Download or read book The Music of Benjamin Britten written by Peter Evans and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Evans discusses all the published compositions in subdivisions of genre and period, and devotes a separate chapter to each opera. With the help of over 300 music examples and diagrams, he demonstrates Britten's mastery of the art of composition - tonal and harmonic structures, thematic cast and transformation, textual variety and the imaginative deployment of voices and instruments. Since this book's appearance in 1979, Britten's publishers have made available a considerable number of works withheld during the composer's lifetime; some are juvenilia, but others date from a late as the Peter Grimes period. In a postscript to this first paperback edition, Peter Evans assesses the creative stature of these works and their significance in Britten's development. The catalogue of works now includes these additional titles, and the selective bibliography has been revised.
Download or read book The Music of Benjamin Britten written by Peter Evans and published by London : J. M. Dent. This book was released on 1979 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Peter Evans discusses all the published compositions in subdivisions of genre and period, and devotes a separate chapter to each opera. With the help of over 300 music examples and diagrams, he demonstrates Britten's mastery of the art of composition--of tonal and harmonic structures, thematic cast and transformation, textural variety and the imaginative deployment of voices and instruments."--Publisher's description.
Download or read book The Music of Benjamin Britten written by Peter Angus Evans and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book On Music written by Benjamin Britten and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benjamin Britten was a most reluctant public speaker. Yet his contributions were without doubt a major factor in the transformation during his lifetime of the structure of the art-music industry. This book, by bringing together all his published articles, unpublished speeches, drafts, and transcriptions of numerous radio interviews, explores the paradox of a reluctant yet influential cultural commentator, artist, and humanist. Whether talking about his own music, about the role of the artist in society, about music criticism, or wading into a debate on Soviet ideology at the height of the cold war, Britten always gave a performance which reinforced the notion of a private man who nonetheless saw the importance of public disclosure.
Download or read book Benjamin Britten written by Paul Kildea and published by Penguin Classics. This book was released on 2014-02-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Kildea's Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century is the definitive biography of Britain's greatest modern composer - now in paperback Benjamin Britten was Britain's greatest twentieth-century composer, who broke decisively with figures such as Elgar and Vaughan Williams and recreated English music in a fresh, modern, European form. Paul Kildea's biography has been acclaimed as the definitive account of Britten's extraordinary life, exploring his deeply held and controversial pacifism; his complex forty-year relationship with Peter Pears; and his creation of an artistic community in Aldeburgh. Above all, however, this book helps us understand the relationship of Britten's music to his life, and takes us as far into its unique alchemy as we are ever likely to go. PAUL KILDEA is a writer and conductor who has performed many of the Britten works he writes about, in opera houses and concert halls from Sydney to Hamburg. His previous books include Selling Britten (2002) and (as editor) Britten on Music (2003). He was Head of Music at the Aldeburgh Festival between 1999 and 2002 and subsequently Artistic Director of the Wigmore Hall in London, and lives in Berlin. 'Must now rank as the standard work' Financial Times 'Indispensable ... This is a masterly, highly readable account and the most comprehensive to date of the life and work of one of the 20th century's great musical figures' Barry Millington, Evening Standard ' A] wise, cautious, challenging book ... Kildea's verbal explorations of the music are done with level-headed sensitivity leavened by a quirky lightness of touch' Alexandra Harris, New Statesman
Download or read book Benjamin Britten written by Lucy Walker and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2009 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essay collection which examines Britten's juvenilia, influences such as Shostakovich and Verdi, his opera Owen Wingrave and a libretto written by Australian novelist Patrick White with the hope of a future collaboration.
Download or read book Benjamin Britten in Context written by Vicki P Stroeher and published by Composers in Context. This book was released on 2022-04-21 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thematically organised overview of the musical, social and cultural contexts for the multi-faceted career of this pivotal British composer.
Download or read book Benjamin Britten written by Graham Elliott and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-12-08 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Britten's death in 1976, numerous articles and books have been written about his life and work. Much has been made of the strong influences of his pacifism and his homosexuality. It is often suggested that Britten felt himself to be an outsider from 'normal' society, and that this accounts for the his concern to portray the 'outsider' in his operas. There is no doubt that this is an important aspect of Britten's art, but the present work attempts to show that his music embraces much wider and more universal concerns, and in addressing those concerns there is a clearly defined pattern of spiritual influence. Part One of the book examines Britten's early life, and the strong presence which the Church had in his childhood and adolescence. It explores the way in which certain spiritual influences were first manifested, and how, like the more specifically musical 'themes' which Donald Mitchell has noted, they can be traced throughout Britten's life and work. The author was privileged to have conversations with two clergymen who were influential in Britten's life, as well as gathering valuable insights through a long series of conversations with Sir Peter Pears. Part Two examines a wide range of the composer's music in which a spiritual dimension can be traced. The specifically liturgical music has received rather less critical notice than Britten's larger works. The music is discussed here, and shown to possess musical characteristics in common with the larger works. Britten could not be described as a conventional Christian; still less is it true to describe him, as Eric Walter White has done, as 'keen, wherever possible, to work within the framework of the Church of England'. Nevertheless, his spirituality was rooted in the religious experience of his childhood. This book seeks to demonstrate that Britten retained a sense of the Christian values absorbed in childhood and adolescence, and that these - along with the specifically Christian heritage of plainsong - were strongly influential in his choice and treatment of themes.
Download or read book Benjamin Britten written by Peter John Hodgson and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work constitutes the largest and most comprehensive research guide ever published about Benjamin Britten. Entries survey the most significant published materials relating to the composer, including bibliographies, catalogs, letters and documents, conference reports, biographies, and studies of Britten's music.
Download or read book Benjamin Britten written by Michael Oliver and published by Phaidon Press. This book was released on 2008-04-23 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A portrait of the life and work of Benjamin Britten.
Download or read book Essays on Benjamin Britten from a Centenary Symposium written by Quinn Patrick Ankrum and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2017-06-20 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coming to terms with Britten’s music is no easy task. The complex, often contradictory language associated with Britten’s style likely stems from his double interest in progressive composition and immediate connection with a broad, popular audience – an apparent paradox in the splintered musical culture of the 20th century – as well as from complicated truths in his own life, such as his love for a country that accepted neither his sexuality nor his politics. As a result, the attempt to describe his music can tell us as much about our own biases and the inadequacies of our analytic tools as it does about the music itself. Such audits of our scholarly language and strategies are vital in light of the still-murky view we have of twentieth century music. This opportunity for academic self-reflection is the reason Britten studies such as this book are so important. The essays included here challenge assumptions about musical constructs, relationships between text and music, and the influences of age, spirituality, and personal relationships on compositional technique. Part One offers nine essays originally compiled for a symposium designed to recognize the composer’s unique and varied contributions to music. The authors include performers, musicologists, and music theorists, and their work will appeal to a wide diversity of readers. The topics and methodologies range from archival research and analysis of text and music to theoretical modelling using techniques such as set theory, metric theory, and prolongation. While the papers were initially conceived in isolation from one another, the collaborative focus of the symposium created opportunities for authors to expose points of intersection. This deliberate reconciliation of lines of inquiry has yielded a more balanced and unified collection of essays than typically found in a simple record of proceedings. Furthermore, the chapters presented here benefit from the wealth of Britten research produced since the 2013 centenary. Part Two provides an account of the symposium performances and lecture recitals that accompanied and enriched the academic presentations. The reader will encounter fully the journey taken by symposium presenters, participants, and attendees by reviewing the concerts, lecture recitals, and papers in the context of the full symposium program.
Download or read book The Operas of Benjamin Britten written by Claire Seymour and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analysis of Britten's operatic works reveals opera as the natural medium through which he explored his private concerns.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten written by Mervyn Cooke and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-06-28 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten is a comprehensive guide to the composer's work, aimed both at the non-specialist and music student. It sheds light on both the composer's stylistic and personal development, offering new interpretations of his operatic works and discussing his characteristic working methods. Topics treated here in detail for the first time include Britten's work in the cinema in the 1930s, his lifelong pacifism and his strong interest in the music of the Far East; other chapters include reassessments of his relationship with W. H. Auden and his attitude towards childhood, comprehensive analyses of major works and a concise history of the Aldeburgh Festival. A distinguished team of contributors include some who worked with the composer during his lifetime, as well as leading representatives of the younger generation of Britten scholars on both sides of the Atlantic.
Download or read book Britten s Children written by John Bridcut and published by . This book was released on 2007-06 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Britten's Children confronts the edgy subject of the composer's obsessional yet strangely innocent relationships with adolescent boys. One of the hallmarks of Benjamin Britten's music is his use of boys' voices, and John Bridcut uses this to create a fresh prism through which to view the composer's life. Interweaving discussion of the music he wrote for and about children with interviews with the boys whom Britten befriended, Bridcut explores the influence of these unique friendships - notably with the late David Hemmings - and how they helped Britten maintain links with his own happy childhood. In a remarkable part of the book Bridcut tells for the first time the full story of Britten's love affair in the 1930s with the 18-year-old German Wulff Scherchen, son of the conductor Hermann Scherchen. As Paul Hoggart of The Times commented, 'this type of love belonged to an emotional landscape that has vanished for ever, and we are the poorer for it'. Since making the film, the author has extended his research to include friendships Britten had with children which have not previously been documented.The documentary Britten's Children won the Royal Philharmonic Society's 2005 Award for Creative Communication: 'this serious and beautiful film explored one aspect of a composer's life in great depth. Avoiding the temptation of sensationalism, Britten's Children was imaginatively researched and both touching and revelatory'.
Download or read book Britten and Barber written by Daniel Felsenfeld and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2005 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Amadeus). The second title in the Amadeus Press Parallel Lives series, this volume examines the lives and work of two giants of 20th century music. Both composers influenced countless others, and their works are performed often in today's concert and opera houses. Felsenfeld gives us a penetrating look into the lives of these two extraordinary men, helping us get to know them and therefore better understand their music. In clear, concise language he examines their major works, helping us to understand their genius and power, which is illustrated by the accompanying full-length CD. The author points out parallel developments in Britten and Barber's lives and careers. Both came of age in a time of war, a time of political and artistic unrest and upheaval, and both were celebrities in their own time. Both wrote primarily and most successfully for the voice, but neither became ghettoized as a strictly vocal composer, and both were possessed of a flawless compositional technique, with a fluency that bordered on wizardry. Finally, both were prolific, involved musical presences on the world stage. The accompanying full-length CD from Naxos Records includes six complete pieces.
Download or read book Benjamin Britten The Turn of the Screw written by Patricia Howard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1985-09-19 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is designed to introduce the non-specialist music lover to Britten's opera, The Turn of the Screw. The opening chapters by Vivien Jones and Patricia Howard deal with the literary source of the opera Oames's novella), the structure of the libretto, and the technique by which a short story was transformed into an opera. The central chapter, on the musical style and structures of the opera, includes an account of the composition process deduced from early sketches of the work by John Evans, an analysis of the unique form of the opera with a more detailed examination of the last scene by Patricia Howard, and an account of the significance and effect of the orchestration by Christopher Palmer. Finally, Patricia Howard traces the stage history of the work, from its initial reception in Venice in 1954, through some seminal reinterpretations in the 1960s to its present established position in the repertoire. The book is generously illustrated and there is also a bibliography and discography.
Download or read book Folksong Arrangements Ca the yowes written by Benjamin Britten and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
