Knowing Benjamin Britten
By David Hoose
Too much inquiring after the sources of things is dangerous.
We should rather concentrate on phenomena as given realities. – Goethe
Do we have to know the composer to love the music? Must the details of the composer’s life—family, religion, politics, social history, visual images, prose writings and speeches—be in our mind for the music to come alive? Put another way, is possible to hear, really hear, a Dufay motet, a Bach cantata or the Schoenberg De profundis, without knowing anything about the composer as a person?
Music lovers and performers (most of whom continue to be music lovers) do find their listening nourished if the composer is, somehow, a living, breathing being (though few would think it impossible to love the music of a 16th century composer just because it’s impossible to know his life, struggles, loves and beliefs). When we can find a personal connection, our hearing of that ephemeral and profoundly expressive language is enlivened and deepened.
Much of Cantata Singers’ focus on Kurt Weill strove to uncover the music through the person, and the person through the music. By the end of last season, those of us who followed the year’s offerings in music, pictures, and words began to sense him fairly well. Foremost, it was the wide array of music we all heard—early and late, vocal and instrumental, light-hearted and tough, political and religious, modest and grand—that opened up this composer whom we may have previously known through only one or two pieces. But much of our connection also developed from a sharpened sense of Weill as a person—the Jew forced to leave his home to avoid persecution or likely worse, the man who rejected his own early music as elitist in favor of a populist style. And his pointed words, thoughtful, pained, heart-breaking, or just plain petty, envious and nasty. And those intense photographs! Somehow, everything we absorbed about the mercurial Weill grew into a fairly rich and nuanced picture.
But many of us come to Benjamin Britten with much more familiarity with his music. Even without trying very hard, the concertgoer is likely to have heard a good sampling of his concert music—War Requiem, Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, and perhaps an opera or two—Peter Grimes, or at least some of the smaller ones that are easily in the province of young singers-in-training—The Turn of the Screw, Albert Herring, or the most brilliant gem, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It would not at all be surprising for a concertgoer who might have heard only a couple of pieces by Weill to have taken in all of these Britten compositions—and possibly more. Britten’s music, while not appearing on the symphony or chorus season with great regularity or predictability, is alive in our ears.
Britten’s public writings and speeches show a surprising and delightful man. We find declarations of his own aesthetic likes and dislikes (especially when he was younger and less concerned about offending), and even more, eloquent views of the role of music in our lives, all enlightened and enlightening.
On pet-peeves–
I hate talking about my own music, or my own musical inclination, & avoid it whenever I can. But having broken the rule here, I reserve the right to change any of my opinions whenever I want to. These opinions include liking or disliking any of the great figures of the past (a purely personal matter, derived from temporary needs, which must seem irritating & bewildering to other people).They include a reluctance to treat contemporary subjects in opera—preferring the parable technique. They include a dislike of listening to songs, operas and so on in a language I can’t understand, and a dislike of singers who don’t sing their words clearly or perhaps more important, don’t use their words, but equally of singers who forget that music has line and tune as well as words. They include…but one could continue indefinitely.1
On the conditions of an artist–
The ideal conditions for an artist or musician will never be found outside the ideal society, and when shall we see that? But I think I can tell you some of the things which any artist demands from any society. He demands that his art shall be accepted as an essential part of human activity, and human expression; and that he shall be accepted as a genuine practitioner of that art and consequently of value to the community.2
From the shape of the Forth Bridge to the shape of music–
If you want to know why I started writing, it was because I liked music in a big way. I remember the first time I tried composing, I was an extremely small boy. The result looked rather like the Forth Bridge, in other words—hundreds of dots all over the page connected by long lines all joined together in beautiful curves. I am afraid it was the pattern on the paper which interested me and when I asked my mother to play it, her look of horror upset me considerably. My next efforts were fortunately much more conscious of sound. I had started playing the piano and wrote elaborate tone poems usually lasting about 20 seconds, inspired by terrific events in my home life such as the departure of my father for London, the appearance in my life of a new girl friend, or even a wreck at sea. My later efforts luckily got away from these emotional inspirations and I began to write sonatas and quartets which were not connected in any direct way with life. In short, I began to write what is usually called abstract music and I feel it is important to say here that those of you who want to be either good composers or good listeners (or both) should be able to think of music in this abstract way. Music is a world of its own. One should enjoy music, not so much because it is connected with actual life, but because of the way it shapes itself; one gets fascinated by its tunes, rhythms, and harmonies for their own sake.3
The conditions of listening–
Music demands more from a listener than simply the possession of a tape machine or transistor radio. It demands some preparation, some effort, a journey to a special place, save up for a ticket....It is one of the unhappiest results of the march of science and commerce that this unique work, at the turn of a switch, is at the mercy of any loud roomful of cocktail drinkers—to be listened to or switched off at will, without ceremony and occasion....The loudspeaker is not part of true musical experience.4
Wisdom and continuing truths–
I can’t over-estimate this importance of technique. It is the same in every walk of life. It is no good having ideas unless you can carry them out. In tennis you may have a superb scheme for bringing your opponent up to the net and then lobbing over his head, but this scheme is useless unless you can make drop-shots and lobs. Obviously it is no use having a technique unless you have the ideas to use this technique; but there is, unfortunately, a tendency in many quarters today to believe that brilliance of technique is a danger rather than a help. This is sheer nonsense. There has never been a composer worth his salt who has not had supreme technique. I’ll go further than this and say that in the work of your supreme artists you can’t separate inspiration from technique. I defy anyone to tell me where Mozart’s inspiration ends and technique begins in such a work as [the Jupiter Symphony].5
On persistence–
Don’t give up after the first hearing of a new piece. Very little music can be appreciated at once. And remember, music is not all easy entertainment….Don’t just day-dream when listening to it, but listen seriously.6
Critiquing the critics–
I can well remember my first contact with the critics. I was about 17 and three part songs of mine had been given at a London theatre concert. They were written as a student’s exercise, with the voice parts in strict canon. The first was amiably grotesque, the second atmospheric in a cool way, the third lumpily ‘folksy.’ The only written criticism of this performance damned them entirely—as being obvious copies of Walton’s three Façade Songs. Now anyone who is interested can see for himself that this is silly nonsense. The Walton Songs are brilliant and sophisticated in the extreme—mine could scarcely have been more childlike and naïve, with not a trace of parody throughout. It is easy to imagine the damping effect of this first notice on a young composer. I was furious and dismayed because I could see that there was not a word of truth in it. I was also considerably discouraged. No friendliness—no word of encouragement—no perception. Was this the critical treatment which one was to expect all one’s life? A gloomy outlook. I decided to avoid reading critics from that day onwards. And so I have as far as possible. Alas, there are always friends to send one press notices: ‘Have you seen this; of course I don’t agree but…’, or that amiable vagueness which sends one the most virulent attacks: ‘Sure you would like to see this most interesting account of…’7
On disenchantment with Beethoven and Brahms–
I’m not blind to them. Once I adored them. Between the ages of thirteen and sixteen I knew every note of Beethoven and Brahms. I remember receiving the full score of Fidelio for my fourteenth birthday. It was a red letter day in my life. But I think in a sense I never forgave them for having led me astray in my own particular musical thinking and natural inclinations. Only yesterday I was listening to the Coriolanus Overture by Beethoven. What a marvelous beginning, and how well the development in sequence is carried out! But what galled me was the crudity of the sound, the orchestral sounds seem often so haphazard. I certainly don’t dislike all Beethoven but sometimes I feel I have lost the point of what he’s up to. I heard recently the piano sonata, op. 111.The sound of the variations was so grotesque I just couldn’t see what they were all about.8
On the obligations of the composer–
At many times in history the artist has made a conscious effort to speak with the voice of the people. Beethoven certainly tried, in works as different as the Battle of Victoria and the Ninth Symphony, to utter the sentiments of a whole community. From the beginning of Christianity there have been musicians who have wanted and tried to be the servants of the church, and to express the devotion and convictions of Christians, as such. Recently, we have had the example of Shostakovich, who set out in his ‘Leningrad’ Symphony to present a monument to his fellow citizens, an explicit expression for them of their own endurance and heroism. At a very different level, one finds composers such as Johann Strauss and George Gershwin aiming at providing people—the people—with the best dance music and songs which they were capable of making. And I can find nothing wrong with the objectives—declared or implicit—of these men; nothing wrong with offering to my fellow-men music which may inspire them or comfort them, which may touch them or entertain them, even educate them—directly and with intention.9
There are voluminous writings—every letter and diary entry seems to have been
preserved—that reveal a brilliant man with a remarkable design for his life. In the four volume collection of his letters and diary entries, as well as reports about him from his closest friends and colleagues, we begin to get a picture of a boy, later man, who loved his family deeply (especially his mother), who was devoted to music for as long as he could remember, whose mother believed in his destiny as a composer much sooner than anyone other than a mother could, who from his earliest years hated all violence, who struggled over how to live a life so contrary to societal strictures, who fought an ongoing disquieting attraction for boys, who was deeply devoted to a man who was both his love and his musical inspiration, and who lived completely for music. But the deeper man remains hidden. In his writings, Britten does not reveal his heart. All of the personal sides of this man, the kind that were so compelling and revealing about Kurt Weill (and would be about Stravinsky or Copland), can seem very far away. At almost every turn, efforts to see the personal Britten can be met with the resistance of a very private man, and of a man
whose chosen communication was emphatically not by words, either casual or formal.
I am a very bad speaker. I always think of what I wanted to say afterwards.10
I admit that I hate speaking in public. It is not really a matter of shyness, but because I
do not easily think in words, because words are not my medium.11
However, Britten’s words are not the only means to a deep understanding of his heart, and his privacy does not stand in the way of our appreciation and love of his music. We do not need to read of his homosexuality to recognize a powerful thread weaving through many of his operas, from Peter Grimes to Death in Venice, nor does applying any autobiographical slant unleash new power in the music. We do not need (though it is certainly interesting) to read his plea for conscientious objector status to make vivid the motivations for his War Requiem or its equally compelling successor, Cantata misericordium. We needn’t harvest more information about his deep commitment to musical education of children to be moved by the subtlety and beauty of Noye’s Fludde. Nor must we understand his closely sculpted religious beliefs to feel the extraordinary searching energies of Rejoice in the Lamb and the youthful A Hymn to the Virgin enter our own hearts.
On the occasion of Britten’s 50th birthday, the Austrian-born British musicologist and critic Hans Keller (1919-1985) wrote that Britten’s music is “still partly inaccessible to the vaguely musical, and indeed to some highly musical conservatives, his work is too accessible to be comprehensible to the genuine avant-garde.” 12
To whatever degree his observation was accurate, I think that it has faded over the last four decades. As Andy Vores points out in his letter of introduction to this season, some composers did turn up their noses at Britten’s seemingly conservative musical path, one at such odds with the day’s hottest trends. But there are some, like Andy himself, who owe much to Britten, as composer Robin Holloway points out: “[Britten’s music] has the power to connect the avant-garde with the lost paradise of tonality; it conserves and renovates in the boldest and simplest manner; it shows how old usages can be refreshed and remade, and how the new can be saved from mere rootlessness, etoliation, lack of connexion and communication.” 13
And Keller’s thought about the inaccessibility of Britten’s music, perhaps true in 1963, has rather completely fallen away, and the power of his musical communication now seems unquestioned and unfettered. It is music of great clarity of purpose and crystalline expression, always engaging, and always holding, in a fine and quivering balance, musical intelligence and emotion. It is music that speaks very directly, the force that brings Benjamin Britten alive. There, in his music—the tunes, rhythms and harmonies—is where we find his rich heart, mind and soul, and we best expect to find it only a little from the other way around.
This tack, of course, is the one we’re forced to pursue when we’re considering composers who are so separated from us by the passage of time—Handel, Monteverdi, even Brahms come to mind. We turn to their music for insights on who they might have been, but then we turn that process back on itself to help us uncover more layers of their musical voice.
And that is exactly how Britten would have wanted it. We will continue to search, as the whole of this season—not just the music—will attest. But music was his only true voice, and through it the whole of his life shows. As private as he tried to be, and as cautious a person as he may have been, he does lie wide open to us—his whole heart, mind, soul—through the vast stretch of musical gifts he left us. These are thrilling, often profound, and always profoundly beautiful gifts, ones that Hans Keller considered of the highest artistic order, where “the arbitrary and the predictable are superseded by unpredictable inevitability.” And they are gifts of enormous personal generosity, ones that go far to fulfill what Britten considered the “composer’s duty, as a member of society—to speak to or for his fellow human beings.” 14
1. Benjamin Britten, Britten on Music, ed. Paul Kildea (Oxford University Press, 2003).
2. ibid.
3. ibid.
4. Britten, “On Receiving the First Aspen Award,” Britten on Music.
5. Britten on Music.
6. ibid.
7. ibid.
8. ibid.
9. ibid.
10. ibid.
11. ibid.
12. Hans Keller, “The World around Britten” (Tempo, New Series, No. 66/67, Autumn-Winter, 1963).
13. Robin Holloway, ‘Benjamin Britten: Tributes and Memories’ (Tempo 120, 1977).
14. Britten on Music.