Britten : essays, letters and opera guides / Hans Keller ; with drawings by Milein Cosman ; edited by Christopher Wintle and A.M. Garnham, with Ines Schlenker and Kate Hopkins.

Author/creator Keller, Hans
Format Book
Publication InfoLondon : Cosman Keller Art and Music Trust in association with Plumbago Books ; Woodbridge, Suffolk ; Rochester, NY : Boydell & Brewer [distributor], 2013.
Descriptionxx, 381 pages : illustrations, music ; 24 cm.
Subjects
Britten, Benjamin, 1913-1976--Criticism and interpretation.

Other author/creatorWintle, Christopher, editor.
Other author/creatorGarnham, A. M. (Alison M.), 1964- editor.
Other author/creatorSchlenker, Ines.
Other author/creatorHopkins, Kate, 1978-
Other author/creatorCosman, Milein.
Other author/creatorCosman Keller Art and Music Trust.
Spine title Hans Keller: Britten
SeriesHans Keller archive
Hans Keller archive. ^A714323
Contents Part one. On and around the music / Hans Keller. Great English composer -- A film analysis of the orchestra (on The Young Person's Guide) -- The second string quartet -- Peter Grimes at Covent garden (review) -- The Rape of Lucretia (reviews, 1946-50) -- The first Aldeburgh festival -- Britten and the young (on Let's Make an Opera) -- Resistances to Britten's music: their psychology -- Night Mail -- Britten's art of accompaniment -- Thematic relations (on the "Made Interlude" in Peter Grimes) -- The problem of taste in opera (on Albert Herring) -- The musical character (subsuming Britten and Mozart) -- Holland: music's New-found Land (on The Turn of the Screw) -- The fishing Englishman in Holland (on Peter Grimes) -- Sinfonia da Requiem (1) -- Sinfonia da Requiem (2) (on "Key, ostinato, row") -- Peter Grimes revived -- A Midsummer Night's Dream -- The world around Britten (on Britten at 50) -- Billy Budd (on the two versions) -- Britten's new opera (on Curlew River) -- Stravinsky and Britten via Schoenberg (book review) -- Gloriana as music drama -- Children's Crusade -- Why this piece is about Billy Budd -- Britten and Reger (on two radio transmissions) -- Death of a genius -- Sacred music in a secular age (on the War Requiem) -- Operatic music and Britten -- The third string quartet -- The string quartets -- Part two. An operatic sketchbook / Milein Cosman. Britten and Cosman (Inses Schlenker) -- An operatic sketchbook (with a list of drawings) -- Part three. Britten and Keller: letters and life / A.M. Garnham -- Appendices / Hans Keller. Peter Grimes: the story; the music not excluded (notes for a recording) -- The Rape of Lucretia (Covent garden opera guide) -- Albert Herring (Covent garden opera guide) -- The Beggar's Opera (introductory essay).
Abstract It was hearing an early performance of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes that turned the author from psychology to music. Thereafter he became the composer's most fervent advocate, devoting to him a whole issue of Music Survey (the journal he edited with Donald Mitchell) and the first comprehensive book on his music (again edited with Mitchell). This volume is a selection of the best of his writings, dealing with Peter Grimes through to Death in Venice and the Third String Quartet. It also includes an illustrated study by A. M. Garnham of the extensive correspondence between Britten and Keller (most of it hitherto unknown), a reprint of the handbooks on The Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring (long out-of-print), and items from the Hans Keller Archive in the University of Cambridge. The book is illustrated with drawings from life by Milein Cosman.
General notePublished in association with the Cosman Keller Art and Music Trust.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 363-368) and index.
ISBN9780956600745 (hardback)
ISBN0956600743 (hardback)
ISBN9780956600752 (pbk.)
ISBN0956600751 (pbk.)