Benjamin Britten - 25 March, 1931

from Diary of Benjamin Britten, March 25 1931, page 68:

Mummy returns home by bus from Charing X at 10.5. Stay in bed for breakfast, owing to v. bad night with pains. Have caster oil & suffer for it for the rest of the day. Don’t go out but get up at 12.0 (consquently missing Pft. lesson). Do some copying out. Listen to B.B.C. concert on Miss Prior’s Wireless (I had my ticket but sold it). Rossini Semeramide ov. & Dvorak’s sentimental vlc (B min) concerto sentimentally played by Suggia, & Morning Heroes. I cannot say much about the last, because it came over v. badly, the choral writing sounding confused, & I had no score. There seem to be …   more >>
cite as

Benjamin Britten, Diary of Benjamin Britten, March 25 1931. In John Evans (ed.), Journeying boy : the diaries of the young Benjamin Britten 1928-1938, volume 72 (:London, 2009), p. 68. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1401959974901 accessed: 20 April, 2024

Listeners

Benjamin Britten
Composer
1913-1976

Listening to

hide composers
Cello Concerto in B minor, op. 104, B. 191
written by Antonín Dvorák
performed by Suggia
Morning Heroes (1930)
written by Arthur Bliss
performed by BBC Symphonic Orchestra
overture to Semiramide
written by Rossini
performed by BBC Symphonic Orchestra

Experience Information

Date/Time 25 March, 1931
Medium broadcast
Listening Environment solitary

Notes

Evans notes: 'Bliss Morning Heroes (1930), symphony for orator, chorus and orchestra, dedicated ‘To the memory of Francis Kennard Bliss [the composer’s brother] and all other Comrades killed in battle’, setting texts by Homer, Walt Whitman, Wilfred Owen, Li Tai Po and Robert Nichols. Though Britten was clearly unimpressed by this work, it may well have influenced his own War Requiem, in spirit, if not in substance – both works are linked to the First World War and both set the poetry of Wilfred Owen'.


Originally submitted by Simon Brown on Thu, 05 Jun 2014 10:19:35 +0100