Sources: abbreviated list
L: Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten 1913–1976, Volumes 1 and 2, ed Donald Mitchell and Philip Reed (Faber & Faber, London, 1991). The first two volumes of a projected multi-volume series cover the years 1923 to 1945 and are an essential guide to understanding Britten’s life and personality as a youth and young man. Donald Mitchell’s introduction and the copious footnotes provide massive additional insight.
D: Britten’s diaries, 1928–1938, unpublished (though substantial extracts appear in Volume 1 of Letters from a Life) – The Britten–Pears Library, Aldeburgh. Britten wrote daily entries in pocket diaries from 1928 until November 1937, and they continue with some gaps until the last entry on 16 June 1938, after which he only recorded appointments. At the start the entries tend to be brief and impersonal, but the record of the last few years forms a rich and revealing autobiography.
HC: Humphrey Carpenter, Benjamin Britten: a Biography (Faber & Faber, London, 1992). This first comprehensive biography provides an uninhibitedly frank account of Britten’s life and a personal response to his music. Carpenter’s assiduous research and his many interviews with Britten’s surviving friends and acquaintances give his book an impressive depth.
1 Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (Victor Gollancz, London, 1962), p.172
2 Transcript of interview by Donald Mitchell with Peter Pears for The Tenor Man’s Story, directed by Barrie Gavin, Central Television, 1985
3 Interview with Henry Comer, CBC, 11 April 1968
4 Beth Britten, My Brother Benjamin (Kensal Press, Bourne End, 1986), p.17
5 D, 15 May 1937
6 Letter from Britten to Eric Walter White, 2 December 1953
7 L, p.12
8 L, p.81
9 L, p.107
10 ‘Britten Looking Back’, Sunday Telegraph, London, 17 November 1963, p.9
11 Ibid
12 L, p.101
13 D, 11 May 1933
14 D, 21 September 1928
15 D, 24 June 1929
16 Murray Schafer, British Composers in Interview (Faber & Faber, London, 1963), p.119
17 D, 1 February 1930
18 L, p.224
19 D, 13 March 1929
20 D, 20 November 1929
21 D, 7 April 1930
22 Information from Jennifer Doctor
23 HC, p.32
24 L, p.191
25 D, 27 July 1930
26 D, 31 July 1930
27 D, 1 August 1930
28 High Fidelity Magazine, December 1959
29 L, p.133
30 L, p.133
31 D, 22 October 1931
32 D, 26 February 1931
33 D, 3 December 1930
34 L, p.351
35 D, 20 September 1930
36 D, 6 May 1931
37 D, 4 February 1931
38 D, 31 July 1934
39 D, 28 January 1931
40 D, 27 January 1932
41 D, 9 January 1931
42 L, p.202
43 D, 23 September 1930
44 ‘On Behalf of Gustav Mahler’, Tempo, 2/2, American Series, February 1942, p.5; reprinted in Tempo, 120, March 1977, p.14
45 D, 6 May 1931
46 D, 2 February 1936
47 Ralph Vaughan Williams, National Music and Other Essays (Oxford University Press, 1987), p.187
48 D, 23 March 1936
49 D, 22 July 1932
50 D, 25 February 1936
51 D, 8 February 1933
52 D, 13 February 1933
53 ‘Britten Looking Back’
54 L, p.391
55 D, 19 April 1936
56 D, 30 November 1936
57 D, 22 December 1932
58 L. p.297
59 L, p.319
60 D, 13 November 1934
61 D, 5 July 1935
62 D, 6 March 1937
63 D, 18 March 1936
64 Beth Britten, My Brother Benjamin, p.92
65 HC, p.88
66 D, 31 January 1937
67 Sigmund Freud, translated James Strachey, ‘Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality’, in The Penguin Freud Library, vol 7 (Penguin Books, London, 1977), p.56
68 L, p.18
69 D, opening entry 1936
70 D, 3 February 1936
71 D, 22 April 1936
72 D, 12 January 1937
73 HC, pp.20–25
74 D, 15 April 1936
75 D, 11 April 1937
76 Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and his Kind: 1929–1936 (Avon Books, New York, 1977), pp.267–8
77 Donald Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties (Faber & Faber, London, 1981), p.149
78 L, p.503
79 D, 28 July 1937
80 Aaron Copland and Vivian Perlis, Copland: 1900 through 1942 (Faber & Faber, London, 1984), p.293
81 L, p.577
82 Letter from Auden to Britten, undated (August 1938)
83 L, pp.562–3
84 Letter from Lennox Berkeley to Britten, 24 December 1938
85 L, p.605
86 Interview with Donald Mitchell, 15 September 1989 – The Britten–Pears Library
87 Letter from Wulff Scherchen to Britten, 19 January 1939; Letter from Britten to Wulff Scherchen, 22 January 1939
88 L, p.603
89 L, p.618
90 Interview with Donald Mitchell, 15 September 1989
91 L, p.634
92 L, p.644
93 L, p.663
94 L, p.665
95 L, p.759
96 Letter from Britten to Wulff Scherchen, 9 June 1939
97 L, p.668
98 L, p.702
99 L, p.724
100 Mervyn Cooke, Britten and the Far East (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1998), pp.23–49
101 L, p.714
102 Christopher Palmer, ‘The Orchestral Song-Cycles’, in Palmer, ed, The Britten Companion (Faber & Faber, London, 1984), p.312
103 L, p.715
104 HC, p.147
105 L, p.759
106 L, p.849
107 L, p.921
108 BBC radio broadcast, 11 August 1965
109 Interview with Donald Mitchell, 23 October 1992 – The Britten–Pears Library
110 Interview with Mark Doran, April 1988, subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio York
111 L, pp.1037–8
112 L, p.1037
113 L, p.1046
114 L, p.1151
115 Imogen Holst’s Diary, 10 October 1952 – The Britten–Pears Library
116 Michael Tippett, Those Twentieth Century Blues (Hutchinson, London, 1991), p.117
117 Ibid, p.117
118 L, p.1083
119 L, p.1088
120 L, p.1144
121 L, p.1037
122 Philip Brett, ed, Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes (Cambridge Opera Handbooks, 1983), p.105
123 L, p.1037
124 Philip Brett, ed, Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes, p.149
125 Ibid, p.149
126 L, p.1128
127 L, p.1268
128 L, p.1089
129 HC, p.228
130 L, p.1285
131 Letter from Britten to Pears, 24 January 1946
132 John Betjeman’s Collected Poems (John Murray, London, 1958), p.80
133 Letter from Britten to Imogen Holst, 22 August 1946
134 HC, p.239
135 Letter from Tippett to Britten, undated, but either 21 or 28 July 1946
136 Britten and others, The Rape of Lucretia, a Symposium (The Bodley Head, London, 1948), p.8
137 HC, p.242
138 HC, p.240
139 L, p.65
140 Letter from Britten to Pears, 17 March 1948
141 Eric Walter White, Stravinsky: the Composer and his Works (Faber & Faber, London, 1966), p.480
142 Eric Crozier, ‘Notes on Benjamin Britten’, unpublished – The Britten–Pears Library
143 Donald Mitchell and Hans Keller, ed, Music Survey: 1949–1952 (Faber Music, London, 1981), vol II, p.237
144 Aldeburgh Festival Programme Book, 1949, p.30
145 HC, eg pp.319–21, 376–7, 520–29
146 Alan Blyth, Remembering Britten (Hutchinson, London, 1981), p.139
147 Letter from Forster to Britten, undated (early December 1950), quoted in P N Furbank, E M Forster: A Life (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York and London), Vol II, p.285
148 Donald Mitchell and Hans Keller, eds, Benjamin Britten: A Commentary on his Works from a Group of Specialists (Rockliff, London, 1952)
149 Imogen Holst’s diary, 5 February 1953
150 Letter from Britten to Marion Harewood, 4 March 1951
151 Letter from Britten to Crozier, 7 December 1951
152 Letter from Crozier to Britten, 8 December 1951
153 HC, p.305
154 George, Earl of Harewood, The Tongs and the Bones: The Memoirs of Lord Harewood (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1981), p.134
155 Eric Crozier, ‘Notes on Benjamin Britten’
156 Britten to Plomer, 24 July 1952
157 Britten to Basil Coleman, 6 October 1952
158 Paul Banks, ed, Britten’s Gloriana: Essays and Sources (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1993), p.21
159 Ibid, p.13
160 Ibid, p.67
161 Letter from Britten to Plomer, undated (July 1953)
162 D, 1 June 1932
163 Henry James, The Art of the Novel: Critical Prefaces, ed Richard P Blackmur (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1934), p.176
164 Patricia Howard, ed, Benjamin Britten: The Turn of the Screw (Cambridge Opera Handbooks, 1985), p.106
165 Letter from Britten to Myfanwy Piper, 3 January 1954
166 HC, p.358
167 Letter from Britten to Edith Sitwell, 28 April 1955
168 Letter from Britten to Edith Sitwell, 27 September 1954
169 Britten to Barbara Britten, 26 December 1954
170 Ronald Duncan, Working with Britten: A Personal Memoir (The Rebel Press, Welcombe, 1981), p.132
171 Letter from Britten to Roger Duncan, 11 March 1956
172 Letter from Britten to Imogen Holst, 17 January 1956
173 Duncan, Working with Britten, p.136
174 Beth Britten, My Brother Benjamin, p.192
175 Letter from Britten to Edith Sitwell, 14 December 1957
176 Letter from Britten to Edith Sitwell, 3 March 1959
177 Beth Britten, My Brother Benjamin, p.192
178 Blyth, Remembering Britten, p.97
179 Christopher Palmer, ed, The Britten Companion, p.179
180 Letter from Britten to Pears, 17 January 1961
181 Letter from Britten to Plomer, 15 April 1959
182 Letter from Britten to John Piper, 25 January 1964
183 Duncan, Working with Britten, p.86
184 Letter from Britten to Pears, 17 November 1964
185 Letter from Britten to Menuhin, 16 May 1965
186 Letter from Britten to Rosamund Strode, 29 January 1965
187 The Travel Diaries of Peter Pears 1936–1978, ed Philip Reed (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1995), pp.132–3
188 Letter from Britten to Plomer, 20 February 1968
189 Letter from Britten to Ronan Magill, 1 April 1970
190 HC, p.565
191 This letter is undated
192 The Travel Diaries of Peter Pears, p.173
193 Hans Keller: Essays on Music, ed Christopher Wintle (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p.111
194 A time there was…: A Profile of Benjamin Britten, directed by Tony Palmer, London Weekend Television, 1980