This chapter explores the importance of adapting for a composer, whether that be in their own creative practice (for example by adapting stories for the stage or screen) or in their engagement with others’ works through arrangements or orchestrations. It considers what a suitable definition of adaptation might be, and where the boundaries of originality might lie in adapting someone else’s work, before arguing that adaption necessitates a valuable set of composition skills that require us to think actively and conscientiously about our role in history and society.

From mid-1943 until late-1950, Eric Crozier was an essential asset to Britten’s industry. His work alongside director and radio producer Tyrone Guthrie not only introduced Crozier to the Old Vic in London, but to the BBC as well, where Guthrie also worked. Joan Cross invited Crozier and Guthrie to each direct two different productions at Sadler’s Wells in 1943. Crozier directed and produced Britten’s first two operas, Peter Grimes in 1945 at Sadler’s Wells, and The Rape of Lucretia in 1946 for the short-lived Glyndebourne English Opera Company. Crozier wrote the librettos for Albert Herring and the children’s entertainment Let’s Make an Opera (with its central opera, The Little Sweep), in addition to writing the text for the cantata Saint Nicolas, and with E. M. Forster, he was co-librettist for Billy Budd. Britten, Crozier, and designer John Piper founded the English Opera Group. The endeavour was based on ‘the Britten–Crozier doctrine’ that sought the group’s own autonomy and ultimately a home to produce such works. That home was largely realised in the founding of the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts in 1948, for which Crozier was a founder and co-artistic director.

The Postlude offers a brief discussion of Forster’s listening to Hugo Wolf’s lieder in 1935 and a reflection on the limits of past gay discussion of Forster’s contribution to the opera Billy Budd. It suggests that a renewed close investigation into the relation between text and its historical context enables us to uncover the complexity in Forster’s ideology and generate fresh readings of his work. If the political energy of his comment on Hugo Wolf’s music reminds us of the political suggestiveness of his references to music, the revelation of the whiteness of Billy Budd is a timely signal, for readers in the twenty-first century, to reach beyond existing critical parameters and stay alert to the conditioning forces of our own perspectives. At the heart of Forster’s engagement with and representations of music is his protean interest in a broad range of topical subjects and political issues. The Postlude suggests that it is necessary to acknowledge and interpret the multiple frontiers of Forster’s ideological exploration and the many concerns he registers and raises in his writing.