Britten: Nocturne

Folk Britannia

Britten's Children

Ken Russell's ABC of British Music

Benjamin Britten: A Time There Was…

Benjamin Britten and His Festival

The Burning Fiery Furnace

Benjamin Britten's War Requiem

Benjamin Britten - In Rehearsal and Performance with Peter Pears

Britten: War Requiem

Benjamin Britten: Válečné rekviem

Peter Grimes - Polish National Opera

Peter Grimes

The Turn of the Screw - I Teatri di Reggio Emilia

Le Songe d’une nuit d’été - Opéra de Lille

A Midsummer Night's Dream - RSO

The Turn of the Screw

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Britten Death in Venice

Gloriana

Benjamin Britten: Billy Budd

Britten: The Rape of Lucretia

Peter Grimes on Aldeburgh Beach

Britten: Gloriana

Death in Venice

Britten: Death in Venice

Britten: Peter Grimes

Benjamin Britten - A Midsummer Night's Dream

Owen Wingrave

Billy Budd

Jak se dělá opera

War Requiem

Fanny and Alexander

The Selfish Giant

Gay/Britten:  The Beggar's Opera

Los artistas plásticos de Chile

Instruments of the Orchestra

Advance Democracy!

Around the Village Green

Love from a Stranger

People of Britain

Night Mail

Calendar of the Year

Message from Genova

Sixpenny Telegram

The King's Stamp

Coal Face

Cable Ship

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten  (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).
Britten was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist. He showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-scale operas for Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden, he wrote chamber operas for small forces, suitable for performance in venues of modest size. Among the best known of these is The Turn of the Screw (1954). Recurring themes in his operas include the struggle of an outsider against a hostile society and the corruption of innocence.
Britten's other works range from orchestral to choral, solo vocal, chamber and instrumental as well as film music. He took a great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, including the opera Noye's Fludde, a Missa Brevis, and the song collection Friday Afternoons. He often composed with particular performers in mind. His most frequent and important muse was his personal and professional partner, the tenor Peter Pears; others included Kathleen Ferrier, Jennifer Vyvyan, Janet Baker, Dennis Brain, Julian Bream, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Osian Ellis and Mstislav Rostropovich. Britten was a celebrated pianist and conductor, performing many of his own works in concert and on record. He also performed and recorded works by others, such as Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, Mozart symphonies, and song cycles by Schubert and Schumann.
Together with Pears and the librettist and producer Eric Crozier, Britten founded the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, and he was responsible for the creation of Snape Maltings concert hall in 1967. In 1976, he was the first composer to be given a life peerage. He died shortly afterwards, aged 63.



Benjamin Britten