Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, in 1913, Benjamin Britten was the greatest English composer of the twentieth century. During the 1930s he was a vital part of London s creative and intellectual life, collaborating with W.H. Auden and meeting his lifelong partner, the tenor Peter Pears. The east coast of England, the place where Britten felt he belonged, is where he wrote his most famous opera, Peter Grimes, and co-founded the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. In the years that followed, Britten s worldwide reputation grew steadily, crowned by the extraordinary success of his War Requiem.
Britten was a mass of paradoxes: a solitary, introspective thinker who came to ebullient life in the company of young people; a man of the political left who was on the friendliest terms with members of the royal family; a composer who combined innovation with a profound understanding of musical tradition. Neil Powell s book is a subtle and moving portrait of a brilliant and complex man who was, above all, someone who lived for music.
[Powell s] account has ⦠air and light, and brings alive the sense of landscape - the East Anglian coast, the marshes, the wind and waves which have coloured so much of Britten's music ⦠Powell writes with a particular passion and psychological insight. Observer
Neil Powell is a poet, and it shows; the writing is ⦠fluent ⦠intimate and psychologically adept. Sunday Times
This is the biography to choose if you are new to Britten and want an introduction to his life. Country Life
