Britten: Essential Works for Beginners
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- Britten: Essential Works for Beginners
Peter Grimes: Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia
The Turn of the Screw
The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings
A Ceremony of Carols
War Requiem
I took a classical newbie (and new boyfriend) to a performance of the War Requiem in London about ten years ago. He was absolutely blown away, and moved swiftly on to Janacek and Szymanowski! We split up, but my work was done 😊
I also feel the same about Britten. Love his orchestral and chamber pieces, less so his operas and choral works but do agree with War Requiem, Peter Grimes and the carols. I absolutely love the Four Sea Interludes, magnificent and you can literally hear the waves over the shingles at Aldeburgh beach. A few years ago I visited there and also his Red House. A wonderful day. I also like his final work which is his 3rd string quartet... heartbreakingly poignant. The final movement is like a last goodbye. Stunning.
Britten is my absolute favorite composer, thanks dear David for this video. I totally agree with your choices. But if there were a number 7 in the list I would recommend a next purely instrumental work, his exceptional violin concerto which also includes one of the rare exampels of Britten composing a sonata form in the very interesting and unique first movement.
I would totally agree - Britten's Violin Concerto is one of the great masterpieces for that instrument.
Peter Grimes is my favorite opera. It's perfectly constructed in every way and incredibly moving. I was lucky enough to see the great Jon Vickers do it when the Covent Garden production came to LA. Still the greatest operatic performance I've ever seen. I've also seen the War Requiem several times and love it, as well as Albert Herring and much of his smaller choral pieces. And I performance his 7 sonnets of Michelangelo in college many years ago. Also a fabulous cycle. He just wrote so much great music. One of my favorites!
Britten helped to change my life, as I sang in the Church Cantata St Nicholas with the church choir when I was ten years old, and was also one of the three pickled boys -taking part in a musical performance was one of the most thrilling experiences I have had and it transformed my appreciation of music and the craft involved. I have this listened to Britten all my life and cannot imagine life without it.
Yes!!! So glad Dave that you too think Britten’s chamber opera The Turn of The Screw is a 20th century MASTERPIECE. I saw it at age 14 and it scared the hell out of it. And still does. Also love his songs with text by Michelangelo Buonarotti. Lastly, Billy Budd. The homoerotic permeates the entire opera. I know Britten’s oeuvre reasonably well. The recommendations for new listeners is simply perfect.
I love the young person's guide to the orchestra with all instruments of the orchestra spotlighted .Being a Percussionist myself I enjoyed the showcasing of these instruments near the end of the piece
The ending fugue is so powerful
One of the best fugues ever britten.
@@SuuSinator I hate you
Oh, The Turm of the Screw. Britten's adaptation is up to the original novella, and the opera is as bit as great as any other one in the 20th century: Wozzeck, Kat'a Kabanova, Elektra...
I've always thought Britten is the composer who best expresses moral ambiguity and evil feelings in music.
Death in Venice is the ultimate opera in that vein. Personally I think it's his best, along with Owen Wingrave and Turn of the Screw.
My music teacher at school loved Britten and played the 4 Sea Interludes, asking us to guess the time of day or weather. Then she formed a choir to sing the Ceremony of carols: we performed it at St Martin in the Fields one Christmas in the 60s. I've loved his music ever since: we also did St. Nicholas, which is just wonderful. I'm also very fond of both the piano and violin concertii.
If you like Britten's music in general, and the War Requiem in particular, there's an hour-long recording of Britten, as conductor, rehearsing for the premiere recording. Recording engineer John Culshaw made it without telling Britten, who was upset that the privacy of his rehearsal process was invaded. Culshaw kept the recording under wraps until after Britten's death, so now singers and conductors have an invaluable resource for preparing performances.
Of many great moments, my favorite is where he says "I have to admit that the composer was right. Mezzo forte is too much. Take the dynamic back down."
Briiten is a great composer for sure and I like his vocal music. Hymn to St. Cecilia is also a gorgeous piece of choir music I already sang.
And if someone want to hear a really good performance of that Britten's hymn, search on RUclips for VOCES8.
I saw Peter Grimes performed at La Scala last year. It knocked my socks off. Anyone who enjoys the Sea Interludes should acquaint themselves with the entire opera.
A really good list. Particularly like the Sea Interludes, Ceremony of Carols, and the War Requiem.
Ceremony of Carols is gorgeous, great call. I also love Friday Afternoons op. 7. It’s exquisite
Thanks Dave, truly excellent vid and great choices. You didn’t say much about Britten’s pacifism that led to his and Pears’ absence in the US during WW2, but the War Requiem was the culmination of his deep feelings about this. My mother had pacifist sympathies and was a huge BB fan and assembled a large family party to hear the first performance of the War Requiem in Coventry Cathedral in 1962 - I was a school kid aged 15. Britten had a sore arm so Meredith Davies was on the main podium instead while BB relegated himself to the children’s choir.
One of those special moments in life occurred to me as I was listening to the War Requiem. From outside, an ice cream truck could be heard coming up the street, tinkling out "The Camptown Races".
In my teens I watched Britten's own performances of his operas on BBC. The one which really struck me as being powerful, in a very concentrated way, was Billy Budd. In fact, I now realise the importance of America on these three operas: Britten started writing Peter Grimes there and the other two stories were sourced on American authors.
There was also the earlier Paul Bunyan.
Britten is unquestionably the greatest born-in-the -20th century opera composer. I saw a production of Turn of the Screw in which the ghost scenes were seen with the Governess onstage, tossing and turning in her sleep. That really restored James' ambiguity.
Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem anticipated the War Requiem and is great in its own right.
Shostakovich was also born in the 20th century, and he and Britten were friends not rivals, and both have left a handsome legacy of music that is regularly performed, because it is so good.
I've always found Britten's operas too discordant to enjoy but after your excellent descriptions I will try again. I do love the Sea Interludes though and Soireee and Matinees Musicales. He was a fine piano accompanist. His Winterreise accompanying Pears is my favourite recorded version. If you are planning a visit to the UK you would enjoy the Aldeburgh festival and seeing Britten's home.
A very fine list for beginners! I'm not quite sure about the "Screw" because of the disturbing theme (one can imagine what happened between Quint and Miles), but, of course, the music is glorious. In fact, the scene in front of the church, when the change ringing starts - and it's the 12-note-theme becoming bell-clusters; or Miles playing the piano in triumph (again the theme - now as a toccata): this is the most gripping music I know from the 20th century stage.
Concerning the influence: Besides Stravinski and baroque composers, one was Mahler, another was Shostakovich and, in the storm scene of "Grimes", Gershwin's "Porgy".
After all, Britten is one of my most beloved composers, and he becomes greater, the often I listen to his works.
Some of the variations in Turn of the Screw are incredibly virtuosic and gripping, especially the one near the end - devilishly so! He writes like an "evil" Mozart in that opera.
Great list! Coincidentally, I listened today to 2 performances of the War Requiem and it highlighted for me just how important a good performance is. I started with the Rattle Birmingham records & what a pale, underplayed & unrevealing experience that was. Then the composer's own & talk about having the varnish removed! Drama, intensity, texture & complexity...the great masterpiece revealed!
It's indeed a marvellous piece. I've seen it in concert and it makes a hell of an impression. I always thought what a genius idea to combine the Latin liturgy and Wlfred Owens poetry. In the section The Parable of the Old Man and the Young is Britten's ability to conjour tone painting for the words is remarkable - 'Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there' (the music echoes the hideous fanfares of the Dies Irae and wailing woodwind the cries of artillery shells) 'But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.' I remember the impact it had on me first hearing that - I was chilled to the bone.
Absolutely, Britten's Decca recording is remarkable (perhaps the reference recording....hint, hint DH?). I'd also try Hickox recording if you haven't already for a different insight (worth hearing Heather Harper in the soprano role - beautiful Libera Me).
@@curseofmillhaven1057 Yes I've seen it live a couple of times too; most recently with the RSNO about 12 months ago. A remarkable piece. I've heard the Hickox recording & it is great.
..you got to learn to enjoy the voice! … Nicely spoken. Thank you.
An illuminating talk, as usual! Dave, this and other talks you've given recently, like the one about caring about modern music make me wonder about "great" modern works. I'd love to hear your thoughts about great works (or not) by composers born in the last hundred years.
They are all over the channel.
When I was in high school in the New York metro area, a school group went to a ballet performance in Manhattan which included the Young Person's guide. Very didactic but without the words. Can't find a ballet performance on You Tube, but that would be worth watching!
There isn't a single piece of Britten's I didn't hate on first hearing. And which I didn't love after about the 10th.
I would have thrown large chunks of Paul Bunyan in there, myself. Happy Britten is rare, but there in abundance. But it's nice to hear you enthuse about him!
He started off quite "happy" (Phantasy Quartet, Sinfonietta) but the music got "darker" as he aged (Phaedra, Death in Venice). A very unique talent and personality.
@donkeychan491 Depends on your definition of happy. I think the Frank Bridge variations show he was pretty unhappy by 1937. The four French sings has him dealing in the death of a mother by 1928. Seems to me he was always of the "dark" side!
@@dizwell yes, it’s all relative I suppose - he definitely had a depressive nature but could turn out more cheery music occasionally. Just listening to Diversions - that’s pretty ebullient. Personally I like darker music anyway - it has more “depth”. Mahler is similar & Berg.
@donkeychan491 Agreed. What I particularly like about Britten's "ebullience" though, is the dark to which it turns and swerves at a moment'snotice. Think of the bit in Albert Herring when they sing the threnody: it's genuinely, heartbreakingly sad music... in a comic opera! Or the rustics' extremely funny music in an opera all about the disturbing, muddling nature of sleep and dreams. Or even the "how ridiculous you are!" song in Death in Venice, which is a comic song with menaces! When he's being chipper, it's usually because Britten is aware of something that lies beneath, "far far beneath", as Tennyson put it. I love that about him and his music. Even joy serves a dark purpose for him!
I've always thought there's so much Mahler in Britten - those shieking horn phrases in the Storm from the Four Sea Interludes are so Mahlerian in tone (reminiscent of some of the more turbulent material in the Fifth Symphony).
Yes, a great set of choices, don't think it can be bettered. I'm not personally sold on the War Requiem (I don't find it really adds anything to the Wilfred Owen poems) but plenty disagree, and it's clearly an important work. The YPG is one of the few great sets of variations in the last 100 years. He was versatile and I find his simple but highly effective arrangements of British folksongs (notably O Waly Waly) very moving.
"Suite on English Folk Tunes" is a late work that's very moving.
Really excellent choices Dave.
I feel a bit guilty for not liking Britten more than I do! I find him rather morbid. I understand some reasons why but there are other gay composers who are able to be less depressing.
Sometimes I think people should listen to the piano concerto and leave it at that.
I also think Peter Grimes is not quite so innocent as presented here, marvellous as much of the music is. The tension comes from the feeling that he is not so innocent re the boys.
Anyway that’s what I think
I have Gloriana in a box of opera dvds. Is this something for a beginner or should I buy the Turn of the screw instead to learn to appreciate Brittens music?
I stand by my list, but I like Gloriana a lot. Why don't you try the other suggestions and then you can decide if you want to hear the Turn of the Screw later?
@@DavesClassicalGuide Thank you for the answer.
I’ve got Maazel’s YPG (with narration by the maestro). Never realised just how annoying his voice could sound until my first listen to that disc, which is coupled with a Peter and the Wolf (narrated much more pleasantly by the famous Alec Clunes).
hello dave please review rattle’s new mahler 6!
Do I have to?
@@DavesClassicalGuide i suppose not but was curious about your thoughts on it haha
Not that anyone will be bothered, but I’ve tried to get into Britten, and still cannot see the attraction. Being English myself, I’ld love to love his work.
However, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a single good melody by Britten. Initially I thought the Young Person’s Guide was good by him… until I found out it was Purcell who wrote the melody.
Ho hum.
It's an interesting comment. I've loved Britten just about all my life and performed in several works. He is one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century and certainly one of its very best opera composers. I say that not to counter your comment but to question why it is that melody, in the sense you mean it, does not even come into my thinking when I hear his music. Thematic material does, of course. People are moved by his music, in whatever way that may be. Searching for melody, as such, is like standing in a wonderful garden and looking for some pleasing pattern in the planting. Just enjoy the garden.
Britten---> much ado about nothing. I have seen the War Requiem live and cannot remember a single note.
And do not get me started on how cringingly annoying are the titles of the movements for his Stupid, err...Simple Symphony.
On the other hand, you can live in a world where people just talk rubbish and enjoy that instead, if that's what you prefer.
I was waiting for this. 💎🫡