New Britten Scores

Extract

Although Benjamin Britten is incontestably the best known English composer of his generation he is young enough for a few lines of biographical introduction to be not yet superfluous. He was born at Lowestoft, November 22nd, 1913. He began composing at an early age, and has rescued some of the material of these youthful efforts in a “Simple Symphony” for strings. While attending Gresham's School at Holt, Norfolk, he had lessons at holiday time from Frank Bridge for composition and Harold Samuel for the piano. From 1930 to 1933 he studied at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers were John Ireland for composition and Arthur Benjamin for the piano. The first of his works to attract general attention were the choral variations, A Boy was Born (1932), and a Phantasy Quartet for oboe and strings which was performed at the Florence (1934) Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music.