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Benjamin Britten
Приєднався 22 чер 2012
In 2013 the world celebrates the centenary of the composer Benjamin Britten. This channel features videos about Britten's life and work taken from the official centenary website www.britten100.org.
Simone Young
Simone Young, who in 2013 conducts Gloriana in Hamburg, on Britten as a formative influence when she was a student and as a central figure in her professional repertoire. Just one of the Britten fans celebrating the composer's centenary at www.britten100.org.
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Відео
Neil MacGregor
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Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, on the formative experience of first hearing War Requiem and on Britten as a truly international composer. Just one of the Britten fans celebrating the composer's centenary at www.britten100.org.
Katie Derham
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Broadcaster Katie Derham on Britten as the ideal introduction to classical music, recalling her first encounter with orchestral music at school through the Young Person's Guide. Just one of the Britten fans celebrating the composer's centenary at www.britten100.org.
Sir Patrick Stewart on Britten
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The distinguished actor Sir Patrick Stewart on Peter Pears' uniquely authentic interpretations of Benjamin Britten's music, and on wishing he could sing A Midsummer Night's Dream. Just one of the Britten fans celebrating the composer's centenary at www.britten100.org.
Sir David Attenborough on Britten
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Broadcasting legend Sir David Attenborough recalls how, as Controller of BBC 2, he was involved in the commissioning of Benjamin Britten's opera for TV, Owen Wingrave. Just one of the Britten fans celebrating the composer's centenary at www.britten100.org.
Sir Antonio Pappano on Britten
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Sir Antonio Pappano, Music Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on how the multi-layered nature of Benjamin Britten's music makes it so outstanding. Just one of the Britten fans celebrating the composer's centenary at www.britten100.org.
Paul Mealor on Britten
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The choral composer Professor Paul Mealor on Benjamin Britten as an unequalled example to students on how to write vocal music. Just one of the fans celebrating Britten's centenary at www.britten100.org.
John Adams on Britten
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American composer John Adams on the inspiring example of Benjamin Britten as a composer who stuck to his own musical and political principles. Just one of the fans celebrating Britten's centenary at www.britten100.org.
Ian Bostridge on Britten
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Leading tenor Ian Bostridge on the artistry of Benjamin Britten as a setter of English poetry. Just one of the Britten fans celebrating the composer's centenary at www.britten100.org.
Dame Janet Baker on Britten
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The mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker on Benjamin Britten as composer, conductor and pianist. Just one of the Britten fans celebrating the composer's centenary at www.britten100.org.
Wes Anderson on Britten
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The director of Moonrise Kingdom recalls being in Benjamin Britten's opera for children, Noye's Fludde, and explains how this influenced the film. Just one of the Britten fans celebrating the composer's centenary at www.britten100.org.
New to Britten?
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This video introduces the extraordinary life of Benjamin Britten, the Suffolk schoolboy who became one of the world's great composers. Narrated by Joan Bakewell, and including the Fugue from one of Britten's best-loved works, the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, performed in Sydney by the UA-cam Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas. In 2012 the world celebrates Britten's centena...
WONDERFUL!! So wonderful. What an amazing life. How lucky to have worked with Ben Britten. What I would give to have had the chance. 🩷
I think Dame Janet is wrong to congratulate Britten for surviving the difficulties of his life as a human being. It is clear from the BBC documentary “Britten’s Children” that he groomed boys and young men and discarded them when they no longer served his purposes. It is a testament to his charm that they didn’t seem to mind - even as adults. But he was a perpetrator - not a victim
Wonderful. Thank you !
Owen Wingrave has some genius music in it
v true - esp about his ability to reach all of us - pretty rare in the C.20th !
Benjamin brittain was a paedophile who hid behind these big organisations!
Beautifully put by Sir Patrick.
The BBC TV production of Billy Budd is available on UA-cam: gorgeously done!
Wes Anderson makes astonishingly distinctive films, of which Moonrise Kingdom has the "special and singular power" that Anderson ascribes to Britten. Within Moonrise Kingdom, the 'Cuckoo' song from "Friday Afternoons" is a poignant inclusion that encapsulates the film's story and protagonists so remarkably. Another Britten piece not included in the film yet relating equally well to it is the folksong arrangement "O Waly Waly" - Anderson's protagonists (the boy and girl, Sam and Suzy) love each other with a freshness that contrasts starkly against the stale dysfunctional relationships of the adult characters, and this calls to mind the last verse of the song: "O love is handsome and love is kind, and love's a jewel while it is new, but when love is old, it groweth cold and fades away like morning dew." Wes Anderson and Benjamin Britten: poets of cinema and music, each in his own way and his own time.
I adore Ben's Violin Concerto, especially Ida Haendal's remarkable recording of it with the Bournemouth Symphony orchestra.
Spot on, Sir Patrick. The attached Serenade is one of the most intimate pieces ever written- a joining of souls. And the poetry!
Big fan thanks Ian
The Covent Garden performance of A Midsummers Night Dream featured the American countertenor Russell Oberlin.
That first Serenade sounds like Pears at age 32 - 34. Wonderful!
absolutely love this piece....and of course, these musicians doing it!!
Britten copied Copeland's ideas. I realised this before I found out he spent time with Copeland. I was disappointed that Britten never acknowledged this because I'm a big fan.
Only briefly & unmarkedly. They are utterly different.
1:59 Benjamin Britten and his famous short fuse! When he and Peter Pears went to see "Beyond The Fringe" Did he not storm out of the theatre when Dudley Moore did 'Little Miss Muffet', a parody of Britten's piano writing and an uncanny impression of Pears's unique tenor voice? apparently he never spoke to Dudley Moore again.
Who wouldn’t have? It didn’t feel like good fun to me, either. Short fuse it not.
I am amazed this brilliant satire was actually done in front of the victims! I had no idea!
Have a listen to Britten's Tenor solo in Rejoice in the lamb (there's a version on youtube played as a cello solo). It really does sound like JA
Janet singing Corpus Christi carol is the most beautiful piece of music I have ever heard .
Has he been jogging?
I have never quite understood why Brittens incredibly brilliant violin concerto isn't played more often by todays 'great' virtuoso's.Perhaps they are a little afraid of it.
Ben wrote his cello concerto for Rostropovich but had to tweak it as Mstislav said it was too difficult. This applies to a lot of his music where the apparent simplicity hides a lot. But regardless of the difficulty, he is always satisfying to sing which makes him one of the two truly great choral composers .. with Handel.
Beautiful homage from one of the most cultured men in the world today.
A pity that Sir Antonio is still a very poor conductor of Britten.
Is there anyone else who can set English text to music with such apparent ease as did Britten?
handel
Nonce!
I was in the first cast(1958)of Noye's Fludde,I was 11(I was a donkey,with headdress).Ben was kind,helpful and supportive to us youngsters.He took great pains that were happy,and understood why and what our parts were.He however did not suffer adult singers to make mistakes.They were expected to know their part,both singing and acting. Peter pears was the opposite,which was probably why they worked so well together.Peter was kind,thoughtful and funny.He sat with us for breaks,and made sure we were fed and watered,right down to remembering what filling of sandwiches we liked.I also observed(yes I was nosy)even at a young age,the respect that they treated each other with.Of course being 11,I had no idea that they were a couple;indeed I now know they managed to keep their feelings for each other hidden(in public at least)as homosexuality was a severe criminal offence,punishable by a long prison sentence;and would have destroyed their musical life if it was revealed.Interestingly after Ben died,Peter(in the 1980) "came out"in a TV interview.They were both nice,kind & respectful of us young singers.I have such happy memories(even at 73) of that time.
Beautiful experience.
What lovely memories - such a privilege to have know him however briefly.
Thank you for sharing these memories with us.
This man is absolutely fascinating, so interesting and knowledgeable.
The epitome of greatness.
PETER GRIMES IS EVERYONE ON PLANET EARTH
I absolutely love Britten's music and it's wonderful to hear another musical hero of mine, John Adams, pay such a warm tribute to Ben's music.
In any case, Sir Patrick has caught a point. The work of Benjamin Britten is so vast and so profound that in the future not so far it will be considered as the Shakespeare of music, at least for the most cultured and sensitive English citizens.
I'm always devastated after listening to War Requiem. "Let us sleep, now." I'm welling up with tears just thinking about it. Listen to Ralph Vaughn Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem, which I believe influenced BB.
Which composer was better at setting great poetry to music than Britten?
Fellow Englishman, Gerald Finzi.
Schubert was definitely equally good. :D But they're both among greats.
@Misty Uren Schumann, Wolf, Schubert, Robert Franz, Mahler, Brahms. Britten's settings of mediocre poetry are appropriate to the material.
French musicians with the poems of Maillard
Comparisons are odious.
I already had a lot of respect for Sir David Attenborough, and have even more now.
I have little respect for anyone who accepts a knighthood - regardless of their professional achievements
John Adams could be my double.
@Misty Uren judging by his profile picture, they look very similar
Your profile pic looks just like a picture of him online! I thought it was actually him for a second.
@@nandocordeiro5853 Thanks! I showed a photo of John Adams to my girl friend and she thought it was an old shot of me. Could he and I be distantly related?
Agreed, Sir Patrick.
I am sure that Dame Janet Baker means well, but it is kind of sad that even in her praise of Britten and the Britten-Pears-partnership, and even in wanting to express what 'difficulties' this couple had to go through, she still does not articulate what she is talking about. Brits still talking hush-hush about homosexual relationships keep on expressing the ridiculous idea that this is something shameful, something to 'keep private' about, something deviating from normality. Dame Janet Baker is a child of her time, of course, so I'll gladly forgive her. But the newest generation should learn from the mistakes of the elder generation. So here you have it.
You are right English people particularly of a certain age and level of culture use a lot of euphemisms or only' allude to' when discussing sexuality, but that goes for when discussing heterosexuality as well as homosexuality . Its the whole of sexuality which is considered part of a person's private life particularly when discussing close friends / acquaintances as here. However I don't think Dame Janet needs ' forgiveness' as she is speaking about Britten and Pears with great empathy and in context. They lived at a time when their homosexuality and relationship would have been against the law - fear of discovery would have been a frightening thing with consequences. Surely that is what she is expressing.
I am sure that she will be relieved to know that you forgive her.
I find her assumption that her listeners will understand exactly what she is speaking about a very beautiful acceptance of life as it presents itself, both then and now.
@@johnkeene8460 She speaks with great empathy she's not trying to be coy I don't think. She speaks movingly.
@@barneswriter I agree completely.
wowy. i thought he was just an actor, didnt know hes so knowledgeable in music!
What do you mean by 'just an actor'? In order to be an actor you must have a considerable culture in many fields! :)
@@Herod9 maybe in the uk but not true in the us at all, or you mean stage actors? I dont get it what you said makes no sense
@@TeoMdl It makes no sense because you don't get it? This makes no sense!
@@Herod9 i just mean its dumb because all the actors working in bullshit comedies in hollywood have no more culture than the average person
@@TeoMdl Don't ruin a good point with futile remarks. What I said was very clear. And some jobs are taken just for paying the bills, but they do not necessarily have anything to do with an actor's education or study.
What a grand Lady and truly great singer she really Is!
There truly is such sweetness in Pears's voice.
One master pays homage to another
Ms Baker has been blessed with probably the finest voice ever.How very fortunate.My favorite of her songs is Who is Sylvia.
Willie get over yourself.Eckerslike alright.
Anyone who knows about singing recognizes Janet Baker as one of the finest female singers of the mid 20th c. and most probably among the very finest of any era.
Oh, my , I never knew Sir David knew Britten :)
Adams is actually rather dismissive of Britten in his autobiography.
I'm a bit surprised that Adams wrote dismissively of Britten--partly, no doubt, because in my estimation Adams hardly comes close to Britten in the quality of his compositions (I consider Britten one of the two or three greatest twentieth-century composers, along with Bartok and maybe Shostakovich). But I must give credit to Adams for this: Long acquainted with Britten's music, I was fortunate to attend the 1990 Cabrillo Music Festival in Santa Cruz, California, which presents 20th-century, and now 21st-century, compositions, usually by living composers; from 1991 through 2016, Marin Alsop was the orchestra conductor and music director. But in 1990 Adams was guest conductor and director. Among other things he conducted Britten's "Sinfonia da Requiem." Hitherto I had heard only a performance by Simon Rattle, on a cassette tape; his interpretation somehow always left me with the impression that the Sinfonia was a weak composition, not of the caliber of its rough contemporaries in Britten's oeuvre, the piano concerto and, especially, the violin concerto, to me one of the greatest of that century. But that night, hearing Adams conduct, I was overwhelmed by his performance, which erased all my doubts about the quality of that work.
I hadn't realised that Adam's dismissed Britten in his autobiography. That's sad, but he's still young and may reassess his feelings at a later stage.
@@PMS1950 Adams is young? He's in his early seventies. I suppose you could say that he's still learning how to be a composer, and he's young in that way, but most truly good artists never stop learning.
@@Baribrotzer Never much liked Adams as a composer. A few better conductor of other composers music, however.
Brahms music was hated by Britten, for reasons no one knows. It makes me question all of Brittens music. Did he believe he was superior?
Dame Baker was an inspiration to me as a young singer. No one has sung with such freedom and beauty.
She's classy, beautiful and enormously moving. <3 I love her. She's my favorite mezzo soprano, and my idol.
shame britten didn't write more for piano
my favourite film so far the music is soo beautiful so nice with it
Insightful. Thank you!
Intelligent, revealing & relevant. Thx so much!