Benjamin Britten

A ballad for children's voices and (largely) percussion orchestra setting a long narrative poem by Bertolt Brecht, telling the tragic story of a band of orphaned children lost in the snowy wastes of w...

Scored for solo voice, unison chorus and piano, The Twelve Apostles was written for Peter Pears and the London Boy Singers. The text was adopted from The Ten Commandments as given in 'English Folk Son...

Curlew River - A Parable for Church Performance (Op. 71) is the first of three Church Parables by Benjamin Britten. The work is based on the Japanese Noh play Sumidagawa (Sumida River) of Juro Motomas...

These Christmas carols have become contemporary classics. 'The serene Sweet was the Song' contrasts with a moving lament on the hardships of Christmas, 'A Wealdon Trio', and a memorable setting of Har...

Britten's last completed work, written for young people's chorus and orchestra, is in five short sections: March, Roundel and Canon for orchestra and choir, and Jig and Modulation for orchestra alone.

Britten's setting of Edith Sitwell's poem 'Praise We Great Men', was left unfinished at his death. It was being written for Mstislav Rostrpovich to include in his first season with the National Sympho...

These part-songs were the first of Britten's works to be published. In 1932 Britten showed the pieces to John Ireland during discussions about proofs and possible transpositions. First called Three S...

The Ride-By-Nights by Benjamin Britten for 2-part boys' or women's voices and Piano. From Three Two-part Songs.

Originally composed to introduce the various instruments of the orchestra, Britten's A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra follows a set of variations based on a melody by Henry Purcell. In this set...

Paul Bunyan is an American synthetic folklore figure whose 'legend' was actually created as an early advertising campaign on behalf of the lumber industry. This overture was actaully dropped from the...

Duration: 8 Minutes.

Britten wrote Irish Reel in 1936 as the title music for a documentary film entitled 'Around the Village Green'. It is a bravura piece, exhibiting all the energy and strong colours typical of the compo...

Britten wrote Irish Reel in 1936 as the title music for a documentary film entitled 'Around the Village Green'. It is a bravura piece, exhibiting all the energy and strong orchestral colours typical o...

With the "Suite on English Folk Tunes, Op. 90", Benjamin Britten created a deeply moving and richly colored late masterpiece. Bearing the poetic subtitle "A time there was...", the composition weaves...

The first performance of the Songs and Proverbs of William Blake Op.74 was given by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Benjamin Britten at the Aldeburgh Festival on 24 June, 1965. Available here is Britten'...

Poems by Pushkin, with English & German translations

Five settings of poems by Walter De La Mere arranged for Medium Voice and Piano Accompaniment. These settings were written by Benjamin Britten in his childhood, and were collected together in honor of...

Music of profound beauty from one of the greatest vocal music composers of the past 100 years, set to text by T.S. Eliot. This is one of Britten's five canticles and was first performed at The Malting...

Instrumentation: Gustav von Aschenbach(T),the traveller/multiple role(B-Bar),the voice of Apollo(counter-tenor) 2(=picc).2.2(II=bcl).2 - 2221 - timp - perc(5): 2 SD/2 TD/2 BD/tuned drum/3 tom-t/3 ch.d...

These songs were written at the special wish of Her Majesty the Queen for her mother's seventy-fifth birthday, August 4th 1975. Its first public performance was given on the 9th January 1976, at Schlo...

The story of the American folk hero follows the development of the American continent from virgin forest to civilization. It does so in a deliberately eclectic style. Spoken dialogue is interspersed w...