Britten of Aldeburgh, Benjamin Britten, Baron

Britten of Aldeburgh, (Edward) Benjamin Britten, Baron

Britten, 1960

(credit: Camera Press)

(born Nov. 22, 1913, Lowestoft, Suffolk, Eng.—died Dec. 4, 1976, Aldeburgh, Suffolk) British composer. He studied at the Royal College of Music, where he met the tenor Peter Pears (1910–86), who would become his lifelong companion. His auspicious Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937), for string orchestra, won him international acclaim. In 1945 his opera Peter Grimes established him as a leading opera composer. In 1948 he cofounded the Aldeburgh Festival, which became one of the most important English music festivals and the centre of Britten's musical activities. His operas include The Rape of Lucretia (1946), The Turn of the Screw (1954), and Death in Venice (1973); they are admired for their skillful setting of English words and their orchestral interludes, as well as for their dramatic aptness and depth of psychological characterization. His large choral work War Requiem (1961) was greatly acclaimed. His best-known orchestral piece is The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946). In 1976 he became the first British composer in history to be ennobled.