Britten's Children
About this book
Britten's Children confronts the edgy subject of the composer's obsessional yet strangely innocent relationships with adolescent boys. One of the hallmarks of Benjamin Britten's music is his use of boys' voices, and John Bridcut uses this to create a fresh prism through which to view the composer's life. Interweaving discussion of the music he wrote for and about children with interviews with the boys whom Britten befriended, Bridcut explores the influence of these unique friendships - notably with the late David Hemmings - and how they helped Britten maintain links with his own happy childhood.
In a remarkable part of the book Bridcut tells for the first time the full story of Britten's love affair in the 1930s with the 18-year-old German Wulff Scherchen, son of the conductor Hermann Scherchen. As Paul Hoggart of
The Times commented, 'this type of love belonged to an emotional landscape that has vanished for ever, and we are the poorer for it'. Since making the film, the author has extended his research to include friendships Britten had with children which have not previously been documented.
The documentary
Britten's Children won the Royal Philharmonic Society's 2005 Award for Creative Communication: 'this serious and beautiful film explored one aspect of a composer's life in great depth. Avoiding the temptation of sensationalism,
Britten's Children was imaginatively researched and both touching and revelatory'.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Chronological table of Britten’s works mentioned in the text
- CHAPTER 1 : It’s because I’m still thirteen
- CHAPTER 2 : Britten’s at it again!
- CHAPTER 3 : Towards a world unknown
- CHAPTER 4 : The wider world of man
- CHAPTER 5 : Full marks for that boy!
- CHAPTER 6 : Lost to the worlds
- CHAPTER 7 : So young Apollo anguish’d
- CHAPTER 8 : Peter and the Wulff
- CHAPTER 9 : The happy dirty driving boys
- CHAPTER 10 : His undying friends
- CHAPTER 11 : Go play, boy, play
- CHAPTER 12 : Malo … than a naughty boy
- CHAPTER 13 : For I am but a child
- CHAPTER 14 : The coming of the fludde
- CHAPTER 15 : Keep on writing
- CHAPTER 16 : No one should be smiled at like that
- CHAPTER 17 : A time there was …
- Acknowledgements
- Select Bibliography
- Sources
- Index
- Plates
- About the Author
- Copyright
