Page 321 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024
P. 321
11 July 2024
By Hugh Morris
Reporting from Aldeburgh, England
• July 11, 2024
When the composer Benjamin Britten died in 1976, it wasn’t clear how the public
would remember him.
There was Britten the rooted composer, firmly set in his native Suffolk, England, and
the Aldeburgh Festival with his life partner, the tenor Peter Pears; Britten the
establishment composer, friendly with the “Queen Mum,” the creator of “Gloriana”
and the first composer to receive a peerage; and Britten the immediate composer,
whose belief in art’s purposefulness meant he consciously avoided what he called
writing for posterity.
Others, however, were committed to the posterity of Britten’s work on his behalf.
Rosamund Strode, a Britten assistant since 1964, became the founding archivist of
the Britten Pears Foundation, and set the guidelines for one of the most
comprehensive composer archives in existence.
What, though, of his festival?
