The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten

by Edited by Mervyn Cooke

• ISBN13: 9780521573849
• ISBN10: 052157384X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-06-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is a comprehensive guide to Britten's work, aimed both at the nonspecialist and the music student. It sheds light on both the composer's stylistic and personal development, offering new interpretations of his operatic works and discussing his characteristic working methods. A distinguished team of contributors include some who worked with the composer during his lifetime, as well as leading representatives of the younger generation of Britten scholars on both sides of the Atlantic.

Table of Contents

List of plates	vi	(1)
Notes on contributors	vii	(3)
Acknowledgements	x	(1)
List of abbreviations	xi	(2)
Chronology	xiii
Introduction	1	(10)
Mervyn Cooke
Part one Apprenticeship	11	(70)
1 Juvenilia (1922-1932)	11	(25)
Christopher Mark
2 Britten, Auden and 'otherness'	36	(18)
Paul Kildea
3 Britten in the cinema: Coal Face	54	(27)
Philip Reed
Part Two The Operas	81	(86)
4 `He descended into Hell': salvation denied	81	(14)
Peter Grimes
Ellen Orford
Stephen Arthur Allen
5 The chamber operas	95	(18)
Arnold Whittall
6 Gloriana: Britten's 'slighted child'	113	(16)
Antonia Malloy-Chirgwin
7 Britten and Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream	129	(18)
Mervyn Cooke
8 Eros in life and death: Billy Budd and Death in Venice	147	(20)
Clifford Hindley
Part three Perspectives	167	(112)
9 Distant horizons: from Pagodaland to the Church Parables	167	(21)
Mervyn Cooke
10 Violent climates	188	(29)
Donald Mitchell
11 Britten as symphonist	217	(16)
Arved Ashby
12 The concertos and early orchestral scores: aspects of style and aesthetic	233	(12)
Eric Roseberry
13 The chamber music	245	(15)
Philip Rupprecht
14 Music for voices	260	(19)
Ralph Woodward
Part four The composer in the community	279	(39)
15 Britten and the world of the child	279	(13)
Stephen Arthur Allen
16 Old songs in new contexts: Britten as arranger	292	(14)
Eric Roseberry
17 Aldeburgh	306	(12)
Judith LeGrove
Notes	318	(25)
Index of Britten's works	343	(3)
General index	346