tredwell as Swallow.

Heather Harper

She is noted for her performance of Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin, the title role in Strauss's Arabella, Ellen Orford in Britten's Peter Grimes, and the Governess in Britten's The Turn of the Screw.

Howard Frazin

Frazin's oratorio, The Voice of Isaac, commissioned by PALS Children's Chorus, was premiered at Boston's Jordan Hall in March 2003 and praised by the Boston Globe as "...clear in design and Brittenesque in texture...ingeniously scored...(having an) almost unbearable poignancy."

Imagem

This was followed by acquiring the world's leading classical music publishing company Boosey & Hawkes (which includes the catalogues of Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, and Aaron Copland), and Rodgers & Hammerstein, containing the rights to stage and film musicals, and representing hundreds of works by writers including Irving Berlin.

La guirlande de Campra

Benjamin Britten attended the premiere, and it gave him the idea of commissioning several composers to contribute to a set of Variations on an Elizabethan Theme to celebrate the forthcoming coronation of Elizabeth II, for which he was also writing his opera Gloriana.

Le Rosier de Madame Husson

The story was adapted by the English composer Benjamin Britten for his comic opera Albert Herring with a libretto by Eric Crozier who transposed it entirely to an English setting.

Libera Me

In addition to the Gregorian chant in the Roman Gradual, many composers have written settings for the text, including Tomás Luis de Victoria, Anton Bruckner, Giuseppe Verdi, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Duruflé, Benjamin Britten, Krzysztof Penderecki and David Maslanka.

Maggi Hambling

It is a tribute to Benjamin Britten and is pierced with the words "I hear those voices that will not be drowned" from his opera Peter Grimes.

Maria Lidka

After the war, she performed work by a number of contemporary British composers including Michael Tippett, Richard Rodney Bennett and Peter Racine Fricker, as well as working with Benjamin Britten and performing with the London String Trio.

Oliver Mears

His production of Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde for NI Opera was performed at the Beijing Music Festival in October 2012, the Chinese premiere of the piece.

Paul Ukena

He was one of the founding members of the NBC Opera Theatre, a company he performed with throughout the 1950s in such productions as Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd and the world premiere of Norman Dello Joio's The Trial at Rouen.

Program music

A minor Classical-era composer, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, wrote a series of symphonies based on Ovid's Metamorphoses (not to be confused with Twentieth-Century composer Benjamin Britten's Six Metamorphoses after Ovid).

Ralf Gothóni

He has recorded for various labels, including BIS, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, CPO and Ondine, such works as Benjamin Britten's Piano Concerto, Heitor Villa-Lobos' Choros XI, and the first and second piano concertos of Einojuhani Rautavaara.

Sir John Lawes School

The school is split into seven houses, Austen (Red), Britten (Yellow), Hepworth, (Green), King (Silver), Lawes (Orange), Newton (Blue) and Ryder (Purple), named for Jane Austin, Benjamin Britten, Barbara Hepworth, Martin Luther King, John Bennet Lawes, Isaac Newton and Sue Ryder respectively.

St Edmundsbury Cathedral

In 1959 Benjamin Britten wrote the Fanfare for St Edmundsbury for a "Pageant of Magna Carta" held in the cathedral grounds.

St Matthew's Church, Northampton

These works included Gerald Finzi's Lo, the Full, Final Sacrifice (1946), and later Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms when his career took him to Chichester Cathedral.

Sumida River

The Noh play Sumida-gawa, which the British composer Benjamin Britten saw while visiting Japan in 1956, inspired him to compose Curlew River (1964), a dramatic work based on the story.

Sydney Dance Company

The breakthrough work Some Rooms (1983), which received enormous acclaim, featured a selection of existing music by composers Keith Jarrett, Joseph Canteloube, Francis Poulenc, Benjamin Britten and Samuel Barber, whereas other works featured newly commissioned original music.

The Winsford E-ACT Academy

The Academy has four houses which, as a Specialist Music School, are named after English composers, Britten, Purcell,Elgar and Sullivan.

Vanessa Wagner

Britten: Sonata for cello and piano (with the cellist Ophélie Gaillard)

Walter Willson Cobbett

He became an active supporter of music, and commissioned numerous works of chamber music from emerging and leading British composers of his time, including chamber works by Benjamin Britten, Frank Bridge, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arnold Bax, Eugene Goossens.

Zeb Soanes

On Sunday 24th November 2013 he spoke the role of God in a production of Noye's Fludde on BBC Radio 3, the production being part of BBC Radio 3's celebration of Benjamin Britten's centenary.


see also

Finchley Children's Music Group

In 2008 FCMG also commissioned composer Malcolm Singer and poet Nick Toczek to create a new children’s opera for the same forces as Benjamin Britten’s children’s opera Noye’s Fludde – 3 adult roles, children’s choir and soloists, strings, piano and percussion.

Frederick Dalberg

There he created roles in two Benjamin Britten operas, John Claggart in Billy Budd (1951), and Sir Walter Raleigh in Gloriana (1953).

Liudmila Kovnatskaya

Among them were “Ars Britannica” (1988–1990), the festival in honour of “The 80th anniversary of B. Britten” (1993), “The World of Ralph Vaughan Williams” (1996), the festival of Britten’s music on his 85th anniversary (1998), the jubilee concert in honour of Britten and Saint Cecilia, patron saint of musicians (2003), the concert “World of Opera: Benjamin Britten”, and others.

Neill Sanders

Neill was a personal friend of Benjamin Britten and played principal horn for the Aldeburgh Festival, taking part in the première and first recordings of the Church Parables Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal Son.