0:00:02 > 0:00:05ORCHESTRA STRIKES UP
0:00:05 > 0:00:10Benjamin Britten was the great British classical composer of the broadcasting age.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14His music was regularly heard
0:00:14 > 0:00:18on radio and television throughout his working life.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22The BBC was constantly trying to ..
0:00:22 > 0:00:26I was going to say court him and in a way we were.
0:00:26 > 0:00:31An intensely private man, he did allow the camera into his world
0:00:31 > 0:00:34Even though he was involved with the televising of his works,
0:00:34 > 0:00:36he never owned a television himself.
0:00:37 > 0:00:39In this programme we'll see and hear
0:00:39 > 0:00:42some of the highlights of his broadcast legacy.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45Meeting some of the musicians he worked with...
0:00:45 > 0:00:48He was a hero amongst composers
0:00:48 > 0:00:50and I...hero worshiped.
0:00:52 > 0:00:56..visiting the Suffolk coast which inspired so much of his work...
0:00:56 > 0:00:59This music came from deep in Ben's heart.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01..and hearing from the producers
0:01:01 > 0:01:04who brought his music to vast audiences.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08The BBC were able to find ways of serving him,
0:01:08 > 0:01:12recognising that he was a truly great figure in our lives.
0:01:14 > 0:01:15BIRDSONG
0:01:26 > 0:01:30In the cold and wintry month of February 1969,
0:01:30 > 0:01:33a significant piece of broadcasting history was made
0:01:33 > 0:01:37here on the edge of the North Sea in Suffolk.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42The BBC had taken a bold decision
0:01:42 > 0:01:46to leave the comfortable, controlled environment of its London studios
0:01:46 > 0:01:51to film a production of Britten s majestic dark opera, Peter Grimes,
0:01:51 > 0:01:53on location at Snape Maltings,
0:01:53 > 0:01:59the composer's own concert space close to his home in the seaside town of Aldeburgh.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01BIRDSONG
0:02:01 > 0:02:03At Sadler's Wells in 1945,
0:02:03 > 0:02:06the very first production of Peter Grimes
0:02:06 > 0:02:08had caused a national sensation.
0:02:08 > 0:02:10Broadcast on BBC radio,
0:02:10 > 0:02:13it brought modern opera to a whole new audience.
0:02:16 > 0:02:18"I had no inclination to switch off
0:02:18 > 0:02:21even in the most discordant passages."
0:02:21 > 0:02:23"The story is grim and sordid
0:02:23 > 0:02:28"and could hardly be called pleasant entertainment, but it's well told."
0:02:28 > 0:02:30"Britten has ARRIVED with this opera!"
0:02:33 > 0:02:35Now, nearly 25 years later,
0:02:35 > 0:02:39the BBC would bring Britten's greatest operatic triumph
0:02:39 > 0:02:41to the nation's TV screens in full colour,
0:02:41 > 0:02:46with the original singer, Peter Pears, recreating the title role.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51# Picture what that day was like
0:02:51 > 0:02:54# That evil day
0:02:54 > 0:03:01# We sailed into the wind, heavily ladened... #
0:03:01 > 0:03:05Peter Pears was Britten's lover and partner for most of his life.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08They met in the late '30s when Pears was a member of the BBC Singers
0:03:08 > 0:03:12and for decades they would defy the law against homosexuality
0:03:12 > 0:03:17and social convention by living and working together.
0:03:17 > 0:03:23# And a child's silently... #
0:03:23 > 0:03:29Britten had composed the role of Peter Grimes specifically for Pears' distinctive tenor voice.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37It was difficult with Pears being in his 60s then.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40You know, trying to be the young fisherman
0:03:40 > 0:03:41was not so easy in close-up.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48# With a childish death! #
0:03:50 > 0:03:54The major thing about it is that it's Benjamin Britten conducting
0:03:54 > 0:03:56and Peter Pears singing Peter Grimes.
0:03:56 > 0:04:00You know, come on, that's already a fantastic bonus.
0:04:00 > 0:04:02# Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
0:04:02 > 0:04:04But the cast was very strong,
0:04:04 > 0:04:09they had Joan Cross, a veteran director and singer herself...
0:04:13 > 0:04:15..with Brian Large, then a very young
0:04:15 > 0:04:18but brilliant television director doing it.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22# Helen, Helen
0:04:22 > 0:04:24# Give me your hand. #
0:04:25 > 0:04:28There was a lot to cram into the auditorium of the Maltings,
0:04:28 > 0:04:32not just the sets, the singers and all the cameras,
0:04:32 > 0:04:34but a 50-piece orchestra.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41Britten insisting on it being recorded in the Maltings,
0:04:41 > 0:04:45which was ideal in terms of sound but not as an opera set.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51And I should like to say how very proud all of us from Aldeburgh
0:04:51 > 0:04:56are that this great operatic experiment with all of you
0:04:56 > 0:04:59is taking place here in Maltings.
0:04:59 > 0:05:04The whole apparatus of televising opera was very complicated.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06I can't look at you directly in the monitor.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10I think he found it a rather frustrating and slightly limiting medium,
0:05:10 > 0:05:13partly because he wasn't in total control himself.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17I'll try and remember. That side is... No, that's the wrong side.
0:05:17 > 0:05:19No, that side is you.
0:05:19 > 0:05:21There were limitations to the number of cameras
0:05:21 > 0:05:24and therefore the number of angles you could get, you could see that.
0:05:24 > 0:05:30But I felt that that released a sort of intensity.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34It reminded me how much you unleash creativity when you set limits.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37Peter Grimes is the classic outsider,
0:05:37 > 0:05:40a fisherman desperately eking out a living
0:05:40 > 0:05:43in a tiny community, The Borough.
0:05:48 > 0:05:52The townsfolk suspect him of causing the death of a young apprentice
0:05:54 > 0:05:58# Peter Grimes...! #
0:05:58 > 0:06:00When a second apprentice also disappears
0:06:00 > 0:06:04the mob rises up in judgment against him.
0:06:04 > 0:06:10# Peter Grimes! #
0:06:10 > 0:06:15I think Britten is the great humane composer of the 20th century.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27Some of this may come out of the tension he felt as a person himself
0:06:27 > 0:06:30not being quite at ease with his place in society.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39# Peter Grimes! #
0:06:39 > 0:06:42He's someone who cuts straight to people's heart,
0:06:42 > 0:06:45because they can understand the personal issues
0:06:45 > 0:06:50of an individual isolated in respect of society.
0:06:50 > 0:06:56# Come on, lend me... #
0:06:56 > 0:06:59So these are very, very human emotions
0:06:59 > 0:07:03which Britten is putting on a big wide scale
0:07:03 > 0:07:06and he's doing it with such compositional skill
0:07:06 > 0:07:08that you're immediately drawn in.
0:07:08 > 0:07:13# And begin. #
0:07:13 > 0:07:17What I find fascinating about the Peter Grimes character,
0:07:17 > 0:07:20and it probably is very strong in the Pears performance,
0:07:20 > 0:07:23because he was so embedded in the role,
0:07:23 > 0:07:27is the match between the musical landscape and the character.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34The fictional Borough was based on the Suffolk town of Aldeburgh
0:07:34 > 0:07:37where Britten made his home for 30 years.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41It's a place which is right on the edge
0:07:41 > 0:07:44and it does have a terrific kind of atmosphere.
0:07:44 > 0:07:48It's... The weather is incredibly affecting here.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52You have days with very low skies
0:07:52 > 0:07:56in which you can actually physically feel the pressure.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58And you have days when, you know,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01you can just feel the tension before the storm breaks and stuff.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04There's an awful lot you can find in the music, too.
0:08:12 > 0:08:17Britten was born into a world that was just about to discover broadcasting,
0:08:17 > 0:08:23so he was a teenager in the '20s when the BBC was just beginning.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26And we can tell from his diaries that it was a source
0:08:26 > 0:08:31of real interest and real stimulus to him as a composer.
0:08:31 > 0:08:37And he would note in his diary, "Orchestra disappointingly bad wind out of tune."
0:08:37 > 0:08:43And I think we can sense him being musically educated through the medium of broadcasting.
0:08:43 > 0:08:48And, in that sense, he's a perfect example of what the BBC set out to do.
0:08:48 > 0:08:54Right from the start of his career the young Britten's own compositions had been heard on the radio.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59In 1939, his setting of the French poet Rimbaud's lyric
0:08:59 > 0:09:02about an imaginary sea, Marine
0:09:02 > 0:09:05received a BBC Proms premiere at the Queen's Hall.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10Amazingly there is still a recording
0:09:10 > 0:09:13of this wonderful, wonderful dramatic singer
0:09:13 > 0:09:19singing from Britten's song cycle, Les Illuminations, conducted by Henry Wood.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26And one can hear on the sound recording how well this comes across
0:09:26 > 0:09:33and you do sense an audience that is very open and receptive to Britten's music.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38APPLAUSE
0:09:47 > 0:09:53In 1948, Britten founded the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts here in his home town.
0:09:53 > 0:10:00Using community halls and churches, he and Pears began to stage ambitious productions.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05The arts programme, Monitor, visited in 1958.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11The very first job I did in television
0:10:11 > 0:10:16was looking at rushes of John Schlesinger's documentary about Benjamin Britten.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20And I helped to write the commentary for that 1958 film.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24Benjamin Britten has only lived in Aldeburgh for the last ten years,
0:10:24 > 0:10:27but he was born in Suffolk not very far from here
0:10:27 > 0:10:29and except for a short time
0:10:29 > 0:10:33has always lived in this part of the world.
0:10:33 > 0:10:35When you look back at John Schlesinger's film
0:10:35 > 0:10:38it's amazing that he must have told Britten what to do.
0:10:38 > 0:10:40You couldn't just grab it as we would now,
0:10:40 > 0:10:43he must have told Britten, "Do you mind starting walking now, Mr Britten?"
0:10:43 > 0:10:46"Come towards the camera. Now would you mind waiting here?"
0:10:46 > 0:10:49"Maybe you could lean back on that bollard and think for a little bit."
0:10:49 > 0:10:54That kind of direction must have gone on, which is unthinkable today. HE LAUGHS
0:10:54 > 0:10:58Britten belongs wholeheartedly to the community in which he lives
0:10:58 > 0:11:00and his music is bound up very closely
0:11:00 > 0:11:02with the lives and interests around him.
0:11:02 > 0:11:04The film was in a miniature way
0:11:04 > 0:11:06trying to give a portrait of the festival
0:11:06 > 0:11:11and also hone in on Britten's new work that year, which was Noah's Flood,
0:11:11 > 0:11:15which was written partly for the children of Suffolk.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18# Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street
0:11:18 > 0:11:21# Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie
0:11:21 > 0:11:25# Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by
0:11:25 > 0:11:29# Five and twenty ponies, trotting through the dark... #
0:11:29 > 0:11:33He asked me to play Jaffett, one of the three sons in Noah's Flood.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39And it was going to be premiered in Orford Church.
0:11:39 > 0:11:43And I was 14 I suppose by then or
0:11:43 > 0:11:49and my voice had slid down slightly, so he changed...the key.
0:11:49 > 0:11:51And I've got the score still.
0:11:51 > 0:11:53And all the dots are his.
0:11:53 > 0:11:58He did all the transposition and it was very exciting to try it all out.
0:11:59 > 0:12:02THEY SING
0:12:17 > 0:12:20And he just spent any amount of time we needed,
0:12:20 > 0:12:24because he was a kind man, he was...generous.
0:12:28 > 0:12:30Everyone was so enthusiastic
0:12:30 > 0:12:34and you always wanted to impress Mr Britten especially.
0:12:34 > 0:12:39And, as the oldest brother, I was put up on the tiller
0:12:39 > 0:12:41and I was in this storm
0:12:41 > 0:12:45and the ark was going up and down and up and down, round and about.
0:12:45 > 0:12:52And I...I pulled as hard as I could to make it as dramatic as I could
0:12:52 > 0:12:54and pulled, unfortunately, a little too hard
0:12:54 > 0:12:56and went straight off the back of the ark,
0:12:56 > 0:13:00legs up in the air and head over heels backwards.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06I find children highly receptive, very choosy perhaps,
0:13:06 > 0:13:10but if they like something and it can be music as new or as old as you like,
0:13:10 > 0:13:15then their reaction is spontaneous and encouraging.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19It was a very moving film
0:13:19 > 0:13:23and at the same time Britten's credo that I want to write music
0:13:23 > 0:13:28that's useful for the community came across loud and clear.
0:13:28 > 0:13:33I have a particular intonation as a composer to want to write music that is useful.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36And if someone asks me to do something,
0:13:36 > 0:13:40my inclination is to want to please them.
0:13:42 > 0:13:46He would work with all the children and be encouraging,
0:13:46 > 0:13:48that's the best kind of teacher,
0:13:48 > 0:13:52especially as an introduction to classical music.
0:13:52 > 0:13:54You long for a teacher to make it live,
0:13:54 > 0:13:56to draw out of you something
0:13:56 > 0:13:59that you otherwise might never have discovered.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07In 1960, the BBC came to the Aldeburgh Festival
0:14:07 > 0:14:11to record for the radio the premiere of Britten's new opera
0:14:11 > 0:14:15based on Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream.
0:14:17 > 0:14:24The opera is I think one of Britten's most rich and varied achievements.
0:14:24 > 0:14:28He's freer in this than he has been for a long time.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35The work featured 25 orchestral players and a large cast of singers
0:14:35 > 0:14:40All squeezed into the tiny space of the Jubilee Hall in Aldeburgh.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43We sometimes had to actually go out of doors
0:14:43 > 0:14:46to get from one side to the other entrance,
0:14:46 > 0:14:50so if it was raining and blowing our make-up went all over the place.
0:14:50 > 0:14:52SHE LAUGHS
0:14:53 > 0:14:55I was actually asked to sing by Ben
0:14:55 > 0:14:58and that was a very great tribute for me.
0:15:04 > 0:15:10Cos she's so in love and she can't bear that he's not returning it
0:15:14 > 0:15:18The pleading and the very shape of the phrase that you sing,
0:15:18 > 0:15:20the timing is perfect.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23There are little gaps
0:15:23 > 0:15:26just where you need to take a breath to plead again.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35Working with him on
0:15:35 > 0:15:39a piece that had been written for me was just wonderful.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45Cos it all sort of fitted like a glove.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49If I obeyed everything he wrote in the score...
0:15:49 > 0:15:52it sounded like me somehow or other.
0:15:54 > 0:15:58The critical reception for the festival performance was positive,
0:15:58 > 0:16:02but some listeners to the BBC Home Service had a different reaction.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07The appreciation index was much lower than was standard
0:16:07 > 0:16:10for operas that were performed on radio at the time.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13In most cases it was apparently active dislike,
0:16:13 > 0:16:17that it was completely lacking in melody, harmony,
0:16:17 > 0:16:19form, beauty or interest.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23A cacophony on rhythmless banging and clanging called music
0:16:23 > 0:16:28by someone who obviously thinks melody is below his dignity to produce.
0:16:31 > 0:16:37I remember Ben saying to me one day, "Of course, one does feel rather sad
0:16:37 > 0:16:41"knowing that if a piece of one s music is announced on the radio
0:16:41 > 0:16:46"hundreds of thousands of people lean forward and change the channel.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55The '60s was the golden age of television experiment
0:16:55 > 0:16:59and for ten years BBC programme makers were able to persuade Britten
0:16:59 > 0:17:03to explore a variety of ways in which his music might be presented on television.
0:17:08 > 0:17:121963 was the 50th birthday of Benjamin Britten and I wrote to him and said we'd like to do programme.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16He said, "No, please, don't. It makes me sound like an obituary at 50 "
0:17:16 > 0:17:20"Can't you wait till I'm 80?" And I said, "No, we want to do it now for your 50th birthday."
0:17:20 > 0:17:22And he gracefully acceded.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25Five, four, three.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41The programme was much more ambitious than just being a documentary about his life,
0:17:41 > 0:17:45it was also trying to take an overview of his work.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47APPLAUSE
0:17:54 > 0:17:59This profile in words, in pictures and above all in music
0:17:59 > 0:18:02of Benjamin Britten has been put together by his admirers,
0:18:02 > 0:18:06those who think that in him we have a great figure living amongst us
0:18:06 > 0:18:11and who think that today his 50th birthday is a perfectly sound occasion on which to say so.
0:18:11 > 0:18:15And we welcome to the studio his fellow composer and friend, Michael Tippett.
0:18:15 > 0:18:18They include music critics and Hans Keller is with us
0:18:18 > 0:18:21and Mr Rozhdestvensky the great Russian conductor.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25I would like to wish him many, many happy returns of the day.
0:18:25 > 0:18:30Good health and new beautiful music.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32Thank you very much.
0:18:32 > 0:18:34It was very ambitious, I must say.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37Looking back on it I think how did we manage to get it all in, but we did.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40ORCHESTRA STRIKES UP
0:18:43 > 0:18:50Britten At 50 managed to include an intimate portrait of Britten and Pears on their home ground.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55Preparing for the Aldeburgh Festival.
0:18:55 > 0:18:58Relaxing together walking the dogs.
0:19:03 > 0:19:06Out of all the musicians I have met,
0:19:06 > 0:19:12he is the one in whom music and from whom music flows always,
0:19:12 > 0:19:16out of his mind, out of his body.
0:19:16 > 0:19:18APPLAUSE
0:19:22 > 0:19:26The programme contained nearly a dozen musical extracts,
0:19:26 > 0:19:29including Peter Grimes,
0:19:29 > 0:19:31Noah's Flood,
0:19:31 > 0:19:36and this pizzicato piece composed when Britten was only ten.
0:19:51 > 0:19:54From this playful and if I may say so rather childish pizzicato,
0:19:54 > 0:19:57we turn to the real Britten.
0:19:57 > 0:20:03The top A first violin... HE HUMS
0:20:03 > 0:20:06Not too solemn, gentlemen, it is after all based on a dance.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09He was not a telly viewer, but at the same time I think
0:20:09 > 0:20:12we persuaded him that we were on his side.
0:20:12 > 0:20:14And, of course, that was very important, getting his confidence.
0:20:14 > 0:20:16ORCHESTRA STRIKES UP
0:20:20 > 0:20:25He doesn't for a moment acknowledge or want to acknowledge the presence of the cameras.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28If it's Andre Previn, he liked to talk to the camera,
0:20:28 > 0:20:30with Britten it's just come on and do it.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32The important thing is the music.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37Yes. If you can just give me the feeling that you're coming to the end of the section here.
0:20:37 > 0:20:42There was a bit more crescendo the bar before one. HE HUMS
0:20:42 > 0:20:45Then we are off again, you see
0:20:45 > 0:20:47ORCHESTRA STRIKES UP
0:20:47 > 0:20:50One, two, three, four.
0:20:51 > 0:20:54His clarity of vision in the music is clear in the way he conducts.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58It's not a fussy conducting, on the contrary it's very straightforward.
0:21:17 > 0:21:22Britten At 50 ended with a sequence from the new War Requiem.
0:21:34 > 0:21:37When it came to planning how to put pictures to the War Requiem,
0:21:37 > 0:21:41I had the temerity to ring Britten and say, "Look, dare I ask you
0:21:41 > 0:21:44"whether you had any images when you are composing this music?"
0:21:44 > 0:21:48Expecting him to say, "Don't be silly, composers don't have pictures, they think in music."
0:21:48 > 0:21:51But he said, "Normally I don't have images,
0:21:51 > 0:21:55"but in this case I would suggest to you the famous Grunewald triptych,
0:21:55 > 0:21:58"that wonderful painting of Christ on the cross."
0:22:00 > 0:22:05So, in a sense I had approval in a way I've never had before or since from a composer
0:22:05 > 0:22:08for what pictures I used to illustrate a passage of music.
0:22:08 > 0:22:10It was very powerful.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18It went out on the night that President Kennedy was assassinated.
0:22:18 > 0:22:23And it was somehow on that terrible day the kind of peaceful moment,
0:22:23 > 0:22:26a reconciliation moment,
0:22:26 > 0:22:31when we saw the Requiem which Britten himself had as it were, blessed my images.
0:22:37 > 0:22:39The work that made his name more than any other
0:22:39 > 0:22:41would have to be the War Requiem.
0:22:41 > 0:22:44And I think that remains perhaps the music
0:22:44 > 0:22:47that has the most immediate effect on people.
0:22:47 > 0:22:49BELL CHIMES
0:23:06 > 0:23:13On the night of 14 November, 1940, a massive aerial bombardment of Coventry and the West Midlands
0:23:13 > 0:23:16left hundreds dead and thousands homeless...
0:23:18 > 0:23:24..destroying much of the city centre and leaving the Cathedral a hollow, burnt-out shell.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32The rebuilding of the cathedral in the late '50s,
0:23:32 > 0:23:35became a symbolic act of reconciliation and national unity.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41Britten composed his monumental War Requiem
0:23:41 > 0:23:44for the reconsecration of the building in 1962.
0:23:44 > 0:23:46The War Requiem allowed Britten
0:23:46 > 0:23:51to project onto a public stage his private world.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54He didn't have to compromise on his pacifism for example
0:23:54 > 0:23:56and the piece actually dramatises that relationship
0:23:56 > 0:23:58between a private grief and a public grief.
0:24:01 > 0:24:05Britten was able to give the work a deeply personal dimension,
0:24:05 > 0:24:10four of his close friends had been killed as a consequence of the Second World War.
0:24:10 > 0:24:14He was bitterly upset when they departed
0:24:14 > 0:24:17and he thought he'd like to dedicate it to them
0:24:17 > 0:24:20and also through them to all the thousands who died.
0:24:29 > 0:24:35The words he chose to set interwove the traditional Latin mass for the dead
0:24:35 > 0:24:37with the First World War poems of Wilfred Owen.
0:24:39 > 0:24:45# Move him into the sun... #
0:24:47 > 0:24:50The amalgamation of the poems within the War Requiem itself
0:24:50 > 0:24:53was an inspirational idea.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56To mix the Latin text with these poems
0:24:56 > 0:25:01which are contradicting everything that's in the Requiem text.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16The premier in Coventry Cathedral
0:25:16 > 0:25:19quickly led to two BBC Prom performances,
0:25:19 > 0:25:25first in 1963 and then this televised version a year later.
0:25:25 > 0:25:30# If anything might rouse him
0:25:30 > 0:25:35# Rouse him now! #
0:25:35 > 0:25:38What's so brilliant about it is you know, Britten is never bombastic.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41Even though it involves so many people, it's actually
0:25:41 > 0:25:44one of the most intimate and personal works he ever wrote.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51One can only imagine... I mean gosh, I would give anything
0:25:51 > 0:25:53to have been at Coventry Cathedral that first performance
0:25:53 > 0:25:55to have witnessed that.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59It just transfixed us.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02I mean, I just stood there and my hair stood on end.
0:26:03 > 0:26:05It was certainly very moving.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08I think that was certainly one of the effects
0:26:08 > 0:26:11that Benjamin Britten himself would have hoped for.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17I heard the first performance.
0:26:17 > 0:26:22I was a little bit appalled in that some people saw that piece
0:26:22 > 0:26:27as some kind of glorification of the memory of war.
0:26:27 > 0:26:33And, of course, it does make war into a very profoundly moving experience
0:26:33 > 0:26:37without the horrible physical violence.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52At the finish, I'm afraid I was in tears.
0:26:52 > 0:26:55I think a lot of the audience were.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57And that explains why there was no clapping.
0:27:00 > 0:27:02But it wasn't just about
0:27:02 > 0:27:06the destruction of the Cathedral and buildings,
0:27:06 > 0:27:11it was the destruction of people, really, wasn't it?
0:27:18 > 0:27:22These days, people take the War Requiem rather for granted,
0:27:22 > 0:27:24I mean it's part of the English wallpaper
0:27:24 > 0:27:27in the cultural landscape.
0:27:27 > 0:27:32But the whole thing is extremely powerful and it's so full of tenderness.
0:27:36 > 0:27:42The Agnus Dei is a very simple musical scheme and a very simple word setting.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45And it comes out as something absolutely transcendent,
0:27:45 > 0:27:47partly cos of the way Pears sings it.
0:28:00 > 0:28:05It's a simple device of going down a scale from one note
0:28:05 > 0:28:09and then going up another scale from the bottom note.
0:28:15 > 0:28:19And he runs one scale down from the F-sharp and another up from the C.
0:28:19 > 0:28:24And he reharmonises those two scales all the way through the piece
0:28:24 > 0:28:27before winding up on an F-sharp major chord.
0:28:27 > 0:28:29It's a little, tiny piece of music
0:28:29 > 0:28:31and just a perfect piece of clockwork as well.
0:28:39 > 0:28:43Now, that is a technical explanation of what is going on
0:28:43 > 0:28:46and it sounds very mechanical and very simplistic
0:28:46 > 0:28:49and a little too neat.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55But the impact that this music has,
0:28:55 > 0:29:01particularly the way Pears sings at the end of this movement, is overwhelming.
0:29:15 > 0:29:19The Prom performance of the War Requiem in 1964,
0:29:19 > 0:29:22which was for the anniversary of the First World War,
0:29:22 > 0:29:26Britten by then was an iconic national figure.
0:29:26 > 0:29:31And how extraordinary that is for someone who had been an outsider,
0:29:31 > 0:29:34was still an outsider in many ways, of course,
0:29:34 > 0:29:39in terms of the homosexuality, for a long time an illegal outsider,
0:29:39 > 0:29:45here he is moving into absolutely the centre of our musical life
0:29:45 > 0:29:47APPLAUSE
0:29:47 > 0:29:51Appearances on TV had now made Britten and Pears household names
0:29:51 > 0:29:54and their frequent song recitals together revealed to
0:29:54 > 0:29:57audiences the composer's brilliance as a musician.
0:29:59 > 0:30:04I was very proud that we got Benjamin Britten into the studio
0:30:04 > 0:30:09and heard his pianism, as it were, in perfect circumstances.
0:30:09 > 0:30:11# A flaxen headed cowboy
0:30:11 > 0:30:13# As simple as may be
0:30:13 > 0:30:15# And next a jolly plough boy
0:30:15 > 0:30:17# I whistled o'er the lea
0:30:17 > 0:30:20# And soon I'll be a footman
0:30:20 > 0:30:21# I strut in worsted lace
0:30:21 > 0:30:23# And next I'll be a butler
0:30:23 > 0:30:27# And whey my jolly face... #
0:30:27 > 0:30:32The impromptuness of the way we shot it was part of the style of the whole recital.
0:30:32 > 0:30:33Recital sounds rather pompous.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37This was pullover time and Ben and Peter, very relaxed.
0:30:37 > 0:30:39# So great a man I'll be
0:30:39 > 0:30:41# So great a man, so great a man
0:30:41 > 0:30:44# So great a man I'll be
0:30:44 > 0:30:47# You'll forget the little plough boy
0:30:47 > 0:30:49# That whistled o'er the lea... #
0:30:49 > 0:30:53Ben didn't say a word but he played magnificently.
0:31:04 > 0:31:06APPLAUSE
0:31:09 > 0:31:12# Little Miss Muffett... #
0:31:17 > 0:31:20When Dudley Moore did those wonderful
0:31:20 > 0:31:25parodies of Britten at the piano, which of course made sense to people
0:31:25 > 0:31:27because they'd seen Ben
0:31:27 > 0:31:30and Peter in their double act on television quite regularly.
0:31:30 > 0:31:36That was so familiar to people that Dudley Moore could get the laughs.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39# Away... #
0:31:39 > 0:31:40LAUGHTER
0:31:44 > 0:31:46# Away... #
0:31:48 > 0:31:51Their responses to it, which of course were
0:31:51 > 0:31:54very separate, perhaps tell us something about the characters.
0:31:54 > 0:31:59Peter was amused by it whereas Ben, I think, took in rather bad part.
0:31:59 > 0:32:01Didn't exactly think it was the right thing to do.
0:32:01 > 0:32:04Stand by for a take, please. Turning over sound.
0:32:04 > 0:32:08Classical music on television never had it so good as it did
0:32:08 > 0:32:10when BBC Two arrived.
0:32:10 > 0:32:15I joined it in 1965, just before its first birthday
0:32:15 > 0:32:20and did my best to devote specialisms that BBC ONE didn't.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23And one of those things was classical music.
0:32:23 > 0:32:26In 1966, the BBC mounted an ambitious studio
0:32:26 > 0:32:29production of the all-male opera, Billy Budd.
0:32:29 > 0:32:33Adapted from Herman Melville's unfinished novella, it had
0:32:33 > 0:32:37first been performed on the stage of the Royal Opera House in 195 .
0:32:38 > 0:32:41Now shot as a drama at Television Centre,
0:32:41 > 0:32:46Peter Pears sang the role of the ship's captain, Vere.
0:32:46 > 0:32:51Michael Langdon was the sadistic master-at-arms, Claggart.
0:32:51 > 0:32:54And Peter Glossop sang the title character.
0:32:54 > 0:32:55# Your name?
0:32:55 > 0:32:57# Billy Budd, sir
0:32:57 > 0:32:59# Your age?
0:32:59 > 0:33:01# Don't know, sir
0:33:01 > 0:33:03# Don't know? Your trade?
0:33:03 > 0:33:05# Able seaman
0:33:05 > 0:33:07# Can you read?
0:33:07 > 0:33:10# No - but I can sing
0:33:10 > 0:33:13# Never mind the singing... #
0:33:13 > 0:33:16What we wished to do was to do was not to produce a theatrical
0:33:16 > 0:33:19experience in the sense of that you were looking at a scene
0:33:19 > 0:33:23on stage but it would be an opera in which the viewer was really
0:33:23 > 0:33:26involved in the same way as he was in a drama.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29And the results were stunning.
0:33:29 > 0:33:32# Mr Bosun, Mr Bosun
0:33:32 > 0:33:34# Yes, Sir
0:33:34 > 0:33:36# Hands to braces! Man the yards!
0:33:36 > 0:33:38# Ay, sir! Ay, sir... #
0:33:38 > 0:33:41I think with Billy Budd, which has the biggest orchestra in any
0:33:41 > 0:33:47opera he ever used, erm, there is an incredible tang to the sound
0:33:47 > 0:33:52You can feel the feel the grime you can feel the salt everywhere.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56# Toplights down there and scrub! Scrub!
0:33:56 > 0:33:58# Toplights down there, swabs!
0:33:58 > 0:34:00# Eyes on deck
0:34:00 > 0:34:02# Can't idle you know, men
0:34:02 > 0:34:07# Life's not all play upon a man-of-war!
0:34:10 > 0:34:11# Cocky, young bastards
0:34:11 > 0:34:13# Send them back to Mammy... #
0:34:13 > 0:34:16I find the breadth of language,
0:34:16 > 0:34:20the musical language in Billy Budd extraordinary.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23The build-up in the orchestra in the first act,
0:34:23 > 0:34:26until this enormous sea shanty can be heard sung off stage by all
0:34:26 > 0:34:30these sailors...really, very overwhelming.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32# Oh, heave
0:34:32 > 0:34:34# Oh, heave away, heave
0:34:34 > 0:34:36# Oh, heave
0:34:36 > 0:34:39# Heave
0:34:39 > 0:34:42# Heave
0:34:44 > 0:34:48# All manned above!
0:34:48 > 0:34:50# Yards manned!
0:34:52 > 0:34:54# Leads those halyards at the double... #
0:34:54 > 0:34:58Despite the fact that the action is extremely claustrophobic,
0:34:58 > 0:35:01the music has a bigness and an opulence
0:35:01 > 0:35:06and a generosity to it, which is pretty unique in his output.
0:35:06 > 0:35:08# And sway
0:35:08 > 0:35:10# And sway
0:35:10 > 0:35:12# And sway... #
0:35:12 > 0:35:17I really did not know at that point, whether the idea of writing a large
0:35:17 > 0:35:22scale opera with a cast only of men, which had not been done before...
0:35:22 > 0:35:24Whether that would be suitable.
0:35:24 > 0:35:28But Britten loved this particular story
0:35:29 > 0:35:32# Make-fast, braces and hews... #
0:35:32 > 0:35:35It represents a world very much impoverished.
0:35:35 > 0:35:39Because one lacks a dimension of human
0:35:39 > 0:35:43experience in the relationship between men and women.
0:35:43 > 0:35:44# I'll teach you
0:35:44 > 0:35:46# I can't do anything right here
0:35:46 > 0:35:47# Speak
0:35:47 > 0:35:49# Yes, sir
0:35:49 > 0:35:51# Take this man away and list him for 20 strokes
0:35:51 > 0:35:53# See it's done at once
0:35:53 > 0:35:54# Yes, sir! Yes, sir... #
0:35:54 > 0:35:59It was so fundamentally a part of his character, of his creativity,
0:35:59 > 0:36:04that it was no good anyone saying to him, although I thought this,
0:36:04 > 0:36:09you would be a great composer if, like your heroes, Mozart,
0:36:09 > 0:36:14like Verdi, your world was all-embracing.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18He felt the world was against him and restricted him
0:36:18 > 0:36:20and narrowed him down in that choice, I guess.
0:36:20 > 0:36:23# Oh, heave away, heave
0:36:23 > 0:36:25# Oh, heave
0:36:25 > 0:36:28# Oh, heave away, heave... #
0:36:28 > 0:36:31Eric Crozier's fellow librettist for Billy Budd
0:36:31 > 0:36:34was the novelist E.M Forster.
0:36:37 > 0:36:41Melville, after the initial roughness of his realism,
0:36:41 > 0:36:44reaches straight back into the universal.
0:36:44 > 0:36:48To a blackness and sadness so transcending our own,
0:36:48 > 0:36:51that they are undistinguishable from glory.
0:36:51 > 0:36:55It seems to me the kind of subject that would attract
0:36:55 > 0:36:59a composer by the quality of extension from the story.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02That you start with real human characters which are then
0:37:02 > 0:37:05extended on to other plains of significance.
0:37:05 > 0:37:07Ben, you think that's true?
0:37:07 > 0:37:10Yes, I'm slightly out of my depth here honestly,
0:37:10 > 0:37:14because when I start writing I always start from the
0:37:14 > 0:37:20characters themselves and the conflicts between the characters.
0:37:20 > 0:37:24What you've been talking about, Eric, I hope comes in accidentally.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27If I'm any good as a composer,
0:37:27 > 0:37:31the music will show a greater depth than perhaps I'm intending.
0:37:31 > 0:37:35I mean, an example of that, I think, is Claggart's aria,
0:37:35 > 0:37:38"Oh beauty, oh handsomeness, oh goodness!"
0:37:39 > 0:37:44# Oh beauty, oh handsomeness, goodness
0:37:45 > 0:37:51# Would that I never seen you... #
0:37:53 > 0:37:59Claggart's monologue is perhaps the one case in Billy Budd where the
0:37:59 > 0:38:03character gets, as it were, outside himself and sings about himself.
0:38:03 > 0:38:09# Having seen you, what choice remains to me?
0:38:10 > 0:38:13# None, none!
0:38:13 > 0:38:15# I'm doomed to annihilate you
0:38:15 > 0:38:18# I'm vowed to your destruction... #
0:38:18 > 0:38:20From a technical point of view
0:38:20 > 0:38:24Britten's scores are nothing short of miraculous, really.
0:38:24 > 0:38:29I mean, you need an incredible mind to put those things together.
0:38:29 > 0:38:33# I am the messenger of death
0:38:33 > 0:38:37There's this astonishing moment when the captain goes into the cabin to
0:38:37 > 0:38:42tell Billy Budd the verdict of the court and he's going to be hanged.
0:38:42 > 0:38:48And Britten then plays simply a succession of common chords,
0:38:48 > 0:38:52with the notes of the F major chord at the top.
0:38:52 > 0:38:55So, you don't hear them all at as being in the same key at all.
0:39:12 > 0:39:16The conductor for the BBC's 1966 studio production wasn't
0:39:16 > 0:39:19Britten himself but Charles Mackerras.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23It was quite difficult because in those days
0:39:23 > 0:39:28we had the orchestra in one studio and the action went on in another.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31And in the Billy Budd we had two choruses.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34One that sang with the orchestra and looked at the music
0:39:34 > 0:39:37and the other that was doing the action.
0:39:37 > 0:39:39CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA SWELL
0:39:42 > 0:39:47The reason that he didn't conduct that television performance was
0:39:47 > 0:39:51because he didn't think he could do it.
0:39:51 > 0:39:54Keeping the two choruses together.
0:39:56 > 0:40:01He was around the whole time which made us all rather nervous
0:40:01 > 0:40:07because he really insisted on having it exactly his way.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA SWELL
0:40:21 > 0:40:25The end was a bit of a nightmare because we were running out of time.
0:40:25 > 0:40:28Peter Glossop, who was playing Billy Budd,
0:40:28 > 0:40:31kept marching to the scaffold and then getting the wrong note.
0:40:31 > 0:40:34"Starry Vere, God bless you... You know.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37And my assistant, David Lloyd-Jones had to stand next to him,
0:40:37 > 0:40:39And my assistant, David Lloyd-Jones had to stand next to him,
0:40:39 > 0:40:43invisibly and hum the note to him, so that he got the right note.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48# Starry Vere
0:40:48 > 0:40:53# God bless you!
0:40:54 > 0:40:57# Starry Vere
0:40:57 > 0:41:00# God bless you! #
0:41:02 > 0:41:05The transmission of Billy Budd had a huge impact on audiences
0:41:05 > 0:41:07and critics alike.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11Captured on that same evening's edition of BBC Two's late night line-up.
0:41:14 > 0:41:17This is from the Daily Mail, Peter Black's column.
0:41:17 > 0:41:18He says,
0:41:18 > 0:41:22"Cedric Messina's production of Billy Budd translated the full impact of
0:41:22 > 0:41:25"Britten's opera, which can be likened to a fist which clenches
0:41:25 > 0:41:28"the separate components of music, action, singing,
0:41:28 > 0:41:32"words and atmosphere so tightly that they cannot be prised apart "
0:41:32 > 0:41:38And a last word from Richard Last of The Sun, "The production of
0:41:38 > 0:41:42"Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, shown last night, is beyond doubt
0:41:42 > 0:41:46"the finest achievement in television opera yet mounted in this country.
0:41:46 > 0:41:50"Almost for the first time, genuinely cinematic treatment has been brought
0:41:50 > 0:41:55"to bear on the problem of translating opera to the small screen."
0:41:57 > 0:41:59CHOIR SING
0:41:59 > 0:42:02In 1967, BBC Two transmitted Tony Palmer
0:42:02 > 0:42:06and Humphrey Barton's film about the gramophone recording
0:42:06 > 0:42:10of Britten's Burning Fiery Furnace in the Suffolk village of Alford.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17CHOIR SING
0:42:27 > 0:42:30I can remember the excitement of working
0:42:30 > 0:42:34so close to Benjamin Britten and to feeling, you know, where they're
0:42:34 > 0:42:38making history but we're recording it and it's a privilege, really.
0:42:38 > 0:42:42So, we were able to watch Britten rehearsing, working with singers
0:42:42 > 0:42:47and conducting and also working with the Decca recording engineers.
0:42:52 > 0:42:55The record producer was John Culshaw,
0:42:55 > 0:42:58pioneer in stereo recording.
0:42:58 > 0:43:00What would you like?
0:43:00 > 0:43:03We have time to go on and do, if you like,
0:43:03 > 0:43:06the whole thing again or would you like to concentrate on this first?
0:43:06 > 0:43:09I would rather like to get this one absolutely firmly in the bag.
0:43:09 > 0:43:16I think our Herald's intonation was a bit wild in his first royal command, Great King of Kings.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19How was Peter in the 14, was that all right? Very good, I think.
0:43:19 > 0:43:23Like Noah's Flood, the Burning Fiery Furnace is what Britten calls
0:43:23 > 0:43:25"a church parable".
0:43:28 > 0:43:30Stand by trombone.
0:43:30 > 0:43:35The Old Testament story of three scholars, Shadrach, Meshach and
0:43:35 > 0:43:40Abednego, who by divine intervention are saved from being burned alive.
0:43:42 > 0:43:45Peter Pears sang the Babylonian King, Nebuchadnezzar
0:43:47 > 0:43:49# You shall be cast at once
0:43:51 > 0:43:54# Into the burning, fiery furnace
0:43:56 > 0:43:59These sessions showed a side of Britten that was rarely
0:43:59 > 0:44:03seen on film. Confident, relaxed with a team that he trusted.
0:44:03 > 0:44:05He was scared stiff before we started,
0:44:05 > 0:44:08that somehow the noise of the cameras would get in the way.
0:44:08 > 0:44:11But they were so busy doing their production that they didn't
0:44:11 > 0:44:13have time to worry about us.
0:44:13 > 0:44:14Get the triplet on the beat...
0:44:14 > 0:44:16HE SINGS RHYTHM
0:44:16 > 0:44:18That's important.
0:44:19 > 0:44:22To see him really flat out and he's healthy
0:44:22 > 0:44:24and he's still on top of his game.
0:44:24 > 0:44:26It's very exciting.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32I think that was his great skill to get across the absolutely
0:44:32 > 0:44:35motivating force behind his music
0:44:35 > 0:44:39and he is always determined to draw the best from his performers.
0:44:40 > 0:44:45Please, we want to start off with a balance.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52When you watch Britten conducting, there's an extraordinary
0:44:52 > 0:44:59combination of absolute technical control and great calm.
0:44:59 > 0:45:04But under it you sense an absolutely bubbling energy.
0:45:10 > 0:45:12There had to be a march around the church
0:45:12 > 0:45:15and he hadn't worked out what to do with the bass player.
0:45:15 > 0:45:16And he said,
0:45:16 > 0:45:20"I wonder if we should put him on roller skates."
0:45:20 > 0:45:22But eventually the bass player
0:45:22 > 0:45:26marches around with a big, so-called, Babylonian drum.
0:45:30 > 0:45:32Between takes, Britten comes round to the control room with me
0:45:32 > 0:45:34to listen to the playbacks.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37They are, of course, enormously useful for hearing mistakes.
0:45:37 > 0:45:39He's very quick at spotting our mistakes.
0:45:44 > 0:45:45It's written as played
0:45:45 > 0:45:51but shouldn't be played...but Neil goes on regardless.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58Now everyone stops.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01He didn't like discussing the technicalities of music,
0:46:01 > 0:46:03unless he wanted to know something.
0:46:03 > 0:46:06I mean, for instance, the percussion player, James Blades,
0:46:06 > 0:46:10he would have long discussions about percussion techniques
0:46:10 > 0:46:14but he didn't want to talk about his own music if he could help it.
0:46:14 > 0:46:18These are genuine pieces, from China.
0:46:18 > 0:46:22Perhaps the camera will oblige by focusing
0:46:22 > 0:46:25and you can see the dragon.
0:46:25 > 0:46:27The five Chinese drums.
0:46:29 > 0:46:31Yes, but Mr Britten said,
0:46:31 > 0:46:34"I shall want more than that - several sorts of sound."
0:46:37 > 0:46:40But he said, "I want something harder."
0:46:40 > 0:46:42He said, "Would you try using thimbles?"
0:46:42 > 0:46:44I said, "Most certainly, Mr Britten."
0:46:46 > 0:46:50You never know what to expect from Mr Britten.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56His fertile working relationship with the BBC also allowed
0:46:56 > 0:47:01Britten to share with audiences some of his own favourite composers,
0:47:01 > 0:47:03particularly Mozart.
0:47:03 > 0:47:09There is a marvellous moment of Britten and Richter
0:47:09 > 0:47:13playing the Two-Piano Mozart sonata together
0:47:13 > 0:47:16in a sort of competition for who can play it faster
0:47:16 > 0:47:19in the last movement, which is really exhilarating.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39He obviously had that completely instinctive understanding
0:47:39 > 0:47:42of the instrument, the way to use it.
0:47:42 > 0:47:48He never makes an ugly sound, but he always makes a penetrating,
0:47:48 > 0:47:50lyrical, beautiful sound.
0:48:01 > 0:48:07Mozart was one of the people who Britten felt absolutely closest to
0:48:07 > 0:48:10through his composing life
0:48:10 > 0:48:13and I think that you can see where the links are there -
0:48:13 > 0:48:19they are in beauty of form, absolute command of structure,
0:48:19 > 0:48:24but, within that beauty, a real fierceness and a real impact.
0:48:28 > 0:48:32Idomeneo was the only opera he conducted not composed by himself.
0:48:34 > 0:48:37At that time, Idomeneo wasn't done that much.
0:48:37 > 0:48:40It was rather splendid.
0:48:40 > 0:48:41There was even a monster.
0:48:46 > 0:48:47It was a Britten version
0:48:47 > 0:48:50in a sense that there were quite a few cuts,
0:48:50 > 0:48:53there were even rewritings.
0:48:53 > 0:48:56He rewrote, for instance, the passage for four horns
0:48:56 > 0:49:01when the Oracle turned up, he took out the trombones.
0:49:01 > 0:49:03He re-orchestrated that bit.
0:49:09 > 0:49:11ORACLE SINGS
0:49:19 > 0:49:20But you wouldn't really know.
0:49:20 > 0:49:24Unless you know it very well, you wouldn't realise what had happened.
0:49:29 > 0:49:32For Britten, Idomeneo proved to be one of the happiest
0:49:32 > 0:49:34of all his TV experiences.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41He was conducting his beloved Mozart,
0:49:41 > 0:49:43whom he revered above everybody.
0:49:43 > 0:49:46Probably because he was very similar in a way.
0:49:46 > 0:49:49I mean, there were lots of similarities between him and Mozart.
0:49:55 > 0:49:58Benjamin Britten was perfectly clearly
0:49:58 > 0:50:00one of the great composers Britain had,
0:50:00 > 0:50:02if not the greatest.
0:50:02 > 0:50:07And the BBC was constantly trying to...
0:50:07 > 0:50:10I was going to say court him and, in a way, we were,
0:50:10 > 0:50:13because it would be a great feather in our caps
0:50:13 > 0:50:15if we could commission an opera.
0:50:15 > 0:50:18I looked around among all the stories
0:50:18 > 0:50:21that I could think of immediately
0:50:21 > 0:50:23for a story which would be most suitable
0:50:23 > 0:50:26to the medium of television.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34This was to be something special -
0:50:34 > 0:50:37a Benjamin Britten opera conceived for the camera.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41He chose Owen Wingrave, a Henry James' short story
0:50:41 > 0:50:44in which a young cadet refuses to fight,
0:50:44 > 0:50:47rejecting his family military tradition,
0:50:47 > 0:50:50and ultimately dies for his beliefs.
0:50:52 > 0:50:55The main reason that he took the commission on was because
0:50:55 > 0:50:59it gave a huge audience to pacifism, about which he felt very strongly.
0:50:59 > 0:51:07# He struck him on his tender head
0:51:09 > 0:51:13# His tender head... #
0:51:13 > 0:51:15There was a lot of talk about
0:51:15 > 0:51:18how he would use the potential of television
0:51:18 > 0:51:22to produce ghostly effects, because it is in effect a ghost story.
0:51:22 > 0:51:27# Upon the floor... #
0:51:30 > 0:51:34What is most attractive to me in the story was this bombshell
0:51:34 > 0:51:36which arrived in the middle of this family.
0:51:36 > 0:51:39It would give a marvellous opportunity to show
0:51:39 > 0:51:42each person's individual reactions to the bombshell.
0:51:44 > 0:51:48Inevitably, Britten insisted that the whole opera
0:51:48 > 0:51:51must be shot in Suffolk, at Snape Maltings.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56We had to build, effectively, a completely new studio,
0:51:56 > 0:51:59which was equipped with outside broadcast units.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02So it was very much a lash-up.
0:52:02 > 0:52:06The biggest difficulty is literally squeezing everything
0:52:06 > 0:52:10into a hall, which isn't a television studio.
0:52:13 > 0:52:17The Maltings was transformed into layers of different sets.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22Squeezing in a large, almost 50-piece orchestra.
0:52:22 > 0:52:26The orchestra was sort of halfway up on a great rostrum
0:52:26 > 0:52:30and everything had to be done through monitors.
0:52:30 > 0:52:34Highly complex and full of all kinds of pitfalls.
0:52:34 > 0:52:36And I went down there during the production
0:52:36 > 0:52:40and the atmosphere was electric
0:52:40 > 0:52:43the tension was huge.
0:52:43 > 0:52:46Britten himself was extremely tense.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51There was one time when there wasn't a monitor in the right place
0:52:51 > 0:52:55and there was a terrific shindy and eventually hoisted one into position
0:52:55 > 0:52:59and Britten says, "Now we can get on with this BLOODY opera."
0:53:05 > 0:53:11Every single singer in that cast was really, I feel, the ideal one,
0:53:11 > 0:53:16each one of them being associated with quite a few of my operas.
0:53:16 > 0:53:20Well, it was just...I didn't know what I did to deserve it, frankly.
0:53:20 > 0:53:23The part of Owen Wingrave was sung
0:53:23 > 0:53:26by the Cornish baritone Benjamin Luxon.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30# In peace, I have found my image
0:53:30 > 0:53:34# I have found myself
0:53:37 > 0:53:42# In peace, I rejoice amongst men
0:53:42 > 0:53:46# And yet walk alone... #
0:53:46 > 0:53:48He's not the most complex character.
0:53:48 > 0:53:52There's a very young man who worked out for himself
0:53:52 > 0:53:56that he cannot stand the business of war and glory
0:53:56 > 0:53:59and all the hypocrisy that goes with it
0:53:59 > 0:54:01and he suddenly makes up his mind
0:54:01 > 0:54:04that he won't have anything to do with it.
0:54:04 > 0:54:09# For peace is not lazy But vigilant... #
0:54:09 > 0:54:11It was very relevant, the pacifist theme was, you know,
0:54:11 > 0:54:13it was the time of the Vietnam War,
0:54:13 > 0:54:16and Britten was very keen to get that message across
0:54:16 > 0:54:18and I think it's very clear.
0:54:18 > 0:54:23# Peace is not weak but strong
0:54:23 > 0:54:26# Strong like a bird's wing... #
0:54:26 > 0:54:31Nigel Douglas sang the tenor role of Lechmere, Owen's fellow student.
0:54:31 > 0:54:37Lechmere was a wildly enthusiastic young puppy
0:54:37 > 0:54:40who couldn't wait to get at the enemy.
0:54:40 > 0:54:45He takes his sword down from the wall and he says, "You, beauty!"
0:54:45 > 0:54:48# Ah! You, beauty You, beauty
0:54:48 > 0:54:51# How many vile heads
0:54:51 > 0:54:55# Vile foreign heads Have you rolled into the dust?
0:54:55 > 0:54:58# How you all rejoice in violence! Put it down, you silly boy
0:54:58 > 0:55:00# Chop, chop, chop!
0:55:00 > 0:55:02# Put it down or you'll break Something
0:55:02 > 0:55:06# How you all rejoice in violence!
0:55:06 > 0:55:09# What is the enemy for
0:55:09 > 0:55:12# But to be routed and killed?
0:55:12 > 0:55:14# You forget
0:55:14 > 0:55:17# You are the enemy, too. #
0:55:17 > 0:55:21I won't pretend that it went without technical difficulties.
0:55:21 > 0:55:27We had things like the dinner party scene, which was tricky.
0:55:27 > 0:55:31The head of the family, Sir Philip, was sung by Peter Pears.
0:55:31 > 0:55:36It was always extremely amusing working with Peter
0:55:36 > 0:55:39because it was a well-known fact that he had trouble with his memory.
0:55:39 > 0:55:42Quite near the end of the dinner scene
0:55:42 > 0:55:45there's that passage where he goes, "Pistols! Halberds...!"
0:55:45 > 0:55:47Lots of weapons were mentioned
0:55:47 > 0:55:49and he could never get them in the right order.
0:55:49 > 0:55:53Out would come "dagberds" and "halgers" and all sorts of things.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56And I used to stand behind the camera going,
0:55:56 > 0:55:59"Bang, pistols! Dagger...poom, halberds" and all that,
0:55:59 > 0:56:04trying to mime exactly what weapon it was supposed to be.
0:56:04 > 0:56:09# Halberds, pistols, daggers Are their company
0:56:11 > 0:56:16# Lances, sword-thrusts Parted them from life... #
0:56:16 > 0:56:18And they could see me doing this
0:56:18 > 0:56:21and everybody around the table used to get giggles.
0:56:22 > 0:56:25Britten was conducting away oblivious to all this.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31Owen Wingrave took nine days to film
0:56:31 > 0:56:33and it found the 57-year-old composer
0:56:33 > 0:56:36at the apex of his creativity.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41It was the first orchestral score Britten had written for over ten years
0:56:41 > 0:56:44and I think it unleashed something new in him.
0:56:46 > 0:56:49He could create a very complex world
0:56:49 > 0:56:52without actually covering the page with millions of notes.
0:56:53 > 0:56:57There were very few times when the whole orchestra was playing.
0:56:57 > 0:57:00But where...I remember when Wingrave goes into the haunted room
0:57:00 > 0:57:05and he tells his lady friend Kate to turn the key
0:57:05 > 0:57:08and, at that point, the orchestra is playing
0:57:08 > 0:57:11for one millisecond all together.
0:57:12 > 0:57:17# Come, turn your key. #
0:57:17 > 0:57:21FULL ORCHESTRA PLAYS
0:57:28 > 0:57:31And you realise how much has been held back for that one moment.
0:57:33 > 0:57:36In the end, I personally don't feel it's one of Britten's
0:57:36 > 0:57:40most successful operas, but it is one that fits very well
0:57:40 > 0:57:42the medium of television.
0:57:42 > 0:57:47# Nor did he yield a soldier on... #
0:57:47 > 0:57:50He didn't have a television himself.
0:57:50 > 0:57:52His television was specially bought for him
0:57:52 > 0:57:57when Owen Wingrave was broadcast so he could actually watch it.
0:58:00 > 0:58:04BBC Two ultimately showed the finished one-and-three-quarter-hour opera
0:58:04 > 0:58:07on Sunday, 16th May 1971.
0:58:12 > 0:58:14Owen Wingrave can still pack a punch,
0:58:14 > 0:58:17but there seems to have been a falling-off in the '70s of Britten's work with the BBC.
0:58:17 > 0:58:20I think that was largely due to his health and then, suddenly,
0:58:20 > 0:58:23he was gone and I remember three days, two nights
0:58:23 > 0:58:26working on the obituary, which we put together.
0:58:34 > 0:58:37Benjamin Britten died on 4th December 1976.
0:58:39 > 0:58:43Three days later, he was buried at Aldeburgh Parish Church.
0:58:43 > 0:58:45It reflects well on the BBC, I think,
0:58:45 > 0:58:49that we were able to find ways of serving him,
0:58:49 > 0:58:52recognising that he was a truly great figure in our lives.
0:59:10 > 0:59:13Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd