Come celebrate the Britten Centenary and the Feast Day of St. Cecilia, patroness of music!

singing this tonight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGyB7_2RnS4

Was gonna start a Britten thread myself to mark the occasion, thanks for doing it. As I said in another thread recently, I would argue Britten is the greatest composer of the last 100 years. Gonna play his "Serenade" tonight, such sublime beauty!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ0ITqRBaE0

Serenade guts me, the horn writing, oh lord. Also:

-first act of Midsummer Night's Dream
-Spring Symphony (bummed I had no $ to see this performed by the NYPO this week)
-the production of Turn of the Screw I saw in Seattle long ago
-Grimes interludes and mad scene
-paraphrasing of grimes interludes in jerry goldsmith's score for Star Trek V

it's nearly Ceremony of Carols time tho tbh i can listen to it any month of the year

His legend of st Nicolas piece is pretty great too.

taking notes here, thanks y'all.

all I have is War Requiem so I will play that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbHHieh6v98

i love ceremony of carols. i rehearsed it once with a choir but we abandoned the idea. :-(

if anyone's got XM the opera station's been playing some of his stuff today in commemoration of the anniversary of his birth, not sure if it'll go on for tomorrow too or not

I have a tin ear for opera which rules out a lot of Britten for me but I love the Grimes sea interludes and the War Requiem is obviously monumental. I've never got round to his symphonic work but I'm sure I'd get a lot out of it.

i think if you struggle with opera Britten mightn't be the worst place to start, Peter Grimes is very much of a piece imo

getting into this guy