Britten, (Edward) Benjamin, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh

Britten, (Edward) Benjamin, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (1913-1976), British composer, whose operas are among the finest of the 20th century. Born on November 22, 1913, in Lowestoft, England, he was trained at the Royal College of Music, London. From 1939 to 1942 Britten lived in Canada and the United States and produced a violin concerto (1939) and the Sinfonia da Requiem (1940). From the mid-1930s he had collaborated with W. H. Auden on a number of works, including the song cycles On This Island (1937) and Our Hunting Fathers (1936). In New York this association continued with Britten's first opera, Paul Bunyan (1941). His breakthrough came with the opera Peter Grimes (1945), based on part of The Borough by George Crabbe. He followed it with The Rape of Lucretia (1946); Albert Herring (1947); Billy Budd (1951), based on a novella by Herman Melville; Gloriana (1953), written to celebrate the coronation of Elizabeth II; The Turn of the Screw (1954), from a short story by Henry James; and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), from William Shakespeare. His later operatic works include Owen Wingrave (1970, written for BBC Television), based on a story by James, and Death in Venice (1973), based on a story by Thomas Mann. Britten termed some of his later works “chamber operas”, because they require an orchestra of only 12 players.

Britten composed in many other forms, principally music for voices such as the cantata-like works he called “church parables”, including Noye's Fludde (1957) and The Prodigal Son (1968). His War Requiem (1961) is a massive choral work combining verses from the war poetry of Wilfred Owen with the Latin Requiem text, written for the dedication of Coventry Cathedral. In addition, he produced incidental music for plays and films; song cycles; and music for children, including The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946). His instrumental music includes three string quartets (1941, 1945, 1975), and a number of cello works for the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Britten's works range in style from the simplest, most lyrical tonality to complex but dramatically effective atonality.

In 1948 he and the tenor Sir Peter Pears—who was Britten's life partner as well as the definitive interpreter of many of his vocal works and operatic roles—founded the Aldeburgh Festival, now an important year-round centre for performances and teaching at the Britten-Pears School. In 1976 Elizabeth II granted him a life peerage. He died in Aldeburgh on December 4, 1976.