大象传媒

Donald Macleod explores the Suffolk landscape that drew Britten back from America.

It was a talk by EM Forster that did it. Although the ex-patriate Benjamin Britten wasn鈥檛 able to hear Forster鈥檚 talk on the wireless. He was then basking in the Southern Californian sunshine in Escondido, just north of San Diego, Somehow a copy of The Listener magazine reached him there: possibly his friend WH Auden had sent it from New York.

In it was Forster鈥檚 article about the 18th century poet George Crabbe who鈥檇 been born at Aldeburgh in Suffolk and whose poems were steeped in the atmosphere of that part of the east coast. A famous [poem of Crabbe鈥檚],鈥� Forster wrote, 鈥渋s Peter Grimes: he was a savage fisherman who murdered his apprentices and was haunted by their ghosts.鈥� Britten was immediately transported to the misty, salt-tanged shingle beaches of Suffolk, echoing to the lonely calls of sea-birds. He felt a pang of homesickness, of nostalgia, of recognition, a feeling of where he ought to be. It was an epiphany. Britten said later: 鈥淚n a flash I realised two things: that I must write an opera, and where I belonged and what I lacked.鈥�

Peter Grimes, Prologue
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Benjamin Britten, conductor

Peter Grimes, 鈥淥ld Joe has gone fishing鈥�
Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House
Colin Davis, conductor

Four Sea Interludes
New York Philharmonic Orchestra
Leonard Bernstein, conductor

Dark Tower (extract)

Oliver Cromwell (Folk Song Arrangements)
Philip Langridge, tenor
Graham Johnson, piano

The Young Person鈥檚 Guide to the Orchestra
English Chamber Orchestra
Benjamin Britten, conductor

Peter Grimes, 鈥淓mbroidery in Childhood鈥�
Erin Wall, soprano
Roderick Williams, baritone
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Edward Gardner, conductor