The opera was Death in Venice, Thomas Mann’s story of the breakdown of an ageing writer who falls under the spell of a beautiful boy, Tadzio, dying of plague in the process. But where the RCM hesitated, the outside world didn’t. Buoyed by the freshness and vibrancy of America, Britten’s music seemed to enter a new phase in his setting of 19th-century French poet Rimbaud’s Illuminations…. Individual variations unfold, taking up characters of song, dance, capriccio and march. We’ve put our heads together and come up with a definitive list of recordings… The best recording. (Pears had met Mrs Mayer on the ship taking him to a choral tour of America in 1936.). 3. Britain seemed a tired world, drained by the burden of declining imperial power; America, the fabled land of openness and opportunity, might offer a brighter future. 2 in celebration of the 250th anniversary of Purcell’s death – modelling its finale on Purcell’s favourite instrumental form, the chaconne. Just as valuable was that the GPO work brought him into contact with the poet WH Auden, who supplied the scripts for many of these films, including the most celebrated: Night Mail, 1935/6. 2496_Gourmet. That impromptu, really a passacaglia, matched the Passacaglia last movement of the violin concerto. ‘What is an English public schoolboy doing writing music of this kind?’ was a typical response. It was a key moment for Britten, whose desire to return home was now unstoppable. Order from your preferred classical music CD store - ArkivMusic. Britten’s haunting and mesmerising violin concerto is considered one of the century’s finest. One of his first broadcasts was the premiere of A Boy was Born: a set of choral variations on nativity texts written during 1932-33 at the age of 19. With its poor rail and road links to London, the Suffolk fishing town seemed an eccentric choice of venue; yet Britten, already planning to move to Aldeburgh to overlook his beloved sea, seized on the idea. In fact, The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra was to prove his last score for films. But Pears was touching on a psychological truth – the opera was an overt expression of the dilemma that had fuelled Britten’s creativity: his intensely complex love of young boys. Save when you subscribe today and get your magazine + CD delivered direct to your door from the UK! That the Simple Symphony became one of his biggest-earning scores must have been a comfort. Already freighted with personal significance, this work was also a parting gift to Peter Pears, a remarkable final role whose inner narrative drives the drama. The Concerto’s free-flowing sense of spontaneity, colourful orchestration and immense emotional intensity has made it a staple of the violin repertoire. 67. Britten drew his own conclusions. The three contrasting movements are replete with grand theatrical gestures, unabashed lyricism, and show-stopping pyrotechnics, and the work closes with an austere passacaglia of … It was premiered in New York, on 29 March 1940 by the Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa with the New York Philharmonic conducted by John Barbirolli. Britten wasn’t a child prodigy to the degree that Mozart, Mendelssohn or Korngold were, but he was no slouch when it came to juvenile achievement. Britten: War Requiem, Penderecki: Tren & Berg: Violin Concerto Kari Lövaas (soprano), Anthony Roden (tenor), Theo Adam (bass-baritone), Hansjürgen Scholze (organ), Manfred Scherzer (violin) Leipzig Radio Orchestra, Dresden Cathedral Boys Choir, Leipzig Radio Chorus, Herbert Kegel In the year Britten completed the Cello Symphony he turned 50. BEST CONCERTO RECORDING OF 2014: Benjamin Britten and Mieczysław Weinberg – VIOLIN CONCERTOS (Linus Roth, violin; Challenge Classics CC72627) BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913 – 1976): Concerto for violin and orchestra, Op. However the costs of touring proved ruinous, and Pears suggested holding a festival in Aldeburgh instead. These concertos reflect two very different sides to the composer’s character. One of Britten’s most successful works was this early orchestral suite, a piece that is at turns wistful and mischievous but brilliantly structured, too…. For those wanting a great performance by a "proper" violist, I would suggest Yuri Bashmet Bruch/Walton - Works for Viola & Orchestra as the best modern recording. Report abuse. The best recording of Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola Richard Wigmore Monday, January 25, 2016 The viola has equal billing with the violin in Mozart’s celebrated work, but the players don’t always reflect this. Venice, which had become a refuge for him, is depicted in bells, gondolier cries and lapping, delicately curdling harmonies. Browsing in a bookshop in Halifax in Nova Scotia before crossing the Atlantic, Britten bought a copy of the Everyman Library edition of The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems. Most pertinent, though, was Britten’s 1952 Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac. First, in July came a concert tour with Yehudi Menuhin to the recently liberated German concentration camps – a harrowing experience, reflected in the fierceness of the Holy Sonnets of John Donne for tenor and piano that he composed at feverish speed in August. Click here to subscribe to BBC Music Magazine. Report abuse. Framed by the solo horn’s ‘Prologue’ and offstage ‘Epilogue’, here is a complete and magical poetic world of sounds and moods, with no need of the frenetic rhetorical manner soon to be demanded by the world of opera. Review by: David Hurwitz. And with good reason. The music is soon interrupted by a more militaristic and percussive secondary theme. Conditions on board ship were spartan and depressing; MS Axel Johnson could have been torpedoed at any point; and before leaving New York, Britten had had several manuscripts confiscated, apparently because they might be messages written in code. This article about a concerto is a stub. Only Shostakovich’s Second Concerto delves into this particular dark labyrinth. Buy from Amazon 5) Another great recording is Alfred Brendel with Vienna Philharmonic under Simon Rattle (Warner). Yet in devising his often dazzling inventions, Britten evidently drew almost as much upon his early film experience as upon his musical skills: the variations, with their double bass, harp and xylophone glissandos, horn pile-ups and whip cracks are designed Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto, Op. And in 1934 he ‘dishes up’ (as he says) a ‘dear little school suite for strings’, based on music he had written as a child. The new “Compact Disc” format brought on a wave of new recordings of the entire classical music repertoire including, naturally, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Get tickets and more information at houstonsymphony.org. Which meant that he arrived at the Royal College of Music in 1930 (aged 16: he doesn’t seem to have considered university) with a breadth of musical experience and sense of purpose that his teachers at the College hadn’t encountered. At the same festival Britten heard the premiere of Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, which profoundly affected him, as did the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War that July. Doubtless Britten also feared a repetition of the poor New York reception of his previous musical play Paul Bunyan in 1941. Yet, in certain ways, this was an unlikely triumph at an unlikely time. So ended Glyndebourne’s relationship with Britten, who had formed the English Opera Group (EOG) with Peter Pears and Herring’s librettist Eric Crozier in preparation to bail out. In an inspired counterstroke of genius, Britten responded to the opium-stupefied virtuosity of Rimbaud’s poetic imagery not with the decadent chromaticism it would seem to suggest, but with music of brilliantly sharp outlines, strongly directional tonal clarity, and scintillating verve. You can unsubscribe at any time. In fact the rest of that year proved more hectic than ever. Ian Seville. In his War Requiem setting of Owen’s bleak parody of that story, ‘The Parable of the Old Man and the Young’, Britten pointedly and extensively alludes to that Canticle, most poignantly when Owen’s young man (Pears) sings ‘My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron’ to a theme originally sung by Abraham in the Canticle: ‘O! His live performances, and his Challenge Classics recording of Mieczys aw Weinberg s complete works for violin and piano, have brought him both critical and public acclaim. Both concertos are very well played on this recording which, like most if not all of Britten's recordings, has claim to be considered a defining statement of the composer's intent. Both concertos are very well played on this recording which, like most if not all of Britten's recordings, has claim to be considered a defining statement of the composer's intent. Part of the opera’s success was the extent to which, by taking hints from more recent operas such as Berg’s Wozzeck and Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Britten managed to transmute these old procedures into something fresh. We explore the English composer's best works, Benjamin Britten’s first full-blown masterpiece displayed an astonishing originality and sure-footedness that was to suffuse his entire musical life…. Indeed, Grimes could almost be called an opera about learning how to write an opera, since so many of its scenes are drawn from 19th-century tradition: a storm scene, a mad scene, a scene with church service ‘off’, and so on. In 1946 he turned, with The Rape of Lucretia, to the medium of chamber opera that he could control more completely, and in 1947 he founded his own English Opera Group. Zimmermann moves to Sweden for the Britten concerto, an interesting and apt coupling that’s just as successful as the two Szymanowski works. Let's just say that Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto is not the best-known on the planet. And for Britten himself it established a practice of writing major works that inhabit the world of the church without quite belonging there or being in any way liturgical. That summer of 1947, EOG toured Britten’s two chamber operas in Holland and Switzerland, Albert Herring especially delighting packed houses. ‘If you want me to recover completely, I ask you to see the doctor whose address is: The Red House, Aldeburgh… Only he can bring me to life by composing a brilliant cello concerto.’ Slava Rostropovich’s 1962 request speaks volumes for one of the happiest artistic friendships of Britten’s career. With the triumphant Sadler’s Wells premiere of Peter Grimes on 7 June 1945, Britten was instantly recognised as the new white hope of British music, ‘replacing’ William Walton who, according to legend, was seen hovering ashen-faced in the wings at the end. Significantly, his last opus was for local children, the sparkling Welcome Ode. Everything about Les Illuminations radiates an openness to experience in all its aspects, from degradation to exaltation; to the teeming activity of the surrounding world; and to the possibility of renewed life stemming from this cascade of encounters. A revised version of the concerto appeared in the 1950s, including alterations of the solo violin part prepared with the assistance of Manoug Parikian. Does beauty have to corrupt or can it set the soul free? The Britten is rarely performed anymore but Ida's interpretation of it is electrifying, and perfect. For pacifists like Britten and Pears, the immediate reason for sampling life in America was their awareness that a new war with Germany was only a matter of time. But an essential historic supplement has to be Primrose's earlier recording Harold in Italy/Viola Concerto (Primrose). . The Symphony was doing much the same – and doing it with an alliterative obsession that ran through his life. One option was a job with the BBC, which would have been a distraction. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 January 2010. Showing 11 - 20 of 35 results They met, appropriately, at a performance of Shostakovich’s first Cello Concerto. Copy link. Reviewed in Germany on January 24, 2016. Reading Britten’s diary entries through the early 1930s is to be disarmed by juvenile expressions and a childlike outlook on the world in startling contrast to his musical sophistication. Serenade for tenor, horn and strings (1943), As the Second World War blazed into its final years, so Britten was approaching his creative zenith with the Serenade – and a defining operatic commission…. Pears’s successful portrayal of the charismatic Saint Nicolas made him a natural choice to play HMS Indomitable’s beloved Captain Vere; indeed, Pears felt a natural empathy for the role since he had uncles and brothers in the navy. It consists of an allegro movement, an adagio movement, and a rondeau. But the idea was abandoned, and Billy Budd was finally completed, staged by Covent Garden during 1951’s Festival of Britain. Although well performed, this did not catch on with either press or public. The concerto is scored for solo violin and an orchestra of three flutes (second and third flutes doubling piccolo), two oboes (second oboe doubling cor anglais), two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (glockenspiel, cymbals, triangle, bass drum, side drum, tenor drum), harp and strings. Yet Budd is arguably even more subversive. By entering your details, you are agreeing to Classical Music terms and conditions and privacy policy. Fast delivery. In 1935 he moved back to London; and although the family apron strings weren’t wholly uncut – he was staying with his sister in West Hampstead – he faced a pressing need for regular income. First used in the First Violin Concerto of Sergei Prokofiev, this design is also evident in the concertos of William Walton and later in Shostakovich's first violin concerto, that has a structure that clearly recalls Britten's concerto. After the success of Peter Grimes in June 1945, Britten might have been expected to draw breath. Besides this brisk and breezy tour de force in Britten’s off-the-cuff virtuoso manner, he was also working on two much more deeply searching works: a full-scale Violin Concerto and a song cycle scored for soprano and strings, Les Illuminations. He would never give up…. Noye’s Fludde, War Requiem, Ceremony of Carols, the Church Parables and the Canticles are all examples of this ambiguity. But another, more productively, was writing music for the GPO Film Unit in Blackheath which produced short documentaries on subjects of supposed, although sometimes remote, relevance to the Post Office. With the beginning of the 1980s, the recording industry saw the transition to digital technology, abandoning the bad audio transfers of the cassettes and slowly fading out vinyl production. The Beethoven concerto is a delightful bonus. Older, wiser and more worldly, Auden stepped into the role of mentor for the clearly brilliant but naive and sexually inhibited composer. Reviews from the Classical Music Magazine team of the latest orchestral, opera and classical music recordings, albums and downloads Britten Violin Concerto - Ida Haendel (Live Recording) Watch later. That the relationship broke down in mid-course was a tragedy of both mens’ lives. There followed the powerfully austere Phaedra for Janet Baker. One of the very best recordings of Britten's violin concerto that I've had the pleasure to hear. Our Pick of the 10 Best Violin Concertos Ever Written 1) Mozart – Violin Concerto No. Sign in to manage your newsletter preferences. In an era when British officers were typically portrayed as noble, stiff lipped and sure-footed, Budd shows officers as complacent, capricious and cruel (having a novice flogged for slipping on deck) – even before we have encountered the evil master-at-arms Claggart. 3 – composed in 1755 – is the most popular of his 5 violin concertos. As it turned out, this was valuable experience: the rigour, ingenuity, economy and direct impact called for were all qualities that would eventually feed into the Britten operas. It’s not that there’s any stylistic similarity between the two composers–merely that both wrote successful modern violin concertos that sound well together and make for a varied and attractive program. He was at the height of his fame, but the festivities disturbed him: ‘I feel these concerts are… memorial rather than celebratory.’ He escaped to Venice in 1964 to complete Curlew River, the first of his refined, innovative Church Parables. ‘I wrote for human beings,’ he declared, ‘directly and deliberately.’. Britten now wrote out the music from memory, finished it off, and during the rest of the voyage composed much of A Ceremony of Carols for three-part female chorus and harp, based on works in The English Galaxy. Freed from the subtle pitfalls of a shared language (they communicated in a cod language they termed as ‘Aldeburgh Deutsch’), composer and cellist met on an artistic plane, lit with lively and affectionate humour. In his trademark schoolboy manner Britten described the Serenade as ‘not important stuff, but quite pleasant’. Britten divided the Mass text between the main chorus with soprano and orchestra, and an off-stage boys’ choir with chamber organ, the latter representing humanity in a state of unsullied innocence, yet vigorous and lively like the Westminster Cathedral choristers who had inspired the very similar soundworld of his Missa brevis. Browse: Britten - Violin Concerto in D minor Op. Arriving in Liverpool in April 1942, Britten now had his newly written manuscripts confiscated too. Shopping. The work’s masterstrokes range from the trumpet-evoking strings of the opening ‘Fanfare’ to the final ‘Départ’ setting, exquisitely poised between nostalgia and forward-looking acceptance. Another new colleague was the fabulously talented young horn player Dennis Brain. Johannes Brahms\' Violin Concerto in D major, Op. Yet the rhetorical vocal writing of these settings told of another, longer term influence, which peaked in the autumn of 1945: Britten’s commitment to the music of Purcell. The gritty, dark Cello Symphony recalls his 1940 Sinfonia da Requiem. Work proceeded on the scenario and text of Peter Grimes, with librettist Montagu Slater. 15 by Benjamin Britten (1913-76). Choosing the GPO, he began with a score for The King’s Stamp – earning £5 per week which, with a £3 per week royalty agreement from Boosey & Hawkes, gave him twice the national average wage. He had in fact produced the work which for many remains his quintessential masterpiece. Britten finished his Violin Concerto in St Jovite in up-country Quebec in September 1939. ... Only a slight thinness of tone under pressure lets us know that Jansen is not quite as fine as the very best of the ... precludes a firm recommendation if the coupling interests you. 14 to Britten. Don’t miss Britten’s Violin Concerto January 25, 27 & 28, 2018! Read more. The 1965 spell-binding Pushkin settings, The Poet’s Echo for Vishnevskaya, were written in Armenia, and owe a debt to Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, to whom he wrote ‘no one composing today has an equal influence on me’. The recording throughout is nuanced and warm, paying attention to the delicacies of Britten’s orchestration, as well as the ferocity of his punctuating motifs throughout. [1] It was premiered in New York, on 29 March 1940 by the Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa with the New York Philharmonic conducted by John Barbirolli. Dutch violin star Janine Jansen brings together the great concerto by Beethoven and the rarely heard concerto by Benjamin Britten - Acclaimed Dutch violinist Janine Jansen fulfills a long-held ambition to record Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto alongside the monumental Beethoven Violin Concerto. Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto – recommended recordings Gramophone Saturday, November 1, 2014 One of the most daunting concertos in the violin repertoire, Tchaikovsky's masterpiece has benefitted from some classic interpretations on disc At the heart of the Serenade is a world of peace and serenity that was equally unique to his wondrous talent. Beethoven & Britten: Violin concertos/Jansen. Beethoven, Britten: Violin Concertos / Janine Jans ... with Jansen, Janine on CD. Helpful. 77 stands with Beethoven\'s Concerto at the pinnacle of the violin repertoire. Format: Audio CD. But later, he became critical of Grimes himself, describing it to an enthusiast as ‘full of howlers!’. Britten had always felt more at ease with young people than adults – instanced as early as 1935 in his school songbook Friday Afternoons. Top 10 Violin Concertos (updated 2019) Gramophone Wednesday, January 2, 2019 An introduction to 10 of the greatest violin concertos with highly recommended recordings Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for Beethoven, Britten: Violin Concertos - Janine Jansen, Paavo Järvi on AllMusic - 2009 to look as vivid as they sound. Britten may have escaped much of World War II in the US, but a commission from Coventry Cathedral resulted in one of armed conflict’s most powerful artistic condemnations…. And he was scarcely out of his own childhood before he began to mythologise it, with a wistful but productive nostalgia that was well-established by the age of 20. When homesickness had compelled Britten and his partner Peter Pears to return from the US to Britain in 1942, they knew they were despised by some for having ‘run away’ from the war and would face further criticism as conscientious objectors – not to speak of malicious gossip for a relationship which could easily land them in a prison. 15, was written from 1938 to 1939 and dedicated to Henry Boys, his former teacher at the Royal College of Music. Its poignant shadows cling to the three intricate Cello Suites. Tying in with the 100-year anniversary in 2013 of the composer’s birth, we here present two such works, performed by the BBC Philharmonic under Edward Gardner. The very brilliance of the Boy provided Britten’s critics with their early ammunition: he was ‘clever’ (not the most resounding accolade in 1930s England). Verified Purchase. Decca B0013281-02. Dutch violin star Janine Jansen brings together the great concerto by Beethoven and the rarely heard concerto by Benjamin Britten. Commissioned in 1958 to mark the 1962 re-consecration of Coventry Cathedral, rebuilt after its destruction in World War II, Britten seized the opportunity to create his most public anti-war statement. Tasmin Little and Howard Shelley are the soloists in the Violin Concerto and Piano Concerto, respectively. Great prices. Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto, Op. 1941 saw the premiere of Paul Bunyan – part operetta, part would-be Broadway musical, setting a libretto by Britten’s compatriot and fellow-exile, WH Auden, and staged at New York’s Columbia University. As Hans Keller said ‘Britten had ventured… into the instrumental purification of opera’. The centrepiece of the programme is a new Wigmore Hall commission: the premiere recording of American composer Nico Muhly’s Old Bones, a haunting and eloquent work, with faint echoes of Benjamin Britten, setting a montage of texts around the … Britten’s first-hand encounter with Balinese gamelan in 1956, which had first borne fruit in his ballet The Prince of the Pagodas and influenced the final pages of his children’s opera Noye’s Fludde, now inspired the accelerating jangle of bells which opens the War Requiem’s ‘Sanctus’. And the result was a frustrating time in which only two of his student scores, the Sinfonietta and the Phantasy Quintet, had serious College performances: a slight that stayed with him. Her recordings of 'The English Concertos' (the two on this disc, plus the Elgar) are all splendid.