More about the composer
Benjamin Britten
One of the 20th Century’s foremost composers, Benjamin Britten has become one of modern opera’s most prominent names.
Britten was born in 1913 to Robert Britten (a dentist) and wife Edith (a civil service clerk) in the town of Lowestoft on the east coast of England. As a teenager, he heard the music of British composer Frank Bridge at a concert, and was so overwhelmed by it that he resolved to go and study with Bridge at the Royal College of Music in London. There he was exposed to the newest and most exciting developments in classical music – composers including Schoenberg, Berg, Shostakovich, Ravel and Debussy – all of whom became influential in finding his own voice as a composer. Britten was also heavily influenced by eastern music, having toured several countries in 1956 with Peter Pears. Nowhere is this more evident than in Curlew River, a piece based on a Japanese ‘noh’ play, featuring characteristically eastern harmonies and gamelan influences.
Britten’s operas are amongst the most performed of any 20th-century composer worldwide. Written for varying sizes of company, Britten’s operas often mirrored aspects of the composer’s own life. As a pacifist and homosexual man in the mid 20th century, Britten’s operas often reflected his own sense of alienation in focusing on protagonists at odds with society in one way or another.
