Benjamin Britten Studies: Essays on An Inexplicit Art

Justin Vickers is Distinguished Professor of Music at Illinois State University. He is presently completing The Aldeburgh Festival: A History of the Britten and Pears Era, 1948-1986, and with Philip Reed he is editing Britten's Sketchbooks, a forthcoming collection of essays. Vickers co-edited Childhood and the Operatic Imaginary since 1900 with Joy H. Calico, and Elizabeth Maconchy in Context with Lucy Walker. He is also co-editor of Benjamin Britten in Context and Benjamin Britten Studies: Essays on An Inexplicit Art, both with Vicki P. Stroeher. Justin Vickers is Distinguished Professor of Music at Illinois State University. He is presently completing The Aldeburgh Festival: A History of the Britten and Pears Era, 1948-1986, and with Philip Reed he is editing Britten's Sketchbooks, a forthcoming collection of essays. Vickers co-edited Childhood and the Operatic Imaginary since 1900 with Joy H. Calico, and Elizabeth Maconchy in Context with Lucy Walker. He is also co-editor of Benjamin Britten in Context and Benjamin Britten Studies: Essays on An Inexplicit Art, both with Vicki P. Stroeher. Lucy Walker is a freelance writer, researcher and public speaker on classical music, specialising in music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Philip Reed is an independent scholar whose many publications include co-editing six volumes of Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, 1913-1976; Benjamin Britten: Billy Budd (edited with Mervyn Cooke); The Travel Diaries of Peter Pears, 1936-78 and On Mahler and Britten, as well as contributions to studies of Britten's operas and War Requiem, and books on Poulenc and Elizabeth Maconchy.

This book is highly appropriate for its intended audience: academics, librarians, and students. . . . [R]eaders will be pleased with the scholarly rigor represented here. I would also recommend it to musicians, historians, and fans of Britten's music, as many of these chapters are fascinating reading, and they provide new insights into what have become the accepted narratives of . . . 'the man himself.'

• Editors' Preface - Vicki P. Stroeher and Justin VickersIntroduction: Writing About Britten - Philip ReedThe Shock of Exile: Britten and the American Years - Paul KildeaBritten, Paul Bunyan, and "American-ness" - Vicki P. StroeherCollaborating with Corwin, CBS, and the BBC: Britten's Re-entry into British Radio in 1942 - Jenny DoctorAn Empire Built On Shingle: Britten, the English Opera Group, and the Aldeburgh Festival - Justin Vickers"Save Me From Those Suffering Boys": Britten, John Ireland, and the Venerable Tradition of Uranian Boy Worship in England - Byron AdamsBritten's [and Pears's] "Beloved": Sacred Parlor Song, Passion, and Control in Canticle I - Louis NieburNotes of Unbelonging - Lloyd Whitesell"Take These Tokens That You May Feel Us Near": Remembrance and Renewed Citizenship in Britten's Gloriana - Colleen RenihanTraces of No: Modularity and Saturation in The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal Son - Kevin SalfenBritten and the Augmented Sixth - Christopher MarkQuickenings of the Heart: Notes on Rhythm and Tempo in Britten - Philip RupprechtReviving Paul Bunyan - Danielle Ward-GriffinStriking A Compromise: Britten, British Publishers, Soviet Theatres, and the Premieres of Peter Grimes and The Prince of the Pagodas - Thornton MillerFrom Boosey & Hawkes to Faber Music: Britten Seeks a "Composer's Place" - Nick ClarkThe Man Himself - Lucy WalkerEpilogue: Liminalities and Britten - Vicki P. Stroeher and Justin VickersWorks Cited