Page 673 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK
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Edward Benjamin Britten is one of the finest composers of English
operas, choral works, and songs, many of which he wrote for his life
partner, tenor Sir Peter Pears.
Britten started writing music as young as nine, when he wrote an oratorio.
He studied under Frank Bridge, John Ireland and Arthur Benjamin among
others, and was also a fine pianist.
His ground-breaking operas, which include Peter Grimes (1945), and The
Turn of the Screw (1954) – and his famous War Requiem – tackle
contemporaneous issues around psychology and post-war trauma, as well
his own homosexuality, which was illegal in Britten’s lifetime.
Britten founded the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk with Pears and librettist
Eric Crozier.
Sir Benjamin Britten on Aldeburgh Beach. Picture: Getty
2. Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)
Ethel Smyth was a prolific composer and an active member of the
women’s suffrage movement, and she made no secret of her relationships
with women.
Born in South-East London, Smyth studied at the Leipzig Conservatory
and there met composers that included Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Clara
Schumann and Brahms. Her best-known works are the opera The
Wreckers and her Mass in D.
