Benjamin Britten: Double Concerto: Piano Trio: Score and Parts

Britten was so remarkably prolific as a young composer that many of the works from his teens were put aside to await revision or completion as he rushed on to the next piece. This was particularly the case around the time of hisOpus 1 Sinfonietta composed in the summer of 1932 his second year as a student at the Royal College Of Music.The Sinfonietta was written (in less than three weeks) very soon after Britten had completed thefirst draft of the Double Concerto; but after finishing the Sinfonietta he went back to revise the Concerto's second movement. He started work on his Op.2 Phantasy for Oboe and String Trio a few weekslater.Although the Concerto follows the same three-movement pattern as the Sinfonietta it is more ambitious in scale; and since the sketch is unusually for Britten complete in practically every detail it ispuzzling that he never made a full score of the work after finishing the composition and seems to have made no attempt to get it performed. It is not clear if he had particular performers in mind (he was of course a Violaplayer although he is not likely to have intended the part for himself). He showed the work to his composition teacher at the college John Ireland who as Britten recorded in his diary was 'pretty pleased' with it; but it isdistinctly possible that his experience in rehearsing the Sinfonietta with a student orchestra in 1932 ('I have never heard such an appalling row!' reads another diary entry) discouraged him from going on to complete theDouble Concerto in score. He was not to hear any of his orchestral works until the first performance of Our Hunting Fathers in 1936.In the absence of Britten's full score it was necessary for me to prepare the workfrom the sketch. But the instrumentation is so carefully indicated in the draft that the resulting score is not far from being 100% Britten - only between bars 70 and 74 of the slow movement did there seem to be any need to add

Britten's Jubilate is written for SATB choir and Organ accompaniment.Benjamin Britten's birthday (22nd November 1913 Lowestoft) falls on St. Cecilia's Day a happy augury for the career of one of Britain's greatestcomposers. Essentially a vocal composer Britten won international fame for his operas and song-cycles. He never abandoned the principles of tonality and was a 'modern' composer who reached a mass audience and a conservative whoseoriginality no radical would sensibly deny. He shared with his predecessors Parry Vaughan Williams and Holst an intense interest in works for amateurs and children. His brilliant gifts as a pianist and conductor coupled withhis virtuosic inventiveness also led him to compose music for great performers such as the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the singers Galina Vishnevskaya Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Janet Baker.The greatestpersonal influence on his music was the Tenor Peter Pears for whom he composed many operatic and vocal roles. In 1948 Britten Pears and Eric Crozier founded the Aldeburgh Festival now one of the most respected established fornew English music. In 1952 he was made a Companion of Honour in 1965 received the Order of Merit and in 1976 the year of his death he became the first composer to receive a life peerage.Oxford University Press wasBritten's first publisher. In the early 1930s A Boy Was Born and the Simple Symphony brought him great critical acclaim and launched his compositional career. Oxford is delighted to present some previouslyunpublished pieces in collaboration with the Britten Estate. These include the Double Concerto for Violin and Viola premiered at Snape by the Britten-Pears Orchestra under Kent Nagano in June 1997; Two Portraits forString Orchestra premiered on BBC Radio 3 in December 1995 by the Northern Sinfonia under Martyn Brabbins; The World Of The Spirit the full version first performed in 1938 on the BBC Home Service the abridged