VIII - ‘My days are not empty’: January to November 1976: Letters 354–65

Summary

In these final months of Britten's life, Pears continued to pursue his successful international career, performing and teaching. As well as the imperative to continue singing, an important motivation for his frequent overseas trips was fundraising and recruiting new students for the Britten–Pears School1 they were working together to establish at Snape Maltings. The School was, in a real sense, their child, and would occupy Pears professionally for the remainder of his life.

In June the composer was made a life peer in the Queen's Birthday Honours list, becoming Baron Britten of Aldeburgh. Britten was reluctant, and disclosed to Rosamund Strode that he accepted the honour because ‘he felt it was marvellous for music’. There is a hint at Britten's discomfort over the peerage in Letter 355 from Pears, who feels the need to underline that he is ‘proud and touched but in no way resentful or jealous’ – the acceptance cannot have been a straightforward decision, given their shared left-wing principles, and Britten would certainly not have taken the decision alone.

Now mostly wheelchair-bound and wholly reliant on Rita Thomson, Britten was too frail to write himself, but in these final letters (356–65), Pears sends home a set of vivid and entertaining descriptions of his time in Los Angeles while giving masterclasses at the University of Southern California. Similar to the narrative diaries he kept on earlier trips, they relay impressions of people and places, effectively sharing his experiences with Britten. Unsurprisingly, both the intimacy and the rushed urgency of the correspondence from earlier years is gone, but the selfdeprecating warmth and occasionally trivial, anecdotal tone persists. Pears worried the letters were ‘silly’, but Thomson writes to assure him that they are of great comfort: ‘Your letters 2 and 4 arrived first but today 1 & 3 came so Ben had a lovely time reading the four of them. He reads me the amusing bits like when the handle came off the Gin carton!! They do cheer him up immensely and makes you feel so much nearer.’

Pears journeyed on to Toronto from Los Angeles to perform and raise money for the Britten–Pears School and the Aldeburgh Festival.