Benjamin Britten Baron Britten of Aldeburgh

Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh 1913-76, English composer. Britten is considered the most significant British composer since Purcell . As a youth he composed instrumental works, displaying technical brilliance and colorful orchestration. One example, The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946), written for a film, is based on a theme by Purcell. His most characteristic expression is achieved in vocal music. His many song cycles and choral works include A Boy Was Born (1933) and A Ceremony of Carols (1942). Britten's great War Requiem (1962), based on the bitter war poems of Wilfred Owen , was sung at the dedication in England of the reconstructed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed during World War II. In his operas, which include Paul Bunyan (1941), Peter Grimes (1945), The Rape of Lucretia (1946), The Turn of the Screw (1954), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), and Death in Venice (1973), he displayed a sensitivity to text and a fondness for variation technique, dynamic dissonance, and the use of ground basses. In 1976 Queen Elizabeth II named him a life peer.

Bibliography: See biographies by I. Holst (2d ed. 1970), E. W. White (new ed. 1970), and H. Carpenter (1992); study by P. Evans (1979).

Britten, Benjamin (1913–76). The most distinguished English composer of his generation, Britten showed talent from an early age. Educated at the Royal College of Music (London), his roots were firmly in East Anglia, where he had his home for 30 years. In 1945 Britten's opera Peter Grimes was premièred in London. Its impact was remarkable: Britten had written an opera which quickly established itself in the international repertoire and which combined a distinctively modern style with the ability to appeal to the general musical public. Thereafter Britten's prolific output demonstrated his fluency in writing for the human voice. A brilliant pianist, Britten's commitment to musical performance was reflected in the foundation of the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948.