Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, volume 4 (1952--7) and volume 5 (1958--63)

Lead Research Organisation: University of Nottingham
Department Name: Music

Abstract

The proposal requests support for editorial work on volumes 4 and 5 of the authorized edition of Benjamin Britten's voluminous and hitherto largely unpublished correspondence, selected from some 84,000 items now preserved at The Britten--Pears Library in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. The first two volumes of Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten were published by Faber and Faber in 1991 under the editorship of Donald Mitchell and Philip Reed, and covered the composer's life and works in the formative period 1923--45. The present applicant Mervyn Cooke became co-editor for volume 3, published by Faber and Faber and the University of California Press in 2004, which covered the years 1946--51. Volume 4 (1952--7) and volume 5 (1958--63) will be principally edited by Cooke and Reed, with Mitchell remaining as supervising editor for the series as a whole. These two volumes (totalling some 1600 pages) are scheduled for completion by the end of the academic year 2007/08, provided the present application for matching leave is successful. It is hoped that the complete edition of the correspondence (which will run to a total of seven volumes) will be finished in ample time for the composer's centenary celebrations in 2013.
Volumes 4 and 5 will use, as did the first three volumes of the series, the medium of annotation to provide new factual information on Britten's life and works derived from primary archival sources, and will therefore serve both as an autobiography (i.e. Britten's life and art as recounted in his own words) and an objective biography in which full account is taken of the extensive literature on the composer, both ephemeral and scholarly. An important aim of the project is to reflect all major aspects of Britten's career in a balanced manner by not merely considering the composing activity for which he is best known: thus his many other professional activities (performing, conducting, recording, touring, festival and opera-company administration) and private relationships (with his partner Peter Pears, with his librettists and other creative associates, friends, family and young companions) receive full and thorough treatment, and the correspondence is set in the relevant cultural, artistic and economic contexts prevailing at the time.
Full discussion will be provided of the gestation of Britten's individual compositions in the periods covered, which include the operas Gloriana (1953), The Turn of the Screw (1954), Noye's Fludde (1957) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (1954--6), the War Requiem (1962) and Cello Symphony (1963), and the vocal works Canticle II (1952), Winter Words (1953), Canticle III (1954), Songs from the Chinese (1957) and Nocturne (1958).
The annotations will include a digest of significant press reviews and other critical assessments of these works.
Correspondents from whose letters the primary textual selection is currently being made include Ernest Ansermet, Lesley and David Bedford, Lennox Berkeley, James Blades, Henry Boys, Barbara Britten (the composer's sister), Basil Coleman and Basil Douglas (English Opera Group), John Cranko, Eric Crozier, Norman Del Mar, Ronald and Roger Duncan, E. M. Forster, Anthony Gishford (Boosey & Hawkes), The Earl of Harewood, Jonathan Harvey, Trevor Harvey (BBC), Imogen Holst, The Revd Walter Hussey, Hans Keller, Elizabeth Mayer (Britten's adoptive mother figure in the USA), Yehudi Menuhin, Peter Pears, John and Myfanwy Piper, William Plomer, Mary Potter, Paul Sacher, Edward Sackville-West, Humphrey Searle, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Edith Sitwell, Erwin Stein (Boosey & Hawkes), Michael Tippett, Ninette De Valois and David Webster (Royal Opera House), Eric Walter White, and the parents of conductor Benjamin Zander.

 
Description The most significant feature of the Britten letters edition is its comprehensive provision, and detailed discussion, of the most thorough collection of factual information on the composer ever to have appeared in print. The preparation of biographical material on the objective basis offered by extensive and previously unpublished primary source material offers a vital research tool for future scholars and an essential positivistic adjunct to the ever-growing secondary literature on Britten, which has tended to concentrate on the composer's sexuality as expressed both in his private life and through the ambiguous dramatic topics treated in his operas, at the expense of considering his other manifold activities and artistic preoccupations.
Exploitation Route 1. By performers and artistic directors of all levels, including children and amateurs (for whom Britten wrote numerous works) as well as professional instrumentalists, singers, actors, dancers, conductors, and directors working for stage, film, TV and radio;

2. By critics, journalists and other freelance writers working in the fields of music and opera criticism;

3. By arts festival and events programme-planners, including exhibition organisers;

4. By all members of the public with an interest in classical music and related cultural issues, who may include concert-goers, opera-goers, CD and DVD purchasers, radio listeners, TV viewers, and internet users;

5. By institutions wishing to promote Britten's music as emblematic of cultural excellence in the United Kingdom, such as the British Council (with which Britten had longstanding personal connections), BBC, Britten_Pears Library, Britten_Pears Foundation, Aldeburgh Festival, Boosey & Hawkes and Faber Music (music publishers), and record companies.
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Other
 
Description Beneficiaries include the following (numerical order does not imply prioritisation): 1. Academic researchers in the fields of Britten studies, historical musicology, opera and theatre studies, literature studies, social and cultural history; 2. Students at secondary, tertiary and research levels with interests in any of the topics listed in 1 above; 3. Performers and artistic directors of all levels, including children and amateurs (for whom Britten wrote numerous works) as well as professional instrumentalists, singers, actors, dancers, conductors, and directors working for stage, film, TV and radio; 4. Critics, journalists and other freelance writers working in the fields of music and opera criticism; 5. Arts festival and events programme-planners, including exhibition organisers; 6. All members of the public with an interest in classical music and related cultural issues, who may include concert-goers, opera-goers, CD and DVD purchasers, radio listeners, TV viewers, and internet users; 7. Institutions wishing to promote Britten's music as emblematic of cultural excellence in the United Kingdom, such as the British Council (with which Britten had longstanding personal connections), BBC, Britten-Pears Library, Britten-Pears Foundation, Aldeburgh Festival, Boosey & Hawkes and Faber Music (music publishers), and record companies. Specific benefits and impact potentialities include the following (numbering corresponds to categories outlined above): 1. and 2. The provision of definitive biographical and contextual information on Britten's life and works, based on primary source materials wherever possible, provides an essential research resource for all future Britten researchers, at all levels; 3. The research enhances understanding of Britten's artistic and life preoccupations, thereby illuminating ways in which his operas and concert works may be interpreted and realised; 4. The project is an essential resource for writers wishing to draw on it for occasional pieces and in the preparation of programme notes, CD and DVD liner notes and articles for (e.g.) opera house programme books - an area in which many academic musicologists are also highly active; 5. The edition contains numerous details and facsimiles of previously unpublished primary source materials of interest to exhibition organisers, suggesting avenues of exploration for all those concerned with mounting stage and concert performances; 6. Because the editorial annotations are non-technical in nature and do not presuppose sophisticated musical literacy, a wide range of general readers can reach a fuller understanding of any Britten-related biographical, musical, cultural and interpretative issues in which they may be interested; 7. Britten's status as the UK's most widely performed and recorded classical composer has made his works highly exportable abroad, and the Britten-Pears Foundation in particular (which offered practical support to the project and retains the copyright in the letters and annotations) routinely injects considerable funding into major Britten performance events worldwide, an initiative enhanced by the additional knowledge and understanding of the composer's life (including commentary on hitherto neglected works) which this authorized documentary study provides. In all these categories, the dissemination of the research via diverse media aims to enhance aesthetic and cultural understanding while stimulating specific creative output in the shape of both academic and more ephemeral writings, and a wide range of musical performances at all levels of attainment. These benefits were realised immediately, owing to the pre-existence of earlier volumes in the series which have already reaped similar benefits and thereby established a public expectancy for this impact to be sustained until the conclusion of the project, and through the wider dissemination of research findings in the readily accessible media outlined above.
First Year Of Impact 2010
Sector Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Other
Impact Types Cultural