2026 marks fifty years since the death of Benjamin Britten, founding composer of Faber Music and among the titans of British musical history. A composer whose catalogue left an indelible imprint on music in Britain and internationally, today his orchestral, stage, and chamber works represents high points of the repertoire; see the Faber Music Benjamin Britten catalogue here.
The fiftieth anniversary of Britten’s death has been marked by a focus at the 2026 Aldeburgh Festival, the spiritual home of his work, founded over 75 years ago with Peter Pears. We asked our composers what Britten’s music means to them and to point to their own personal highlights from his work.
As a 16 year-old schoolboy, I can clearly recall the shock of hearing the announcement on the 1pm BBC news that Britten had died. Half a century later, my feelings can only be of admiration for all that this extraordinary musical figure achieved – beyond his own works, the magnificent festival he founded and his pioneering efforts in musical education, along with the foundation of a music publisher whose strength and prominence might even have exceeded his highest expectations.
Among Britten’s works, Death in Venice and the Elegy for solo viola have perhaps left the deepest impression. Having spent several seasons in Aldeburgh, I often felt the presence of Britten there very strongly... the landscape, the sea, and the atmosphere of introspection seem inseparable from his music.
What I admire most is his ability to achieve extraordinary expressive power through clarity and economy of means. In both works, every timbre, gesture, and harmonic inflection carries dramatic significance, creating music that is at once sophisticated and profoundly communicative. The Elegy in particular remains for me a masterclass in how form, memory, and transformation can generate an intense psychological narrative with the utmost concision of material.
While recognising the immense talent and importance of Benjamin Britten and his music, I confess a degree of ambivalence – the same I feel, as it happens, with Shostakovich.
But then we have undisputed masterpieces. I can’t say that I’ve been diving deep into Britten’s œuvre, but as a teenager I remember singing bass in a choir that performed, A Hymn to the Virgin, which left a strong impression on me for its exquisite simplicity and superb harmonic control. I just learned he wrote it when he was only 16 (!)
The other usual suspects that made an impact are, of course, The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra and Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes. Again, it was the profound simplicity and clarity, combined with Britten’s mastery of orchestral colour, that resonated so deeply with me. In an era where many composers confuse complexity with complication, Britten’s music is an excellent illustration of the former.
When I was a high school student playing in the Wollongong Conservatorium String Orchestra, we performed Britten's cantata, St Nicolas. My memories of this are so vivid -- I can still remember the music extremely well, 40+ years later, as well as some of the notational and spatial techniques that were mind-blowing to my young and inexperienced brain. The sopranos singing from the back of the hall, the Pickled Boys, the tenor soloist writing all got me thinking that there was still so much to explore and learn about. I like to think that it was one of the pieces of music that inspired me to become a composer.
To play the harpsichord for the first time with Britten at my side was an extraordinary experience. But it had been equally difficult to prepare a vocal score from Britten’s full score : his physical limitations meant that instead of following his normal practice of sketching on 2 or 3 staves, he composed Phaedra in full score. When I had made the vocal score of Death in Venice it was more a matter of tidying up the sketch than what amounted, with Phaedra, to reducing sometimes complicated string textures into a playable piano score.
And then I had to play it for him - as a mediocre pianist this was a major challenge for me, although Britten was able to help out with his still strong left hand: after more than 50 years I still have in my head the vocal line ‘The wife of Theseus loves Hippolytus’, which he played in octaves. He had not quite made up his mind how the piece was going to end, and to be asked which version I thought was better was not an easy question to answer.
Rehearsals with Janet Baker were equally memorable, and the first performance in June 1976 at Aldeburgh unforgettable, especially as I was able to meet Robert Lowell. This was the last concert of his music at which Britten, now very frail, was present. It’s impossible for me to hear this work and shut out all the attendant memories, but it never fails to move.
Next Month: David Matthews on Owen Wingrave