143-556: Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to
286-470: A Pacifist March to words by Ronald Duncan for the Peace Pledge Union , of which, as a pacifist, he had become an active member; the work was not a success and was soon withdrawn. The best known of his compositions from this period is probably Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge for string orchestra, described by Matthews as the first of Britten's works to become a popular classic. It was
429-411: A prep school , South Lodge , Lowestoft, as a day boy . The headmaster, Thomas Sewell, was an old-fashioned disciplinarian; the young Britten was outraged at the severe corporal punishments frequently handed out, and later he said that his lifelong pacifism probably had its roots in his reaction to the regime at the school. He himself rarely fell foul of Sewell, a mathematician, in which subject Britten
572-626: A 1913 interview published in the black newspaper New York Age , Scott Joplin asserted that there had been "ragtime music in America ever since the Negro race has been here, but the white people took no notice of it until about twenty years ago [in the 1890s]." Ragtime quickly established itself as a distinctly American form of popular music . Ragtime became the first African American music to have an impact on mainstream popular culture. Piano "professors" such as Jelly Roll Morton played ragtime in
715-530: A Theme by Frank Bridge for full orchestra for the Frederick Ashton ballet Le Rêve de Léonor (1949), but he later described the teacher–pupil relationship as "beneficial five per cent to [Britten] and ninety-five per cent to me!" Throughout the 1950s Britten continued to write operas. Billy Budd (1951) was well received at its Covent Garden premiere and was regarded by reviewers as an advance on Peter Grimes . Gloriana (1953), written to mark
858-437: A boy was a keen tennis player and cricketer. To his mother's great delight he was an outstandingly musical child, unlike his sisters, who inherited their father's indifference to music, while his brother, Robert, though musically talented, was interested only in ragtime . Edith gave the young Britten his first lessons in piano and notation. He made his first attempts at composition when he was five. He started piano lessons when he
1001-443: A child's view of the world. He was not always confident that he was the genius others declared him to be, and though he was hypercritical of his own works, he was acutely, even aggressively sensitive to criticism from anybody else. Britten was, as he himself acknowledged, notorious for dumping friends and colleagues who either offended him or ceased to be of use to him – his "corpses". The conductor Sir Charles Mackerras believed that
1144-496: A compilation of some of Joplin's rags in period orchestrations edited by conservatory president Gunther Schuller . It won a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance of the year and was named Top Classical Album of 1974 by Billboard magazine. The film The Sting (1973) brought ragtime to a wide audience with its soundtrack of Joplin tunes. The film's rendering of "The Entertainer", adapted and orchestrated by Marvin Hamlisch ,
1287-722: A composition scholarship at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London; his examiners were the composers John Ireland and Ralph Vaughan Williams and the college's harmony and counterpoint teacher, S P Waddington. Britten was at the RCM from 1930 to 1933, studying composition with Ireland and piano with Arthur Benjamin . He won the Sullivan Prize for composition, the Cobbett Competition for chamber music, and
1430-524: A drama in three acts, composed in the early 1900s in memory of his friend J. P. Contamine de Latour. In 1902 the American cakewalk was very popular in Paris and Satie two years later wrote two rags, La Diva de l'empire and Piccadilly . Despite the two Anglo-Saxon settings, the tracks appear American-inspired. La Diva de l'empire , a march for piano soloist, was written for Paulette Darty and initially bore
1573-489: A few days later, Britten gave him what he had written of Praise We Great Men . I heard of his death ... and took a long walk in total silence through gently falling snow across a frozen lake, which corresponded exactly to the inexpressible sense of numbness at such a loss. The world is colder and lonelier without the presence of our supreme creator of music. Peter Maxwell Davies , 1977 Britten died of congestive heart failure on 4 December 1976. His funeral service
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#17327656755771716-556: A great hit and demonstrated more depth and sophistication than earlier ragtime. Ragtime was one of the main influences on the early development of jazz (along with the blues ). Some artists, such as Jelly Roll Morton , were present and performed both ragtime and jazz styles during the period the two styles overlapped. He also incorporated the Spanish tinge in his performances, which gave a habanera or tango rhythm to his music. Jazz largely surpassed ragtime in mainstream popularity in
1859-503: A group organized by ragtime composer and pianist Lewis F. Muir who toured Europe. Immensely popular with British audiences, the ARO popularized several of Muir's rags (such as " Waiting for the Robert E. Lee " and " Hitchy-Koo ") which were credited by historian Ian Whitcomb as the first American popular songs to influence British culture and music. The ARO recorded some of Muir's rags with
2002-465: A means to acknowledge "exceptionally meritorious service in Our Navy and Our Army, or who may have rendered exceptionally meritorious service towards the advancement of Art, Literature and Science". All modern aspects of the order were established under his direction, including the division for military figures. From the outset, prime ministers attempted to propose candidates or lobbied to influence
2145-426: A melody that seems to be avoiding some metrical beats of the accompaniment by emphasizing notes that either anticipate or follow the beat ("a rhythmic base of metric affirmation, and a melody of metric denial" ). The ultimate (and intended) effect on the listener is actually to accentuate the beat, thereby inducing the listener to move to the music. Scott Joplin, the composer/pianist known as the "King of Ragtime", called
2288-679: A million copies. Tom Fletcher , a vaudeville entertainer and the author of 100 Years of the Negro in Show Business , has stated that "Hogan was the first to put on paper the kind of rhythm that was being played by non-reading musicians." While the success of "All Coons Look Alike to Me" helped popularize the country to ragtime rhythms, its use of racial slurs created a number of derogatory imitation tunes, known as " coon songs " because of their use of racist and stereotypical images of black people. In Hogan's later years, he admitted shame and
2431-740: A neck ribbon (as a necklet ), while women wear theirs on a ribbon bow pinned to the left shoulder, and aides-de-camp may wear the insignia on their aiguillettes . Since 1991, the insignia must be returned upon the recipient's death. number appointment There have been no honorary members of the Order of Merit since the death of the last such member, Nelson Mandela , in December 2013. Secretary and Registrar : Robin Janvrin, Baron Janvrin GCB , GCVO , QSO , PC As
2574-465: A note on the sheet music for the song "Leola" Joplin wrote, "Notice! Don't play this piece fast. It is never right to play 'ragtime' fast." E. L. Doctorow used the quotation as the epigraph to his novel Ragtime . Ragtime pieces came in a number of different styles during the years of its popularity and appeared under a number of different descriptive names. It is related to several earlier styles of music, has close ties with later styles of music, and
2717-476: A poem by Edith Sitwell . He returned to Aldeburgh in August, and wrote Welcome Ode for children's choir and orchestra. In November, Britten realised that he could no longer compose. On his 63rd birthday, 22 November, at his request Rita Thomson organised a champagne party and invited his friends and his sisters Barbara and Beth, to say their goodbyes to the dying composer. When Rostropovich made his farewell visit
2860-407: A sense of "race betrayal" from the song, while also expressing pride in helping bring ragtime to a larger audience. The emergence of mature ragtime is usually dated to 1897, the year in which several important early rags were published. "Harlem Rag" by Tom Turpin and "Mississippi Rag" by William Krell were both release that year. In 1899, Scott Joplin's " Maple Leaf Rag " was published and became
3003-523: A success in North America, with performances in Toronto, New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, under conductors including John Barbirolli and Serge Koussevitzky . In April 1939 Britten and Pears sailed to North America, going first to Canada and then to New York. They had several reasons for leaving England, including the difficult position of pacifists in an increasingly bellicose Europe;
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#17327656755773146-538: A visit to Harlem during his trip in 1922. Even the Swiss composer Honegger wrote works in which the influence of African American music is pretty obvious. Examples include Pacific 231 , Prélude et Blues and especially the Concertino for piano and orchestra. Igor Stravinsky wrote a solo piano work called Piano-Rag-Music in 1919 and also included a rag in his theater piece L'Histoire du soldat (1918). In
3289-476: Is Zez Confrey , whose "Kitten on the Keys" popularized the style in 1921. Ragtime also served as the roots for stride piano , a more improvisational piano style popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Elements of ragtime found their way into much of the American popular music of the early 20th century. It also played a central role in the development of the musical style later referred to as Piedmont blues ; indeed, much of
3432-477: Is closely related to marches . Ragtime pieces usually contain several distinct themes, often arranged in patterns of repeats and reprises. Scott Joplin, known as the "King of Ragtime", gained fame through compositions like " Maple Leaf Rag " and " The Entertainer ". Ragtime influenced early jazz , Harlem stride piano , Piedmont blues , and European classical composers such as Erik Satie , Claude Debussy , and Igor Stravinsky . Despite being overshadowed by jazz in
3575-528: The BBC Singers , who first performed it the following year. In this same period he wrote Friday Afternoons , a collection of 12 songs for the pupils of Clive House School, Prestatyn , where his brother was headmaster. In February 1935, at Bridge's instigation, Britten was invited to a job interview by the BBC's director of music Adrian Boult and his assistant Edward Clark . Britten was not enthusiastic about
3718-625: The Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, First Lord of the Admiralty Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham and William Pitt exchanged correspondence concerning the possible creation of an order of merit, though nothing came of the idea. Later, Queen Victoria , her courtiers , and politicians alike, thought that a new order, based on the Prussian order Pour le Mérite , would make up for the insufficient recognition offered by
3861-481: The Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia , stated that the Order of Merit was the highest civilian award for merit a Canadian could receive. Some orders of precedence are as follows: Order of wear Ragtime Ragtime , also spelled rag-time or rag time , is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm . Ragtime
4004-588: The Royal Air Force and, in 1969, the definition of honorary recipients was expanded to include members of the Commonwealth of Nations that are not realms. The order has always been open to women, Florence Nightingale being the first woman to receive the honour, in 1907. Several individuals have refused admission into the Order of Merit, including Rudyard Kipling , A. E. Housman , and George Bernard Shaw . Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh , remains
4147-775: The Suite on English Folk Tunes "A Time There Was" (1974); the Third String Quartet (1975), which drew on material from Death in Venice ; and the dramatic cantata Phaedra (1975), written for Janet Baker . In June 1976, the last year of his life, Britten accepted a life peerage – the first composer so honoured – becoming Baron Britten, of Aldeburgh in the County of Suffolk. After the 1976 Aldeburgh Festival, Britten and Pears travelled to Norway, where Britten began writing Praise We Great Men , for voices and orchestra based on
4290-422: The big band sounds that predominated in the 1920s and 1930s when they adopted smoother rhythmic styles. There have been numerous revivals since newer styles supplanted ragtime in the 1920s. First in the early 1940s, many jazz bands began to include ragtime in their repertoire and put out ragtime recordings on 78 rpm records . A more significant revival occurred in the 1950s as a wider variety of ragtime genres of
4433-556: The coronation of Elizabeth II , had a cool reception at the gala premiere in the presence of the Queen and the British Establishment en masse . The downbeat story of Elizabeth I in her decline, and Britten's score – reportedly thought by members of the premiere's audience "too modern" for such a gala – did not overcome what Matthews calls the "ingrained philistinism" of the ruling classes. Although Gloriana did well at
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4576-497: The "Order of Minerva " with membership restricted to 24 distinguished artists and authors. Knights would be entitled to the post-nominal letters KM , and would wear a silver nine-pointed breast star with the image of Minerva at its centre, along with a "straw-coloured" sash worn across the chest from the right shoulder. The motto of the Order would be "Omnia posthabita scientiae" (in Latin , 'Everything comes after science'). Once
4719-452: The "ragged or syncopated rhythm" of the right hand. A rag written in 4 time is a "ragtime waltz". Ragtime is not a meter in the same way that marches are in duple meter and waltzes are in triple meter; it is rather a musical style that uses an effect that can be applied to any meter. The defining characteristic of ragtime music is a specific type of syncopation in which melodic accents occur between metrical beats. This results in
4862-406: The "sporting houses" ( bordellos ) of New Orleans. Polite society embraced ragtime as disseminated by brass bands and "society" dance bands. Bands led by W. C. Handy and James R. Europe were among the first to crash the color bar in American music. The new rhythms of ragtime changed the world of dance bands and led to new dance steps, popularized by the show-dancers Vernon and Irene Castle during
5005-601: The 1910s. The growth of dance orchestras in popular entertainment was an outgrowth of ragtime and continued into the 1920s. Ragtime also made its way to Europe. Shipboard orchestras on transatlantic lines included ragtime music in their repertoire. In 1912, the first public concerts of ragtime were performed in the United Kingdom by the American Ragtime Octette (ARO) at the Hippodrome, London ;
5148-558: The 1920s, ragtime has experienced several revivals, notably in the 1950s and 1970s (the latter renaissance due in large part to the use of "The Entertainer" in the film The Sting ). The music was distributed primarily through sheet music and piano rolls , with some compositions adapted for other instruments and ensembles. Ragtime music was developed long before it was printed as sheet music. It had its origins in African American communities of St. Louis , Missouri . Most of
5291-407: The 1950s. A wider variety of ragtime styles of the past were made available on records, and new rags were composed, published, and recorded. Much of the ragtime recorded in this period is presented in a light-hearted novelty style, looked to with nostalgia as the product of a supposedly more innocent time. A number of popular recordings featured " prepared pianos ", playing rags on pianos with tacks on
5434-527: The 1950s. Hemmings later said, "In all of the time that I spent with him he never abused that trust", and Crawford wrote "I cannot say enough about the kindness of that great man ... he had a wonderful patience and affinity with young people. He loved music, and loved youngsters caring about music." It was long suspected by several of Britten's close associates that there was something exceptional about his attraction to teenage boys: Auden referred to Britten's "attraction to thin-as-a-board juveniles ... to
5577-530: The 1960s, the Aldeburgh Festival was outgrowing its customary venues, and plans to build a new concert hall in Aldeburgh were not progressing. When redundant Victorian maltings buildings in the village of Snape, six miles inland, became available for hire, Britten realised that the largest of them could be converted into a concert hall and opera house. The 830-seat Snape Maltings hall was opened by
5720-429: The Aldeburgh Festival. One of the best known of Britten's works, the War Requiem , was premiered in 1962. He had been asked four years earlier to write a work for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral , a modernist building designed by Basil Spence . The old cathedral had been left in ruins by an air-raid on the city in 1940 in which hundreds of people died. Britten decided that his work would commemorate
5863-656: The British record label The Winner Records in 1912; the first ragtime recordings made in Europe. James R. Europe's 369th Regiment band generated great enthusiasm during its 1918 tour of France. Ragtime was an influence on early jazz ; the influence of Jelly Roll Morton continued in the Harlem stride piano style of players such as James P. Johnson and Fats Waller . Ragtime was also a major influence on Piedmont blues . Dance orchestras started evolving away from ragtime towards
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6006-531: The Kid and An Outdoor Overture , both of which influenced his own music. In 1940 Britten composed Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo , the first of many song cycles for Pears. Britten's orchestral works from this period include the Violin Concerto , Sinfonia da Requiem , and An American Overture . In 1941 Britten produced his first music drama, Paul Bunyan , an operetta , to a libretto by Auden. While in
6149-573: The King's proposal was made public, however, arguments within intellectual circles over who would be most deserving of the new order grew so heated that George ultimately dropped the idea, though he briefly reconsidered it in 1789; on 6 February of that year, he revised the design of the order, with the breast star to have sixteen points, the motto to be the Latin for "Learning improves character" and with membership to include distinguished scientists. Following
6292-567: The Orchestra (1945), written for an educational film, Instruments of the Orchestra , directed by Muir Mathieson and featuring the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent . It became, and remained, his most often played and popular work. Britten's next opera, The Rape of Lucretia , was presented at the first post-war Glyndebourne Festival in 1946. It was then taken on tour to provincial cities under
6435-469: The Orchestra (1945). Britten was born in Lowestoft , Suffolk , the son of a dentist. He showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge . Britten first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over
6578-528: The Order of Merit is open to the citizens of 15 countries, each with their own system of orders, decorations, and medals, the order's place of precedence varies from country to country. While, in the United Kingdom, the order's postnominal letters follow those of Knights and Dames Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath , membership in the Order of Merit itself gives members no place in any of the orders of precedence in
6721-425: The Order of Merit, members are entitled to use the post-nominal letters OM and are entrusted with the badge of the order. The insignia consists of a badge, which consists of a golden crown from which is suspended a red enamelled cross pattée , itself centred by a disk of blue enamel, surrounded by a laurel wreath . The obverse of the badge's central disk bears the words FOR MERIT in gold lettering, while
6864-479: The Queen at the start of the twentieth Aldeburgh Festival on 2 June 1967; it was immediately hailed as one of the best concert halls in the country. The hall was destroyed by fire in 1969, but Britten was determined that it would be rebuilt in time for the following year's festival, which it was. The Queen again attended the opening performance in 1970. The Maltings gave the festival a venue that could comfortably house large orchestral works and operas. Britten conducted
7007-620: The Second World War began, Britten and Pears turned for advice to the British embassy in Washington and were told that they should remain in the US as artistic ambassadors. Pears was inclined to disregard the advice and go back to England; Britten also felt the urge to return, but accepted the embassy's counsel and persuaded Pears to do the same. Already a friend of the composer Aaron Copland , Britten encountered his latest works Billy
7150-458: The Stone (1939). In 1937 there were two events of huge importance in Britten's life: his mother died, and he met the tenor Peter Pears . Although Britten was extraordinarily devoted to his mother and was devastated at her death, it also seems to have been something of a liberation for him. Only after that did he begin to engage in emotional relationships with people his own age or younger. Later in
7293-518: The US, Britten had his first encounter with Balinese gamelan music, through transcriptions for piano duo made by the Canadian composer Colin McPhee . The two met in the summer of 1939 and subsequently performed a number of McPhee's transcriptions for a recording. This musical encounter bore fruit in several Balinese-inspired works later in Britten's career. Moving to the US did not relieve Britten of
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#17327656755777436-469: The US, Koussevitzky, always generous in encouraging new talent, offered him a $ 1,000 commission to write the opera. Britten and Pears returned to England in April 1942. During the long transatlantic sea crossing Britten completed the choral works A Ceremony of Carols and Hymn to St Cecilia . The latter was his last large-scale collaboration with Auden. Britten had grown away from him, and Auden became one of
7579-486: The US, that also educated and entertained audiences about ragtime. New ragtime composers soon followed, including Morath, Donald Ashwander , Trebor Jay Tichenor , John Arpin , William Bolcom , and William Albright . In 1971, Joshua Rifkin released a compilation of Joplin's work which was nominated for a Grammy Award . In 1973, The New England Ragtime Ensemble (then a student group called The New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble) recorded The Red Back Book ,
7722-461: The United Kingdom . However, Stanley Martin says in his book The Order of Merit 1902–2002: One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour , that the Order of Merit is the pinnacle of the British honours system. Similarly, though it was not listed in the Canadian order of precedence for honours, decorations, and medals until December 2010, Christopher McCreery, an expert on Canadian honours and secretary to
7865-517: The banner of the "Glyndebourne English Opera Company", an uneasy alliance of Britten and his associates with John Christie , the autocratic proprietor of Glyndebourne. The tour lost money heavily, and Christie announced that he would underwrite no more tours. Britten and his associates set up the English Opera Group; the librettist Eric Crozier and the designer John Piper joined Britten as artistic directors. The group's express purpose
8008-541: The box office, there were no further productions in Britain for another 13 years. It was later recognised as one of Britten's finer operas. The Turn of the Screw the following year was an unqualified success; together with Peter Grimes it became, and at 2013 remained, one of the two most frequently performed of Britten's operas. In the 1950s the "fervently anti-homosexual" Home Secretary , Sir David Maxwell Fyfe , urged
8151-475: The composer sustained many deep friendships to the end of his life. Throughout his adult life, Britten had a particular rapport with children and enjoyed close friendships with several boys, particularly those in their early teens. The first such friendship was with Piers Dunkerley, who was 13 years old in 1934, when Britten was aged 20. Other boys Britten befriended were the young David Hemmings and Michael Crawford , both of whom sang treble roles in his works in
8294-399: The composer's so-called "corpses" – former intimates from whom he completely cut off contact once they had outlived their usefulness to him or offended him in some way. Having arrived in Britain, Britten and Pears applied for recognition as conscientious objectors ; Britten was initially allowed only non-combatant service in the military, but on appeal he gained unconditional exemption. After
8437-498: The cycle. In September 1928 Britten went as a boarder to Gresham's School , in Holt, Norfolk . At the time he felt unhappy there, even writing in his diary of contemplating suicide or running away: he hated being separated from his family, most particularly from his mother; he despised the music master; and he was shocked at the prevalence of bullying, though he was not the target of it. He remained there for two years and in 1930 he won
8580-559: The daughter of a civil service clerk in the British Government's Home Office . They were married in September 1901 at St John's, Smith Square , London. The consensus among biographers of Britten is that his father was a loving but somewhat stern and remote parent. Britten, according to his sister Beth, "got on well with him and shared his wry sense of humour, dedication to work and capacity for taking pains." Edith Britten
8723-473: The dead of both World Wars in a large-scale score for soloists, chorus, chamber ensemble and orchestra. His text interspersed the traditional Requiem Mass with poems by Wilfred Owen . Matthews writes, "With the War Requiem Britten reached the apex of his reputation: it was almost universally hailed as a masterpiece." Shostakovich told Rostropovich that he believed it to be "the greatest work of
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#17327656755778866-540: The death of his mother in 1937 he had used money she bequeathed him to buy the Old Mill in Snape , Suffolk which became his country home. He spent much of his time there in 1944 working on the opera Peter Grimes . Pears joined Sadler's Wells Opera Company , whose artistic director, the singer Joan Cross , announced her intention to re-open the company's home base in London with Britten's opera, casting herself and Pears in
9009-426: The definition but include novelty piano and stride piano (a modern perspective), while Edward A. Berlin includes ragtime songs and excludes the later styles (which is closer to how ragtime was viewed originally). The terms below should not be considered exact, but merely an attempt to pin down the general meaning of the concept. European Classical composers were influenced by the form. The first contact with ragtime
9152-423: The early 1920s, although ragtime compositions continue to be written up to the present, and periodic revivals of popular interest in ragtime occurred in the 1950s and the 1970s. The heyday of ragtime occurred before sound recording was widely available. Like European classical music, classical ragtime has primarily been a written tradition distributed though sheet music. But sheet music sales ultimately depended on
9295-434: The early 1940s, many jazz bands began to include ragtime in their repertoire, and as early as 1936 78 rpm records of Joplin's compositions were produced. Old numbers written for piano were rescored for jazz instruments by jazz musicians, which gave the old style a new sound. The most famous recording of this period is Pee Wee Hunt 's version of Euday L. Bowman 's " Twelfth Street Rag ." A more significant revival occurred in
9438-462: The early ragtime pianists could not read or notate music, but instead played by ear and improvised . The instrument of choice by ragtime musicians was usually a banjo or a piano. It was performed in brothels, bars, saloons, and informal gatherings at house parties or juke joints . The first ragtime composition to be published was " La Pas Ma La " in 1895. It was written by minstrel comedian Ernest Hogan . Kentucky native Ben Harney composed
9581-457: The effect "weird and intoxicating." He also used the term "swing" in describing how to play ragtime music: "Play slowly until you catch the swing...". The name swing later came to be applied to an early style of jazz that developed from ragtime. Converting a non-ragtime piece of music into ragtime by changing the time values of melody notes is known as "ragging" the piece. Original ragtime pieces usually contain several distinct themes, four being
9724-541: The end of his life, when he told Pears that it had coloured everything he had written since. Colin Matthews comments that the next two works Britten composed after his return, the song-cycle The Holy Sonnets of John Donne and the Second String Quartet, contrast strongly with earlier, lighter-hearted works such as Les Illuminations . Britten recovered his joie de vivre for The Young Person's Guide to
9867-409: The established honours system to achievement outside public service, in fields such as art, music, literature, industry and science. Victoria's husband, Albert, Prince Consort , took an interest in the matter; it was recorded in his diary that he met Sir Robert Peel on 16 January 1844 to discuss the "idea of institution of a civil Order of Merit" and, three days later, he conferred with the Queen on
10010-454: The feast day of Saint Cecilia , the patron saint of music. He was the youngest of four children of Robert Victor Britten (1877–1934) and his wife Edith Rhoda, née Hockey (1874–1937). Robert Britten's youthful ambition to become a farmer had been thwarted by lack of capital, and he had instead trained as a dentist, a profession he practised successfully but without pleasure. While studying at Charing Cross Hospital in London he met Edith Hockey,
10153-504: The first performance outside Russia of Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony at Snape in 1970. Shostakovich, a friend since 1960, dedicated the symphony to Britten; he was himself the dedicatee of The Prodigal Son . Two other Russian musicians who were close to Britten and regularly performed at the festival were the pianist Sviatoslav Richter and the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich . Britten composed his cello suites , Cello Symphony and Cello Sonata for Rostropovich, who premiered them at
10296-527: The first ragtime era, and its three most important composers, Joplin, Scott, and Lamb. The second major factor was the rise to prominence of Max Morath . Morath created two television series for National Educational Television (now PBS) in 1960 and 1962: The Ragtime Era , and The Turn of the Century . Morath turned the latter into a one-man-show in 1969, and toured the US with it for five years. Morath subsequently created different one-man-shows which also toured
10439-420: The form of songs accompanied by skilled guitar work. Numerous records emanated from several labels, performed by Blind Blake , Blind Boy Fuller , Blind Lemon Jefferson , and others. Occasionally, ragtime was scored for ensembles (particularly dance bands and brass bands ) similar to those of James Reese Europe or as songs like those written by Irving Berlin . Joplin had long-standing ambitions of synthesizing
10582-537: The hammers and the instrument deliberately somewhat out of tune, supposedly to simulate the sound of a piano in an old honky tonk . Four events brought forward a different kind of ragtime revival in the 1970s. First, pianist Joshua Rifkin released a compilation of Scott Joplin's work, Scott Joplin: Piano Rags , on Nonesuch Records , which was nominated in 1971 for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist or Soloists (without orchestra) category. This recording reintroduced Joplin's music to
10725-777: The importance of scrupulous attention to the technical craft of composing and the maxim that "you should find yourself and be true to what you found." The earliest substantial works Britten composed while studying with Bridge are the String Quartet in F, completed in April 1928, and the Quatre Chansons Françaises , a song-cycle for high voice and orchestra. Authorities differ on the extent of Bridge's influence on his pupil's technique. Humphrey Carpenter and Michael Oliver judge that Britten's abilities as an orchestrator were essentially self-taught; Donald Mitchell considers that Bridge had an important influence on
10868-498: The in-fighting among the company, Cross, Britten and Pears severed their ties with Sadler's Wells in December 1945, going on to found what was to become the English Opera Group . A month after the opening of Peter Grimes , Britten and Yehudi Menuhin went to Germany to give recitals to concentration camp survivors. What they saw, at Belsen most of all, so shocked Britten that he refused to talk about it until towards
11011-429: The jigs and march music played by African American bands, referred to as "jig piano" or "piano thumping". By the start of the 20th century, it became widely popular throughout North America and was listened and danced to, performed, and written by people of many different subcultures. A distinctly American musical style, ragtime may be considered a synthesis of African syncopation and European classical music, especially
11154-414: The last person so honoured. Honorary members form another group, to which there is no numerical limit, though such appointments are rare; individuals from countries in the Commonwealth of Nations that are not headed by King Charles are therefore considered foreigners, and thus are granted only honorary admissions, such as Nelson Mandela (South Africa) and Mother Teresa (India). Upon admission into
11297-597: The leading roles. There were complaints from company members about supposed favouritism and the "cacophony" of Britten's score, as well as some ill-suppressed homophobic remarks. Peter Grimes opened in June 1945 and was hailed by public and critics; its box-office takings matched or exceeded those for La bohème and Madame Butterfly , which were staged during the same season. The opera administrator Lord Harewood called it "the first genuinely successful British opera, Gilbert and Sullivan apart, since Purcell ." Dismayed by
11440-456: The librettist and producer Eric Crozier , Britten founded the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, and he was responsible for the creation of Snape Maltings concert hall in 1967. In 1976, he was the first composer to be given a life peerage . He died shortly afterwards, aged 63. Britten was born in the fishing port of Lowestoft in Suffolk , on the east coast of England on 22 November 1913,
11583-413: The like. Ragtime was also distributed via piano rolls for mechanical player pianos . While the traditional rag was fading in popularity, a genre called novelty piano (or novelty ragtime) emerged that took advantage of new advances in piano roll technology and the phonograph record to permit a more complex, pyrotechnic, performance-oriented style of rag to be heard. Chief among the novelty rag composers
11726-491: The marches made popular by John Philip Sousa. Some early piano rags were classified as "jig", "rag", and "coon songs". These labels were sometimes used interchangeably in the mid-1890s, 1900s, and 1910s. Ragtime was also preceded by its close relative the cakewalk . In 1895, black entertainer Ernest Hogan released the earliest ragtime composition, called " La Pas Ma La ". The following year he released another composition called "All Coons Look Alike to Me", which eventually sold
11869-799: The monarch's decision on appointments. But, the Royal Household adamantly guarded information about potential names. After 1931, when the Statute of Westminster came into effect and the Dominions of the British Empire became independent countries within the empire, equal in status to the UK, the Order of Merit continued as an honour open to all these realms and, in many, became a part of their newly developing national honours systems. The order's statutes were amended in 1935 to include members of
12012-442: The most common number. These themes were typically 16 bars, each theme divided into periods of four four-bar phrases and arranged in patterns of repeats and reprises. Typical patterns were AABBACCC′, AABBCCDD and AABBCCA, with the first two strains in the tonic key and the following strains in the subdominant. Sometimes rags would include introductions of four bars or bridges, between themes, of anywhere between four and 24 bars. In
12155-418: The music played by such artists of the style as Reverend Gary Davis , Blind Boy Fuller , Elizabeth Cotten , and Etta Baker could be referred to as "ragtime guitar." Although most ragtime was composed for piano, transcriptions for other instruments and ensembles are common, notably including Gunther Schuller 's arrangements of Joplin's rags. Ragtime guitar continued to be popular into the 1930s, usually in
12298-400: The next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-scale operas for Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden , he wrote chamber operas for small forces, suitable for performance in venues of modest size. Among the best known of these is The Turn of the Screw (1954). Recurring themes in his operas include
12441-469: The nuisance of hostile criticism: although Olin Downes , the doyen of New York music critics, and Irving Kolodin took to Britten's music, Virgil Thomson was, as the music scholar Suzanne Robinson puts it, consistently "severe and spiteful". Thomson described Les Illuminations (1940) as "little more than a series of bromidic and facile 'effects' ... pretentious, banal and utterly disappointing", and
12584-568: The order remains the personal gift of its Sovereign—currently Edward VII's great-great-grandson Charles III —and is restricted to a maximum of 24 living recipients from the Commonwealth realms, plus honorary members. While all members are awarded the right to use the post-nominal letters OM and wear the badge of the order, the Order of Merit's precedence among other honours differs between countries. In around 1773, George III considered establishing an order of knighthood to be called
12727-431: The past were made available on records, and new rags were composed, published, and recorded. In the 1960s, two major factors brought about a greater public recognition of ragtime. The first was the publication of the book, They All Played Ragtime , in 1960, by Harriet Janis and Rudi Blesh. Some historians refer to this book as "The Ragtime Bible". Regardless, it was the first comprehensive and serious attempt to document
12870-456: The police to enforce the Victorian laws making homosexual acts illegal. Britten and Pears came under scrutiny; Britten was visited by police officers in 1953 and was so perturbed that he discussed with his assistant Imogen Holst the possibility that Pears might have to enter a sham marriage (with whom is unclear). In the end nothing was done. An increasingly important influence on Britten
13013-555: The post-nominal letters KMS , and the Order of Artistic Merit, for Knights of Merit in Art, with the post-nominal letters KMA . However, Frederic Leighton , President of the Royal Academy of Arts , advised against the new order, primarily because of its selection process. It was Victoria's son Edward VII who eventually founded the Order of Merit on 26 June 1902 (the date for which his coronation had been originally scheduled ) as
13156-477: The premieres of his operas A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Jubilee Hall in 1960 and Death in Venice at Snape Maltings Concert Hall in 1973. Unlike many leading English composers, Britten was not known as a teacher, but in 1949 he accepted his only private pupil, Arthur Oldham , who studied with him for three years. Oldham made himself useful, acting as musical assistant and arranging Variations on
13299-624: The principal character. After the completion of the opera Britten went into the National Heart Hospital and was operated on in May 1973 to replace a failing heart valve. The replacement was successful, but he suffered a slight stroke, affecting his right hand. This brought his career as a performer to an end. While in hospital Britten became friendly with a senior nursing sister, Rita Thomson; she moved to Aldeburgh in 1974 and looked after him until his death. Britten's last works include
13442-596: The prospect of working full-time in the BBC music department and was relieved when what came out of the interview was an invitation to write the score for a documentary film, The King's Stamp , directed by Alberto Cavalcanti for the GPO Film Unit . Britten became a member of the film unit's small group of regular contributors, another of whom was W. H. Auden . Together they worked on the documentary films Coal Face and Night Mail in 1935. They also collaborated on
13585-632: The public in the manner the composer had intended, not as a nostalgic stereotype but as serious, respectable music. Second, the New York Public Library released a two-volume set of The Collected Works of Scott Joplin which renewed interest in Joplin among musicians and prompted new stagings of Joplin's opera Treemonisha . Next came the release and Grammy Award for The New England Ragtime Ensemble 's recording of The Red Back Book, Joplin tunes edited by Gunther Schuller . Finally, with
13728-446: The publication of the " Maple Leaf Rag " (1899) and a string of ragtime hits such as " The Entertainer " (1902), although he was later forgotten by all but a small, dedicated community of ragtime aficionados until the major ragtime revival in the early 1970s. For at least 12 years after its publication, "Maple Leaf Rag" heavily influenced subsequent ragtime composers with its melody lines, chord progressions or metric patterns . In
13871-445: The ranks of his 'corpses' and I have always recognized that any ordinary person must soon outlive his usefulness to such a great creative artist as Ben." Dame Janet Baker said in 1981, "I think he was quite entitled to take what he wanted from others ... He did not want to hurt anyone, but the task in hand was more important than anything or anybody." Matthews feels that this aspect of Britten has been exaggerated, and he observes that
14014-447: The reigning monarch of the realms, currently Charles III , with the assistance of his private secretaries; the order has thus been described as "quite possibly, the most prestigious honour one can receive on planet Earth." Within the limited membership is a designated military division, with its own unique insignia; though it has not been abolished, it is currently unpopulated, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma having been
14157-414: The relationships affectionate – including bed-sharing, kissing and nude bathing – but strictly platonic. Member of the Order of Merit The Order of Merit (French: Ordre du Mérite ) is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms , recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by Edward VII , admission into
14300-572: The release of the film The Sting in 1973, which had a Marvin Hamlisch soundtrack of Joplin rags, ragtime was brought to a wide audience. Hamlisch's rendering of Joplin's 1902 rag "The Entertainer" won an Academy Award, and was an American Top 40 hit in 1974, reaching No. 3 on May 18. Ragtime news and reviews publications during this period included The Ragtime Review (1962–1966), The Rag Times (bimonthly/sporadic, fl. 1962–2003), and The Mississippi Rag (monthly, 1973–2009). In 1980, an adaption of E. L. Doctorow 's historical novel Ragtime
14443-476: The rest of his life. The Aldeburgh Festival was launched in June 1948, with Britten, Pears, and Crozier directing. Albert Herring played at the Jubilee Hall, and Britten's new cantata for tenor, chorus, and orchestra, Saint Nicolas , was presented in the parish church. The festival was an immediate success and became an annual event that has continued into the 21st century. New works by Britten featured in almost every festival until his death in 1976, including
14586-414: The reverse bears the royal cypher of the reigning monarch in gold. The insignia for the military grouping is distinguished by a pair of crossed swords behind the central disk. The ribbon of the Order of Merit is divided into two stripes of red and blue. The neck ribbon is 50mm in width, while the ribbon bar width is the standard British 32mm size for military or civilian wear. Men wear their badges on
14729-682: The school slowly and steadily, until at the age of thirteen he reached that pinnacle of importance and grandeur, never to be quite equalled in later days: the head of the Sixth, head-prefect, and Victor Ludorum . But – there was one curious thing about this boy: he wrote music. His friends bore with it, his enemies kicked a bit but not for long (he was quite tough), the staff couldn't object if his work and games didn't suffer. He wrote lots of it, reams and reams of it. Audrey Alston encouraged Britten to go to symphony concerts in Norwich . At one of these, during
14872-526: The score of the new opera until August 1970. Owen Wingrave was first broadcast in Britain in May 1971, when it was also televised in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the US and Yugoslavia. In September 1970 Britten asked Myfanwy Piper , who had adapted the two Henry James stories for him, to turn another prose story into a libretto. This
15015-712: The sexless and innocent", and Pears once wrote to Britten: "remember there are lovely things in the world still – children, boys, sunshine, the sea, Mozart, you and me." In public, the matter was little discussed during Britten's lifetime and much discussed after it. Carpenter 's 1992 biography closely examined the evidence, as do later studies of Britten, most particularly John Bridcut 's Britten's Children (2006), which concentrates on Britten's friendships and relationships with various children and adolescents. Some commentators have continued to question Britten's conduct, sometimes very sharply. Carpenter and Bridcut conclude that he held any sexual impulses under firm control and kept
15158-417: The skill of amateur pianists, which limited classical ragtime's complexity and proliferation. A folk ragtime tradition also existed before and during the period of classical ragtime (a designation largely created by Scott Joplin's publisher John Stillwell Stark ), manifesting itself mostly through string bands, banjo and mandolin clubs (which experienced a burst of popularity during the early 20th century) and
15301-560: The sleeve note: Once upon a time there was a prep-school boy. ... He was quite an ordinary little boy ... he loved cricket, only quite liked football (although he kicked a pretty "corner"); he adored mathematics, got on all right with history, was scared by Latin Unseen; he behaved fairly well, only ragged the recognised amount, so that his contacts with the cane or the slipper were happily rare (although one nocturnal expedition to stalk ghosts left its marks behind); he worked his way up
15444-598: The song "You've Been a Good Old Wagon But You Done Broke Down" the following year in 1896. The composition was a hit and helped popularize the genre to the mainstream. Another early ragtime pioneer was comedian and songwriter Irving Jones . Ragtime was also a modification of the march style popularized by John Philip Sousa . Jazz critic Rudi Blesh thought its polyrhythm may be coming from African music, although no historian or musicologist has made any connection with any music from Africa. Ragtime composer Scott Joplin ( ca. 1868–1917) from Texas, became famous through
15587-519: The song cycle Our Hunting Fathers (1936), radical both in politics and musical treatment, and subsequently other works including Cabaret Songs , On This Island , Paul Bunyan and Hymn to St Cecilia . Auden was a considerable influence on Britten, encouraging him to widen his aesthetic, intellectual and political horizons, and also to come to terms with his homosexuality. Auden was, as David Matthews puts it, "cheerfully and guiltlessly promiscuous"; Britten, puritanical and conventional by nature,
15730-479: The struggle of an outsider against a hostile society and the corruption of innocence. Britten's other works range from orchestral to choral, solo vocal, chamber and instrumental as well as film music. He took a great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, including the opera Noye's Fludde , a Missa Brevis , and the song collection Friday Afternoons . He often composed with particular performers in mind. His most frequent and important muse
15873-502: The style with two preludes for piano: Minstrels , (1910) and General Lavine-excentric (from his 1913 Préludes ), which was inspired by a Médrano circus clown. Erik Satie , Arthur Honegger , Darius Milhaud , and the other members of Les Six in Paris never made any secret of their sympathy for ragtime, which is sometimes evident in their works. Consider, in particular, the ballet of Satie, Parade (Ragtime du Paquebot), (1917) and La Mort de Monsieur Mouche , an overture for piano for
16016-497: The subject. Though nothing came of the idea at the time, the concept did not wither and, more than 40 years later, on 5 January 1888, Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury submitted to the by then long-widowed Queen a draft constitution for an Order of Merit in Science and Art, consisting of one grade split into two branches of knighthood: the Order of Scientific Merit, for Knights of Merit in Science, with
16159-493: The success that Frank Bridge had enjoyed in the US; the departure of Auden and his friend Christopher Isherwood to the US from England three months previously; hostile or belittling reviews of Britten's music in the English press; and under-rehearsed and inadequate performances. Britten and Pears consummated their relationship and from then until Britten's death they were partners in both their professional and personal lives. When
16302-544: The term was invented by Lord Harewood. Both Mackerras and Harewood joined the list of corpses, the former for joking that the number of boys in Noye's Fludde must have been a delight to the composer, and the latter for an extramarital affair and subsequent divorce from Lady Harewood , which shocked the puritanical Britten. Among other corpses were his librettists Montagu Slater and Eric Crozier . The latter said in 1949, "He has sometimes told me, jokingly, that one day I would join
16445-597: The title Stand-Walk Marche ; it was later subtitled Intermezzo Americain when Rouarts-Lerolle reprinted it in 1919. Piccadilly , another march, was initially titled The Transatlantique ; it presented a stereotypical wealthy American heir sailing on an ocean liner on the New York–Europe route, going to trade his fortune for an aristocratic title in Europe. There is a similar influence in Milhaud's ballets Le boeuf sur le toite and Creation du Monde , which he wrote after
16588-491: The triennial Norfolk and Norwich Festival in October 1924, he heard Frank Bridge 's orchestral poem The Sea , conducted by the composer. It was the first substantial piece of modern music he had ever encountered, and he was, in his own phrase, "knocked sideways" by it. Audrey Alston was a friend of Bridge; when he returned to Norwich for the next festival in 1927 she brought her not quite 14-year-old pupil to meet him. Bridge
16731-444: The twentieth century". In 1967 the BBC commissioned Britten to write an opera specially for television. Owen Wingrave was based, like The Turn of the Screw , on a ghost story by Henry James . By the 1960s Britten found composition much slower than in his prolific youth; he told the 28-year-old composer Nicholas Maw , "Get as much done now as you can, because it gets much, much more difficult as you grow older." He did not complete
16874-470: The work was much enhanced when Koussevitzky took it up shortly afterwards. In 1942 Britten read the work of the poet George Crabbe for the first time. The Borough , set on the Suffolk coast close to Britten's homeland, awakened in him such longings for England that he knew he must return. He also knew that he must write an opera based on Crabbe's poem about the fisherman Peter Grimes. Before Britten left
17017-443: The worlds of ragtime and opera , to which end the opera Treemonisha was written. However, its first performance, poorly staged with Joplin accompanying on the piano, was "disastrous" and was never performed again in Joplin's lifetime. The score was lost for decades, then rediscovered in 1970, and a fully orchestrated and staged performance took place in 1972. An earlier opera by Joplin, A Guest of Honor , has been lost. The rag
17160-436: The year he got to know Pears while they were both helping to clear out the country cottage of a mutual friend who had died in an air crash. Pears quickly became Britten's musical inspiration and close (though for the moment platonic) friend. Britten's first work for him was composed within weeks of their meeting, a setting of Emily Brontë 's poem, "A thousand gleaming fires", for tenor and strings. During 1937 Britten composed
17303-553: The youngest person ever inducted into the Order, having been admitted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1968, when he was 47 years old. Robin Eames , Baron Eames represented the order at the coronation of Charles III and Camilla on 6 May 2023. All citizens of the Commonwealth realms are eligible for appointment to the Order of Merit. There may be, however, only 24 living individuals in the order at any given time, not including honorary appointees, and new members are personally selected by
17446-779: Was Thomas Mann 's novella Death in Venice , a subject he had been considering for some time. At an early stage in composition Britten was told by his doctors that a heart operation was essential if he was to live for more than two years. He was determined to finish the opera and worked urgently to complete it before going into hospital for surgery. His long-term colleague Colin Graham wrote: Perhaps of all his works, this one went deepest into Britten's own soul: there are extraordinary cross-currents of affinity between himself, his own state of health and mind, Thomas Mann, Aschenbach (Mann's dying protagonist), and Peter Pears, who must have had to tear himself in three in order to reconstitute himself as
17589-475: Was a Top 5 hit in 1975. Ragtime – with Joplin's work at the forefront – has been cited as an American equivalent of the minuets of Mozart , the mazurkas of Chopin , or the waltzes of Brahms . Ragtime also influenced classical composers including Erik Satie , Claude Debussy , and Igor Stravinsky . Ragtime originated in African American music in the late 19th century and descended from
17732-426: Was a modification of the march made popular by John Philip Sousa , with additional polyrhythms coming from African music. It was usually written in 4 or 4 time with a predominant left-hand pattern of bass notes on strong beats (beats 1 and 3) and chords on weak beats (beat 2 and 4) accompanying a syncopated melody in the right hand. According to some sources the name "ragtime" may come from
17875-431: Was a star pupil. The school had no musical tradition, and Britten continued to study the piano with Ethel Astle. From the age of ten he took viola lessons from a friend of his mother, Audrey Alston, who had been a professional player before her marriage. In his spare time he composed prolifically. When his Simple Symphony , based on these juvenilia, was recorded in 1956, Britten wrote this pen-portrait of his young self for
18018-591: Was a talented amateur musician and secretary of the Lowestoft Musical Society. In the English provinces of the early 20th century, distinctions of social class were taken very seriously. Britten described his family as "very ordinary middle class", but there were aspects of the Brittens that were not ordinary: Edith's father was illegitimate, and her mother was an alcoholic; Robert Britten was an agnostic and refused to attend church on Sundays. Music
18161-498: Was associated with a few musical fads of the period such as the foxtrot . Many of the terms associated with ragtime have inexact definitions and are defined differently by different experts; the definitions are muddled further by the fact that publishers often labelled pieces for the fad of the moment rather than the true style of the composition. There is even disagreement about the term "ragtime" itself; experts such as David Jasen and Trebor Tichenor choose to exclude ragtime songs from
18304-627: Was equally unflattering about Pears's voice. Robinson surmises that Thomson was motivated by "a mixture of spite, national pride, and professional jealousy." Paul Bunyan met with wholesale critical disapproval, and the Sinfonia da Requiem (already rejected by its Japanese sponsors because of its overtly Christian nature) received a mixed reception when Barbirolli and the New York Philharmonic premiered it in March 1941. The reputation of
18447-519: Was eventually dissuaded by his parents, on the advice of the RCM staff. The first of Britten's compositions to attract wide attention were composed while at the RCM: the Sinfonietta , Op. 1 (1932), the oboe quartet Phantasy , Op. 2, dedicated to Léon Goossens who played the first performance in a BBC broadcast on 6 August 1933, and a set of choral variations A Boy was Born , written in 1933 for
18590-652: Was held at Aldeburgh Parish Church three days later, and he was buried in its churchyard, with a gravestone carved by Reynolds Stone . The authorities at Westminster Abbey had offered burial there, but Britten had made it clear that he wished his grave to be side by side with that, in due course, of Pears. A memorial service was held at the Abbey on 10 March 1977, at which the congregation was headed by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother . Despite his large number of works on Christian themes, Britten has sometimes been thought of as an agnostic. Pears said that when they met in 1937 he
18733-532: Was his personal and professional partner, the tenor Peter Pears ; others included Kathleen Ferrier , Jennifer Vyvyan , Janet Baker , Dennis Brain , Julian Bream , Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau , Osian Ellis and Mstislav Rostropovich . Britten was a celebrated pianist and conductor, performing many of his own works in concert and on record. He also performed and recorded works by others, such as Bach 's Brandenburg Concertos , Mozart symphonies, and song cycles by Schubert and Schumann . Together with Pears and
18876-513: Was impressed with the boy, and after they had gone through some of Britten's compositions together he invited him to come to London to take lessons from him. Robert Britten, supported by Thomas Sewell, doubted the wisdom of pursuing a composing career; a compromise was agreed by which Britten would, as planned, go on to his public school the following year but would make regular day-trips to London to study composition with Bridge and piano with his colleague Harold Samuel . Bridge impressed on Britten
19019-539: Was never a member of any party, except the Peace Pledge Union. Physically, Britten was never robust. He walked and swam regularly and kept himself as fit as he could, but in his 1992 biography, Carpenter mentions 20 illnesses, a few of them minor but most fairly serious, suffered over the years by Britten before his final heart complaint developed. Emotionally, according to some commentators, Britten never completely grew up, retaining in his outlook something of
19162-502: Was not sure whether or not Britten would have described himself as a Christian. In the 1960s Britten called himself a dedicated Christian, though sympathetic to the radical views propounded by the Bishop of Woolwich in Honest to God . Politically, Britten was on the left. He told Pears that he always voted either Liberal or Labour and could not imagine ever voting Conservative , but he
19305-515: Was not, and learned little from him. He continued to study privately with Bridge, although he later praised Ireland for "nurs[ing] me very gently through a very, very difficult musical adolescence." Britten also used his time in London to attend concerts and become better acquainted with the music of Stravinsky , Shostakovich and, most particularly, Mahler . He intended postgraduate study in Vienna with Alban Berg , Arnold Schoenberg 's student, but
19448-430: Was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott Joplin , James Scott , and Joseph Lamb . Ragtime pieces (often called "rags") are typically composed for and performed on piano , though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles. Ragtime music originated within African American communities in the late 19th century and became a distinctly American form of popular music. It
19591-581: Was probably at the Paris Exposition in 1900, one of the stages of the European tour of John Philip Sousa. The first notable classical composer to take a serious interest in ragtime was Antonín Dvořák . French composer Claude Debussy emulated ragtime in three pieces for piano. The best-known remains the Golliwog's Cake Walk (from the 1908 Piano Suite Children's Corner ). He later returned to
19734-525: Was seven years old, and three years later began to play the viola . He was one of the last composers brought up on exclusively live music: his father refused to have a gramophone or, later, a radio in the house. When he was seven Britten was sent to a dame school , run by the Misses Astle. The younger sister, Ethel, gave him piano lessons; in later life he said that he remained grateful for the excellence of her teaching. The following year he moved on to
19877-500: Was sexually repressed. In the three years from 1935 to 1937 Britten wrote nearly 40 scores for the theatre, cinema and radio. Among the film music of the late 1930s Matthews singles out Night Mail and Love from a Stranger (1937); from the theatre music he selects for mention The Ascent of F6 (1936), On the Frontier (1938), and Johnson Over Jordan (1939); and of the music for radio, King Arthur (1937) and The Sword in
20020-717: Was the music of the East, an interest that was fostered by a tour there with Pears in 1956, when Britten once again encountered the music of the Balinese gamelan and saw for the first time Japanese Noh plays, which he called "some of the most wonderful drama I have ever seen." These eastern influences were seen and heard in the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (1957) and later in two of the three semi-operatic "Parables for Church Performance": Curlew River (1964), The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966) and The Prodigal Son (1968). By
20163-429: Was the principal means by which Edith Britten strove to maintain the family's social standing, inviting the pillars of the local community to musical soirées at the house. When Britten was three months old he contracted pneumonia and nearly died. The illness left him with a damaged heart, and doctors warned his parents that he would probably never be able to lead a normal life. He recovered more fully than expected, and as
20306-418: Was to produce and commission new English operas and other works, presenting them throughout the country. Britten wrote the comic opera Albert Herring for the group in 1947; while on tour in the new work Pears came up with the idea of mounting a festival in the small Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh , where Britten had moved from Snape earlier in the year, and which became his principal place of residence for
20449-497: Was twice winner of the Ernest Farrar Prize for composition. Despite these honours, he was not greatly impressed by the establishment: he found his fellow-students "amateurish and folksy" and the staff "inclined to suspect technical brilliance of being superficial and insincere." Another Ireland pupil, the composer Humphrey Searle , said that Ireland could be "an inspiring teacher to those on his own wavelength"; Britten
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