He was also an outstanding pianist and conductor. Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was a British composer, performer, and conductor. Britten was born to middle-class parents, and received a conventional middle-class preparatory and public school education. See more ideas about classical music, music composers, benjamin. Britten was created Companion of Honour in 1953 and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1965. Preeminent among Britten’s nontheatrical music are his song cycles. Unquestionably Britain's greatest 20th century composer, Britten excelled in virtually all genres, but is especially known for his vocal and choral music and operas. The chamber operas adhere to similar neo-classical principles. He had completed a string quartet and an oratorio by age nine, and by the time he was 14 he had written a symphony, five more string quartets, ten piano sonatas, and several other smaller works. This undertaking gave rise to the Aldeburgh Festival (founded 1947), which became one of the most important English music festivals and the centre of Britten’s musical activities. Among the many collaborations between Britten and WH Auden are several songs in a ‘cabaret’ style. He started composing as a child and by the age of 18 he'd written more … Several decades after his death, we have a more complete picture of Benjamin Britten as a composer than during his lifetime. Benjamin Britten was an English composer, conductor and pianist, considered to be one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. Among his most recognisable operatic music are the orchestral Sea Interludes and Grimes’s ‘Now the Great Bear’ from Peter Grimes; Billy in the Darbies (Billy Budd); Miles’s ‘Malo song’ (The Turn of the Screw); Oberon’s ‘I know a bank’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream); and ‘Does beauty lead to wisdom, Phaedrus?’ (Death in Venice). Britten's father was a prosperous oral surgeon in the town of Lowestoft, Suffolk; his mother was a leader in the local choral society. In chamber operas such as The Rape of Lucretia and the church parables, he proved that serious music theatre could flourish outside the opera house. While the early operetta Paul Bunyan drew on American folk idioms and popular genres such as blues, Peter Grimes reflects Britten’s fascination for Verdi, especially the Verdi of Otello and Falstaff, in that Grimes is basically a through-composed ‘number’ opera (i.e. In June 1976 he was created a life peer, the first musician or composer to be elevated to the peerage. An earlier church-pageant opera, Noye’s Fludde (1958), made use of one of the medieval Chester mystery plays. Pärt wrote the work as a personal tribute to the composer whose music … This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Britten, Naxos Records - Biography of Benjamin Britten, Classical Net - Biography of Benjamin Britten, Academy of American Poets - Biography of Benjamin Britten, Bach Cantatas Website - Biography of Benjamin Britten, Benjamin Britten - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”. This comprehensive guide to Britten's musical achievement discusses all the published compositions in subdivisions of genre and period, and devotes a separate chapter to each opera. Britten composed as a child and at the age of 12 began several years of study under the composer and teacher Frank Bridge. Later, his life partner, Peter Pears, was a singer who provided inspiration for almost four decades. 67, Psalm CL for children's chorus and instruments, 1962; Op. 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