Benjamin Britten in Queen's Hall - 13 December, 1933

from Journeying boy : the diaries of the young Benjamin Britten 1928-1938, pages 156-157:

Go to Queen's Hall for B.B.C. Concert. Beethoven's supreme Mass in D. I feel at the moment that it is impossible to conceive music greater than this. Boult even couldn't ruin it. Chorus not bad. Orch ditto though intonation poor, & Catteral [solo violin] was too hard in the Benedictus. The soloists - Adleheid Armhold (disappointing in a way, but very lovely in spots), Mary Balfour (not too good); Parry Jones (better); Keith Falker (too insignificant) - weren't a good quartet. But even all this couldn't spoil this God of a work.

cite as

John Evans (ed.), Journeying boy : the diaries of the young Benjamin Britten 1928-1938 (:London, 2009), p. 156-157. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1437667495940 accessed: 29 March, 2024

location of experience: Queen's Hall

Listeners

Benjamin Britten
Composer
1913-1976

Listening to

hide composers
Mass in D
written by Beethoven
performed by Adleheid Armhold, Catteral, Keith Falker, Mary Balfour, Parry Jones, Adrian Boult, BBC Symphonic Orchestra

Experience Information

Date/Time 13 December, 1933
Medium live
Listening Environment in the company of others, indoors, in public

Originally submitted by gkw on Thu, 23 Jul 2015 17:04:56 +0100
Approved on Mon, 26 Sep 2016 22:46:32 +0100