Knowing Britten
- Author: Bedford, Steuart
- Author: Gillett, Christopher
Playing Janacek as a student with Steuart, a man who seemed to be music from his fingertips to his toes, inspired me to become an opera conductor. This fascinating book reveals his typically...
Knowing Britten
- Author: Bedford, Steuart
- Author: Gillett, Christopher
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Playing Janacek as a student with Steuart, a man who seemed to be music from his fingertips to his toes, inspired me to become an opera conductor. This fascinating book reveals his typically...
About
Knowing Britten is a vivid and insightful account of Steuart Bedford's long association with both Britten the man and his music.
The conductor and pianist Steuart Bedford (1939-2021) could not remember a time when he did not know Benjamin Britten. His mother, Lesley Duff, sang with the English Opera Group in the premieres of The Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring in the late 1940s, and the whole family was closely involved with Britten and Peter Pears for many years. Following his music studies and time on the music staff at Glyndebourne, Bedford joined the English Opera Group, gradually becoming Britten's trusted surrogate conductor. As the composer's health began to fail, he took on responsibility for the premiere performances of Britten's final opera, Death in Venice, including its US premiere at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and the dramatic cantata Phaedra among others. He served as an Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival, 1974-98, recorded the Collins Classics series of Britten works and in 2013, Britten's centenary year, conducted 'Grimes on the Beach' for the Aldeburgh Festival.
Contents
- Table of Contents:
- 1. My mind beats on
- 2. A thirst, a leaping, wild unrest, a deep desire
- 3. Should I give up the fruitless struggle with the word?
- 4. So be it
- 5. What lies in wait for me here?
- 6. My head is heavy, my eyelids ache
- 7. I must go elsewhere, I must find a clearer sky, a fresher air
- 8. How much better to live, not words but beauty, to exist in it, and of it
- 9. The power of beauty sets me free
- 10. Yet I am driven on
- 11. O voluptuous days, O the joy I suffer
- 12. So the moments pass
- 13. And now, Paedrus, I will go No epilogue, I pay you for your play needs no excuse Acknowledgements Index
Awards and reviews
Simon Rattle
Playing Janacek as a student with Steuart, a man who seemed to be music from his fingertips to his toes, inspired me to become an opera conductor. This fascinating book reveals his typically selfless devotion to serving a great composer, and is a window into his own personality, immensely strong but paradoxically never wanting to draw attention to himself. An enthralling read
