0:00:02 > 0:00:06If Benjamin Britten had one favourite city in the world,
0:00:06 > 0:00:07it was Venice.
0:00:08 > 0:00:12He visited it eight times in his life, normally in the winter.
0:00:13 > 0:00:19Captivated by its sounds, its light, its history and its art.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23It offered the composer respite from his normal frenetic existence.
0:00:24 > 0:00:29You play banks over Venice when you're going there and he was looking out
0:00:29 > 0:00:32and there was a big smile on his face and he said,
0:00:32 > 0:00:35"There it is, Serenissima."
0:00:35 > 0:00:38For Britten, Venice had been a place of triumph.
0:00:38 > 0:00:41In the 1950s, it gave him the premiere of his opera,
0:00:41 > 0:00:45The Turn Of The Screw, just as it had given Verdi the first
0:00:45 > 0:00:48performances of Rigoletto and La Traviata a century before.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54But Venice is also famous for disease and decay.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58It's where Monteverdi and Wagner died and Stravinsky is buried.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02And in a sense, it was to claim Britten too.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06The story of Death In Venice by Thomas Mann struck a chord
0:01:06 > 0:01:08with Britten.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12He knew what it was to wrestle with serious illness
0:01:12 > 0:01:14and with demons in his personal life.
0:01:17 > 0:01:21After all his victories as a young man, he found it tough to keep
0:01:21 > 0:01:24his footing in the swirling currents of contemporary music.
0:01:24 > 0:01:25Where was it?
0:01:25 > 0:01:28Benjamin Britten was a man under pressure,
0:01:28 > 0:01:31struggling to get his late music down on paper.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33Who's playing the block?
0:01:33 > 0:01:35BRITTEN: 'People sometimes think that
0:01:35 > 0:01:37'with a number of works now lying behind,
0:01:37 > 0:01:41'one must be bursting with confidence. It is not so at all
0:01:41 > 0:01:45'I haven't yet achieved the simplicity I should like in my music.'
0:01:45 > 0:01:48He had the most colossal job to perform in life
0:01:48 > 0:01:50and I think he knew it almost from birth.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53In some way, I think he also knew that his life wasn't going to
0:01:53 > 0:01:57be a very long one and he was going to have to get an awful lot into it.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04Venice was the setting for Britten's final opera in 1973
0:02:04 > 0:02:06which mirrored his own life.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10He was still in his 50s but fast running out of options
0:02:10 > 0:02:15and all his late music was driven by the shadow of death, his own
0:02:15 > 0:02:18He was a man in a hurry who knew he had a great gift, who knew
0:02:18 > 0:02:22he had a lot to offer and he didn't have all the time in the world
0:02:53 > 0:02:57Benjamin Britten wasn't simply the greatest opera composer
0:02:57 > 0:02:59produced by the 20th century,
0:02:59 > 0:03:02he was a gifted conductor and festival organiser
0:03:02 > 0:03:05and one of the outstanding pianists of his generation.
0:03:09 > 0:03:14As a young man, he'd contemplated a career as a piano soloist.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18He played his own concerto at the Proms before the war.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21But in later years, he confined himself mainly to chamber music
0:03:21 > 0:03:26and song recitals, notably with his partner Peter Pears.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30Even that was hard.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35He would have a tumbler of whisky or brandy which he'd have a
0:03:35 > 0:03:39couple of sizable gulps before playing.
0:03:39 > 0:03:41Good for him!
0:03:41 > 0:03:43This is unique. I don't know any other artist..
0:03:43 > 0:03:48I often tell musicians this who don't know it and they're shocked
0:03:48 > 0:03:51cos they would never dare touch alcohol before they go on.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54Usually meant several, it seemed like,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57gallons of whisky backstage before he went on.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01Whatever your poison is. I don't know how on earth any of us get out there.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05And very often, he vomited several times before he went on stage,
0:04:05 > 0:04:07he was so worried and nervous.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10He was in his dressing room and he banged on his window and shouted,
0:04:10 > 0:04:14"Derek!" and he was going to conduct something, I don't know what.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17I said, "How are you feeling?" He said "Terrible.
0:04:17 > 0:04:19"I could be sick on the spot."
0:04:19 > 0:04:22Well, there's no doubt that Henry Purcell was
0:04:22 > 0:04:25convinced of the truth of the title of his song
0:04:25 > 0:04:29"Man Is For The Woman Made" but we're going to sing three songs
0:04:29 > 0:04:33to throw some light on this eternal riddle.
0:04:33 > 0:04:35But it was terribly difficult for Peter.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38I remember Peter getting really quite cross with him
0:04:38 > 0:04:41just before going onto a platform once or twice, saying,
0:04:41 > 0:04:44"For goodness' sake, pull yourself together.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47"How do you expect me to sing when you're in a state like this?"
0:04:47 > 0:04:49# When I was a bachelor
0:04:49 > 0:04:52# I lived all alone
0:04:52 > 0:04:57# And I worked at the weaver's trade
0:04:57 > 0:05:02# And the only, only thing I ever did wrong
0:05:02 > 0:05:07# Was to woo a fair young maid.. #
0:05:07 > 0:05:10But once he got his hands on the keys and was playing,
0:05:10 > 0:05:15he got his nerves under control and one might almost say
0:05:15 > 0:05:18that by the end of a concert, he had quite enjoyed himself.
0:05:18 > 0:05:19Quite.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25'If you shut your eyes for a moment and think of Benjamin Britten
0:05:25 > 0:05:29'and sort of conjure him up in front of you, what do you see '
0:05:29 > 0:05:30Hmmm.
0:05:32 > 0:05:33I see a big smile...
0:05:33 > 0:05:37A really friendly face. ..but some people see a frown.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40When he smiled, if he smiled, it was a shy sort of smile.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42He could be quite ruthless.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45Very spritely, really. Quite wiry.
0:05:45 > 0:05:46Athletic even.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49Always amazed by his nose.
0:05:49 > 0:05:51It was a sort of great, long conk.
0:05:51 > 0:05:57Fairly heavy jowls later on in life which made him look a bit ferocious.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01Looking extraordinarily healthy all the time although, of course,
0:06:01 > 0:06:02we know he wasn't.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05At figure five, "What man do build,"
0:06:05 > 0:06:09it's just a natural warmth as you go up.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12Don't let it flower into a sort of Tosca-like sound
0:06:12 > 0:06:15Keep it quite hushed.
0:06:15 > 0:06:17If people can't hear what I say can you complain?
0:06:17 > 0:06:20I'll try and support my voice.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23CHOIR SINGS
0:06:32 > 0:06:35Life had been so simple when he was young.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47His wonderful Hymn To The Virgin was tossed off during a day or two
0:06:47 > 0:06:49in the sick bay at school.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05Music, it was said, sprang from his fingers
0:07:05 > 0:07:09when he played the piano, just as it did from his mind when he composed.
0:07:29 > 0:07:31In the early 1960s,
0:07:31 > 0:07:35he bestrode the world stage with his great pacifist work,
0:07:35 > 0:07:37The War Requiem,
0:07:37 > 0:07:40as the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46He'd hit the headlines almost two decades earlier with his first
0:07:46 > 0:07:50big opera, Peter Grimes, which took post-war London by storm.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56By his 50th birthday in 1963, he was more celebrated
0:07:56 > 0:08:00internationally than any previous British composer.
0:08:01 > 0:08:03But under the pressure of expectation,
0:08:03 > 0:08:07he withdrew from the spotlight fighting ill health
0:08:07 > 0:08:11and brooding over what would be his last hurrah on the operatic stage...
0:08:12 > 0:08:15..a work whose central character, Gustav von Aschenbach,
0:08:15 > 0:08:18reflects Britten himself,
0:08:18 > 0:08:20a creative artist in middle age
0:08:20 > 0:08:23fretting about his craft as the years slip away.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28I can't think of any other opera where a composer kind of sets
0:08:28 > 0:08:31out his stall so specifically.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34It's as though Britten wants to get on with this
0:08:34 > 0:08:37and when you hear the first few sentences,
0:08:37 > 0:08:42you realise that he's telling you all about the dilemma, the central
0:08:42 > 0:08:49dichotomy of his life, and the moment he's at now, facing death.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52"My mind beats on and no words come.
0:08:52 > 0:08:57"Taxing, tiring, unyielding, unproductive. My mind beats on
0:08:57 > 0:09:00"No sleep restores me."
0:09:00 > 0:09:03From the very moment it starts up, that very,
0:09:03 > 0:09:07very first da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da, that very first thing, it's a
0:09:07 > 0:09:12kind of feeling of sort of febrile, everything being on the edge.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15Aschenbach is completely unable to cope.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19# My mind beats on
0:09:20 > 0:09:27# My mind beats on
0:09:28 > 0:09:36# And no words come
0:09:39 > 0:09:41That's so Britten.
0:09:41 > 0:09:46That harp tells you we're going to go into an imaginary world soon
0:09:52 > 0:09:57# Taxing, tiring... #
0:09:58 > 0:10:02In early 20th-century Munich, Aschenbach worries about his
0:10:02 > 0:10:07creativity drying up, just as Britten would half a century later.
0:10:07 > 0:10:12# Unyielding, unproductive... #
0:10:15 > 0:10:17'Very ominous, these sounds.'
0:10:28 > 0:10:33# My mind beats on... #
0:10:35 > 0:10:37Almost immediately,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40Britten has set up the colours of the palette
0:10:40 > 0:10:43that he's going to draw on.
0:10:43 > 0:10:51# No sleep restores me
0:10:51 > 0:10:54# I, Aschenbach
0:10:54 > 0:10:58# Famous as a master writer
0:10:58 > 0:11:01# Successful, honoured
0:11:01 > 0:11:04# Self-discipline my strength
0:11:04 > 0:11:08# Routine the order on my days
0:11:08 > 0:11:13# Imagination, servant of my will... #
0:11:13 > 0:11:17That's a self portrait. He was the most disciplined man
0:11:17 > 0:11:21and imagination was the servant of his of his will.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26# My mind beats on
0:11:28 > 0:11:35# My mind beats on
0:11:37 > 0:11:43# Why am I now at a loss?
0:11:46 > 0:11:50Aschenbach, like Britten, has a puritan approach to life
0:11:50 > 0:11:53which will be turned on its head as the opera unfolds.
0:11:53 > 0:11:59# I reject the words called forth by passion
0:11:59 > 0:12:04# I suspect the easy judgment of the heart
0:12:04 > 0:12:10# Now passion itself has left me
0:12:10 > 0:12:14# And delight in
0:12:14 > 0:12:21# Fastidious choice. #
0:12:22 > 0:12:25He was such an incredible master by the time he wrote
0:12:25 > 0:12:29Death In Venice that the state of mind of Aschenbach is exactly
0:12:29 > 0:12:32and perfectly described in that music
0:12:32 > 0:12:36and the consequence of that is you can get inside the head
0:12:36 > 0:12:38of that guy and stay inside the head of that
0:12:38 > 0:12:41guy from the beginning of the opera to the end.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43He was never somebody who had writer's block himself or
0:12:43 > 0:12:47if he did, it was something that he'd get over with very quickly
0:12:47 > 0:12:50You read so often in his letters or diaries,
0:12:50 > 0:12:54"I'm having a terrible time writing. I can't write a note"
0:12:54 > 0:12:57and it basically means he'd had a difficult afternoon
0:12:57 > 0:13:00because for him, I mean that was a struggle
0:13:00 > 0:13:04but compared with other composers, he was extraordinarily fluent.
0:13:06 > 0:13:08For some in the musical world,
0:13:08 > 0:13:11Britten's fluency was not a badge of pride.
0:13:12 > 0:13:17The new progressives felt his music was too easy, too accessible.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21He hadn't joined the bandwagon of the avant-garde and still used
0:13:21 > 0:13:26the time-honoured system of tonality which was supposed to be worn out.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30Britten himself worried that his powers were on the wane.
0:13:30 > 0:13:35He commented just before his 50th birthday that he was the last
0:13:35 > 0:13:38rotting branch of a dying tree
0:13:39 > 0:13:42He told his publisher, Donald Mitchell,
0:13:42 > 0:13:46that he was forgotten and that he was being left behind
0:13:46 > 0:13:48and I think there's something in that.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55BRITTEN: 'I don't always follow the new directions
0:13:55 > 0:13:57'and nor do I always approve of them.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00'Seeking after a new language has become more important than
0:14:00 > 0:14:03'saying what you mean.'
0:14:03 > 0:14:06He was not in the club in a sense, in the avant-garde club,
0:14:06 > 0:14:10and I think that probably did worry him quite a lot.
0:14:11 > 0:14:17'I think this is a moment of lack of confidence which I shall outgrow.'
0:14:17 > 0:14:20I remember people being quite dismissive at Royal College
0:14:20 > 0:14:22when you talked about Britten or Shostakovich,
0:14:22 > 0:14:25those composers were thought of as old-fashioned.
0:14:49 > 0:14:54'I cannot understand why one should want to reject the past.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58'If we rejected the past, we should just be making funny noises.'
0:15:00 > 0:15:02I think he felt a bit out of touch.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06He was up there in Aldeburgh, as a kind of king of Aldeburgh
0:15:06 > 0:15:07living isolated from the town
0:15:07 > 0:15:11and I felt he was a bit out of touch with everything in a way.
0:15:12 > 0:15:14Well, I think you put your finger on it.
0:15:14 > 0:15:21It was old hat and an awful lot of the composers I admired at that time
0:15:21 > 0:15:26couldn't have any time for it at all and particularly foreign composers.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30I remember meeting Luciano Berio at Dartington
0:15:30 > 0:15:35and he was very rude about Britten.
0:15:35 > 0:15:40'I couldn't be alone. I couldn't work alone.
0:15:40 > 0:15:42'I can only work, really,
0:15:42 > 0:15:47'because of the tradition that I am conscious of behind me.
0:15:47 > 0:15:52'This may be giving myself away If so, I can't help it.
0:15:52 > 0:15:58'It is a time of change in music now, whether one likes to admit it or not.
0:15:58 > 0:16:01'The old tradition has split.'
0:16:04 > 0:16:08Britten guarded his national status jealously but at the same time
0:16:08 > 0:16:11he avoided simply repeating his early successes.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15He did look for new directions one of them
0:16:15 > 0:16:19sparked by his new best friend, the Russian cellist Slava Rostropovich.
0:16:21 > 0:16:25He'd never written for the solo cello before and relished
0:16:25 > 0:16:29the challenge of stretching the instrument's technique.
0:16:45 > 0:16:49This music is now a staple of the professional cello repertoire.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52Then, it was a private tease for Rostropovich's virtuosity.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15But in other ways, it was music of retreat,
0:17:15 > 0:17:20of withdrawal from the public stage with its own dark shadows.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27Britten was often holed up in Suffolk,
0:17:27 > 0:17:30immersed in the Aldeburgh Festival.
0:17:30 > 0:17:34He'd withdrawn from the operatic stage too with a new
0:17:34 > 0:17:36form of drama, performed in church with just
0:17:36 > 0:17:39a handful of instruments and without a conductor.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44He wrote the first of these Church Parables soon after
0:17:44 > 0:17:48the War Requiem and it could hardly have been more different.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53Curlew River is a stark meditation on mortality
0:17:53 > 0:17:56and grief which foreshadows Death In Venice in the strange
0:17:56 > 0:17:58oriental colours of the music.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03And as in several of his works notably Death In Venice,
0:18:03 > 0:18:05it has a boy at its heart.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07TENOR SINGS CURLEW RIVER
0:18:19 > 0:18:21I remember this bit very well.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30This is when the mad woman, who's been
0:18:30 > 0:18:34wandering around the place looking for her lost child...
0:18:44 > 0:18:48..the people that she meets on the ferry reveal
0:18:48 > 0:18:54a story of a little boy who died on a journey across the Curlew River.
0:18:59 > 0:19:04And she suddenly realises that the little boy in question was
0:19:04 > 0:19:09her son and her son is dead.
0:19:11 > 0:19:16This poignant story is set in the Fenland marshes of East Anglia
0:19:16 > 0:19:19but clothed in the formal ritual of Japanese Noh theatre
0:19:19 > 0:19:24alongside Gregorian plainchant from medieval Christianity.
0:19:25 > 0:19:28The all-male cast are dressed as monks who then
0:19:28 > 0:19:30put on a play-within-a-play.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35The stylised gestures of the Noh actor,
0:19:35 > 0:19:39they're supposed to conjure a more poetic response from the audience so
0:19:39 > 0:19:45that an audience sees something in their mind's eye that is far
0:19:45 > 0:19:48greater than what's on the stage.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00Curlew River was the biggest emotional experience
0:20:00 > 0:20:03I had at all, of all his music
0:20:04 > 0:20:09It really touches people's sense of life and death.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25The way Britten wrote for the tenor voice of Peter Pears
0:20:25 > 0:20:27defined Curlew River,
0:20:27 > 0:20:31just as it had in Peter Grimes and would again in Death In Venice.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35Pears captured Britten's emotional connection with a mother
0:20:35 > 0:20:38deranged by the loss of her young son.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41RECORDING OF OPERA PLAYS
0:20:43 > 0:20:48This is the mad woman praying at the grave of her son
0:20:50 > 0:20:53And the flute is the call of the curlews.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16Britten broke new ground in the way each performer sings or plays
0:21:16 > 0:21:18the notes at his own speed,
0:21:18 > 0:21:22only coming together at key moments such as when they think
0:21:22 > 0:21:26they hear the voice of the dead boy's spirit above the tumult.
0:21:41 > 0:21:43'So they're not sure what they can really hear.'
0:21:44 > 0:21:48# I thought I heard the voice of my child... #
0:21:50 > 0:21:53What it sets out to do is quite extraordinary
0:21:53 > 0:21:57and it's one of the most individual works that he ever wrote.
0:22:01 > 0:22:07# I thought I heard him praying in his grave... #
0:22:08 > 0:22:12I remember the score arriving and I looked at it
0:22:12 > 0:22:16and I could make absolutely no head or tail of it.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19I could see the notes, I could sing the notes
0:22:19 > 0:22:23but I didn't understand the layout of this part.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26The music was of, then,
0:22:26 > 0:22:31such difficulty that it required the longest rehearsal period
0:22:31 > 0:22:34of any opera of the English opera group that I've ever known.
0:22:34 > 0:22:39We had five solid weeks, including all the orchestra.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43In fact, I never did learn it beforehand, there was
0:22:43 > 0:22:44no way I could learn it.
0:22:47 > 0:22:52'We all learnt by doing because we all had to learn the whole piece.'
0:22:59 > 0:23:07# Is it you, my child? #
0:23:13 > 0:23:17Britten had long since let go of his Christian upbringing
0:23:17 > 0:23:21but he was absorbed by the idea of redemption and transfiguration.
0:23:28 > 0:23:31He rewrote the end, I think, six times
0:23:31 > 0:23:33till he was really satisfied with it.
0:23:33 > 0:23:37He had six different versions to rehearse before he finally said
0:23:37 > 0:23:38"This is it, I've got it."
0:23:42 > 0:23:45Curlew River was blacked out before it even started
0:23:45 > 0:23:49by an electrical storm and the entire audience, full of
0:23:49 > 0:23:54critics and management, were sitting there in the church in the dark
0:23:54 > 0:23:59My goodness, the tension that built up was tremendous.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03'What about Britten himself?' Goodness knows what he was doing.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07He was out in the churchyard just bringing everything up.
0:24:07 > 0:24:09He was in a terrible, terrible state.
0:24:09 > 0:24:11We just waited and waited.
0:24:11 > 0:24:15And then, during the performance,
0:24:15 > 0:24:17he and I were leaning against a pillar at the back
0:24:17 > 0:24:21of the church watching it and this lightning kept on going off
0:24:21 > 0:24:23and he thought, "Oh, God, it's going to happen again.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26"We're going to be blacked out in the middle of the piece
0:24:26 > 0:24:29"and it'll wreck it" and he started getting very upset.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32Then we discovered there was a light illuminating the big
0:24:32 > 0:24:36painting behind the altar which was at the other end of the church
0:24:36 > 0:24:38and he was leaning against that button, you know,
0:24:38 > 0:24:41one of those timed buttons, so every time he leant on it, the
0:24:41 > 0:24:46lightning flashed and he was getting sicker and sicker, poor man.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50At the end of Curlew River,
0:24:50 > 0:24:54the boy releases the mad woman from her torment and, at the same
0:24:54 > 0:24:58time, releases an unusual tenderness in Britten's score.
0:25:00 > 0:25:04The voice of the little boy singing, singing to his mother...
0:25:06 > 0:25:09"Go your way in peace, mother.
0:25:10 > 0:25:12"The dead shall rise again."
0:25:39 > 0:25:45There was this passionate yearning in him for a child and I think
0:25:45 > 0:25:51this came through the whole mother's predicament in that opera.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54I think it was very personal to him from that point of view.
0:26:29 > 0:26:33He had always had something wrong with him.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41He had continual problems with one arm.
0:26:45 > 0:26:48He was sometimes a martyr to stomach troubles.
0:26:57 > 0:27:01He would run a high temperature for a reason nobody quite understood.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13We were nursing him along quite a lot of the time.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33We thought of it as really being an emotional, mental problem.
0:27:49 > 0:27:53We were looking ahead to what the schedule was likely to be
0:27:53 > 0:27:57and he said, "Well, I'm going to do this and I've got a few other
0:27:57 > 0:28:02"pieces to write and then I shall be ill" and I said, "What?!"
0:28:02 > 0:28:07And he said, "Oh, I'm always ill after a big piece." But it was
0:28:07 > 0:28:12such a strange thing to build in, your illness, into a schedule.
0:28:31 > 0:28:35I was having Monday lunch with him
0:28:35 > 0:28:38and he apologised because it was cold meat,
0:28:38 > 0:28:42it was yesterday's roast and he said,
0:28:42 > 0:28:46"I don't really like this at all."
0:28:46 > 0:28:51I said, "Well, why don't you ask Miss Hudson
0:28:51 > 0:28:54"to do something special?"
0:28:54 > 0:28:57He said, "Oh, that's more than my life's worth."
0:28:57 > 0:28:59And at the same time,
0:28:59 > 0:29:04she came in and she put down his pills in various orders
0:29:04 > 0:29:09and said, "Mr Britten, they're your pills to take this morning "
0:29:18 > 0:29:22There was a sort of slightly more haunted, worried look to him.
0:29:22 > 0:29:27He didn't have that youthful confidence any more.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34He couldn't go for such long walks any more
0:29:34 > 0:29:37and he wasn't playing tennis any more and generally speaking
0:29:37 > 0:29:39he just wasn't feeling well.
0:29:54 > 0:29:59The desperate difficulty for him was to keep the world at bay
0:29:59 > 0:30:02so that he had enough time to compose.
0:30:03 > 0:30:08And the world seemed to conspire to take him away from that,
0:30:08 > 0:30:13so he was fighting everybody and everything round him all the time.
0:30:14 > 0:30:17He'd had a crisis in his health in his mid-40s
0:30:17 > 0:30:21when he saw a consultant over his multiple medical problems.
0:30:21 > 0:30:24He was diagnosed then with a leaking valve in his heart.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29It was decided not to operate.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33By 1968, the heart murmur was louder and he spent several
0:30:33 > 0:30:37weeks in hospital with a serious heart condition, endocarditis.
0:30:39 > 0:30:42If anything, this compounded his determination to proceed with
0:30:42 > 0:30:46Death In Venice, his 17th work for the stage.
0:30:47 > 0:30:50The complexity of the book with its high-flown language
0:30:50 > 0:30:54and ideas was a challenge for his librettist, Myfanwy Piper.
0:30:55 > 0:31:00She and Britten batted ideas back and forth in every spare moment
0:31:00 > 0:31:02and on any scraps of paper that came to hand.
0:31:05 > 0:31:06On legal advice,
0:31:06 > 0:31:09Britten never saw Visconti's feature film of Death In Venice
0:31:09 > 0:31:13starring Dirk Bogarde, to avoid any risks over copyright
0:31:13 > 0:31:16because Britten was set on his subject.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19The Munich writer Aschenbach travels to Venice,
0:31:19 > 0:31:22the gateway to the exotic Orient,
0:31:22 > 0:31:25hoping the change of scene will stimulate him.
0:31:25 > 0:31:29But the beauty he finds there has a sickness that will, in the end,
0:31:29 > 0:31:31destroy him.
0:31:31 > 0:31:35Venice was a place that would suffer from disease,
0:31:35 > 0:31:39cholera which would wipe people out, so the season would end
0:31:39 > 0:31:43and the city would suddenly transform into somewhere that
0:31:43 > 0:31:48was even ominous and frightening and it is fascinating how a place
0:31:48 > 0:31:53of great beauty can also become somewhere that is quite chilling.
0:31:53 > 0:31:57This dark side of beauty resonated with Britten.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00He knew he was running serious risks with his health
0:32:00 > 0:32:02but the opera came first.
0:32:02 > 0:32:07The race was on to get it finished, get it completed,
0:32:07 > 0:32:10because, of course, the world was waiting for the next Britten opera.
0:32:23 > 0:32:27If he had had his heart dealt with a bit earlier,
0:32:27 > 0:32:30maybe even before he started writing Death In Venice,
0:32:30 > 0:32:32life might have been very different for him.
0:32:37 > 0:32:39Six months would have made a difference.
0:32:39 > 0:32:41Five years would have made a huge difference.
0:32:48 > 0:32:53Hard work was just what the doctors felt was going to be bad for him.
0:32:53 > 0:32:56He was not to be deterred and he went ahead.
0:33:03 > 0:33:08When he said, "I cannot stop. I have to finish this piece before you take
0:33:08 > 0:33:12"the knife to me", they said, "Well, all right, it's on your head."
0:33:19 > 0:33:25# The wind
0:33:25 > 0:33:29# Is from the West
0:33:30 > 0:33:38# A lazy sea... #
0:33:42 > 0:33:45At first, Aschenbach finds Venice oppressive.
0:33:45 > 0:33:49It takes a while before he starts to feel liberated.
0:33:49 > 0:33:53# A stagnant smell from the lagoon
0:33:53 > 0:33:56# My temples throb
0:33:56 > 0:34:01# I cannot work
0:34:02 > 0:34:10# O Serenissima,
0:34:10 > 0:34:12# Be kind
0:34:12 > 0:34:16# Or I must leave
0:34:16 > 0:34:21# Just as once I left before. #
0:34:31 > 0:34:35Britten not only had to complete the opera before his health gave out,
0:34:35 > 0:34:38he also wanted it to be his supreme gift to his partner,
0:34:38 > 0:34:42Peter Pears, who was now in his 60s,
0:34:42 > 0:34:45probably Peter's "last great part" as he put it
0:34:50 > 0:34:53For almost 30 years, Britten's relationship with him
0:34:53 > 0:34:56had been discreetly open but illegal.
0:34:58 > 0:35:01He's very aware that people are talking about him
0:35:01 > 0:35:05and being gay was a great problem for him.
0:35:05 > 0:35:09It wasn't to Pears, I think, but it was always to him.
0:35:09 > 0:35:12He struggled, I think, throughout his life with this tussle,
0:35:12 > 0:35:16in a way we don't need to nowadays about being gay.
0:35:17 > 0:35:20I just don't know how he did cope.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24You know, going out into the public, facing an audience of thousands
0:35:24 > 0:35:29of strange human beings and wondering if they're judging you.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33At a time when some prominent gay men in the arts world were
0:35:33 > 0:35:37prosecuted, the police did arrive on Britten's doorstep
0:35:37 > 0:35:39but took matters no further.
0:35:39 > 0:35:46They were never overtly too close to each other in public.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49They would no sooner kiss each other in public than fly,
0:35:49 > 0:35:51they were extremely respectable
0:35:52 > 0:35:56They hardly ever referred to each other publicly by their first names.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59It was always Peter Pears or Benjamin Britten.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06RECORDING: We are awfully happy Peter Pears and I.
0:36:06 > 0:36:10PETER: In fact, Benjamin Britten writes for the voice...
0:36:10 > 0:36:11Jolly badly!
0:36:11 > 0:36:15No, on the contrary, don't put it like that.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18For example, a strange, strange time,
0:36:18 > 0:36:22my father remarried a rather bitter,
0:36:22 > 0:36:25blue-stocking woman who suspected that there was something
0:36:25 > 0:36:28fishy going on there. So one day, she said to me
0:36:28 > 0:36:33when I was housekeeping for Ben and Peter in London, "I'd like to come
0:36:33 > 0:36:37"and see you." So, she came and "Now, I want to see over the house."
0:36:37 > 0:36:40So, I showed her over the house and right at the top of the house,
0:36:40 > 0:36:44there was a large bedroom with a very large double bed in it
0:36:44 > 0:36:46"And who sleeps here?"
0:36:46 > 0:36:52"Well..." And I told her the truth and she was absolutely horrified.
0:36:52 > 0:36:54And I thought, "What have I done?
0:36:54 > 0:36:56"She's now going to go to the newspapers
0:36:56 > 0:36:58"and there's going to be the most terrible row."
0:36:58 > 0:37:00She didn't, of course, because, well,
0:37:00 > 0:37:03it was all part of the family so you couldn't quite do that.
0:37:20 > 0:37:25There's no doubt that Ben was absolutely mesmerised
0:37:25 > 0:37:30by Peter's voice and it was really a catalyst for so much.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32RECORDING: I think it's marvellous singing.
0:37:32 > 0:37:34Absolutely marvellous singing.
0:37:34 > 0:37:40It's aiming at something so rare and so special and so pure that. .
0:37:42 > 0:37:47Honestly, I think we've got two smashing takes there.
0:37:47 > 0:37:49But I would like to have one more go. Of course, Peter.
0:37:51 > 0:37:54# A thousand thousand gleaming fires
0:37:54 > 0:37:57# Seemed kindling in the air... #
0:37:57 > 0:38:00Britten wrote for Pears' voice across almost 40 years.
0:38:00 > 0:38:02# A thousand thousand silvery lyres
0:38:02 > 0:38:04# Resounded far and near... #
0:38:04 > 0:38:07It was a partnership unique in the history of music
0:38:07 > 0:38:09# Methought, the very breath I breathed
0:38:09 > 0:38:11# Was full of sparks divine... #
0:38:11 > 0:38:14The Snape Maltings concert hall was their baby.
0:38:14 > 0:38:18It was just two years old in 19 9 when disaster struck.
0:38:18 > 0:38:22Somebody actually whispered in my ear that the Maltings
0:38:22 > 0:38:24was on fire so I rushed to my car
0:38:24 > 0:38:27and rushed over to Snape
0:38:27 > 0:38:30and halfway there, I could see a glow in the sky.
0:38:30 > 0:38:32Panic stations. I said to Jack
0:38:32 > 0:38:35"For goodness' sake, put your foot down as fast as you can."
0:38:35 > 0:38:38# And all my heather-couch was wreathed
0:38:38 > 0:38:41# By that celestial shine... #
0:38:41 > 0:38:43It was like a volcano going off
0:38:43 > 0:38:46You have these curious mixed feelings about it, really,
0:38:46 > 0:38:49you were conscious of the fact that it was a terrible,
0:38:49 > 0:38:50terrible thing to be happening
0:38:50 > 0:38:55There was our lovely concert hall being destroyed before our very eyes...
0:38:55 > 0:38:57# And while the wide earth echoing rung
0:38:57 > 0:39:01# To that strange minstrelsy... #
0:39:01 > 0:39:03..but at the same time, you couldn't help
0:39:03 > 0:39:07but be terribly thrilled by it in a sort of macabre sort of way.
0:39:07 > 0:39:09There was something unprecedented
0:39:09 > 0:39:14and you knew that it was a historic event and it was.
0:39:14 > 0:39:19# "O, mortal! Mortal! Let them die;
0:39:19 > 0:39:25# "Let time and tears destroy... #
0:39:25 > 0:39:28We turned straight round and went back to Red House and actually
0:39:28 > 0:39:31Ben and Peter, at that point, didn't know.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34Ben was extremely, of course, upset
0:39:34 > 0:39:38because the Maltings had become very dear to him,
0:39:38 > 0:39:42possibly the best acoustic of any concert hall in the kingdom
0:39:42 > 0:39:47# "To thee the world is like a tomb
0:39:47 > 0:39:52# "A desert's naked shore
0:39:52 > 0:39:57# "To us, in unimagined bloom
0:39:57 > 0:40:01# "It brightens more and more... #
0:40:01 > 0:40:04The Aldeburgh Festival had just begun
0:40:04 > 0:40:07and Britten's two-week schedule of performances in the Maltings
0:40:07 > 0:40:09seemed to be doomed.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12There was a moment of shock where we thought,
0:40:12 > 0:40:16"We'd better go away and forget about it for a week or so."
0:40:16 > 0:40:20But as soon as one got over that, one realised that the first thing
0:40:20 > 0:40:24to do was to go on with the concerts and operas are far as possible
0:40:27 > 0:40:33# Because they live to die
0:40:36 > 0:40:41# The little glittering spirit sun
0:40:41 > 0:40:43# Seemed to sing to me... #
0:40:43 > 0:40:46'At an emergency conference at The Red House,
0:40:46 > 0:40:48'which lasted into the small hours,
0:40:48 > 0:40:52'the composer turned administrator rearranged the whole festival.
0:40:53 > 0:40:56The main reaction from him that night,
0:40:56 > 0:41:01he was already in his dressing gown and pyjamas,
0:41:01 > 0:41:06was to make plans for rescuing the festival.
0:41:06 > 0:41:09And he was completely calm, completely composed, there was
0:41:09 > 0:41:13no emotion, just determination
0:41:13 > 0:41:18It was so urgent that everybody just sat there aghast,
0:41:18 > 0:41:21taking notes furiously about what they all had to do.
0:41:21 > 0:41:25It was only a year since his treatment for endocarditis.
0:41:25 > 0:41:29The hard-pressed composer inspected the ruins the next day with
0:41:29 > 0:41:32the man who'd designed the hall
0:41:32 > 0:41:37We met Britten and Pears on the wet ashes.
0:41:37 > 0:41:40And I actually had a cry.
0:41:40 > 0:41:44Britten said to me, "I've had my cry, Derek,
0:41:44 > 0:41:50"and I've got over it, cos we'll build it again exactly as it was."
0:41:50 > 0:41:54And Peter said, "Well, just one or two little things, Ben."
0:42:00 > 0:42:06The rebuilding of the festival and then the hall was taxing and tiring.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09But it symbolised the way Britten recharged his music,
0:42:09 > 0:42:12after a rather arid period in the late '60s.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18He got his mojo back and basically something happened to him
0:42:18 > 0:42:22and he was able to move on and I think the enthusiasm was there.
0:42:27 > 0:42:31It happens to composers. You suddenly get excited.
0:42:31 > 0:42:35The challenge was to rebuild the Maltings within a year
0:42:35 > 0:42:38and to raise the necessary money.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43It does take up time and one's life is a rather full one.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46I do plan my writing very carefully.
0:42:46 > 0:42:50Now, with this big planning operation,
0:42:50 > 0:42:53the battle is already lost, I would say.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56The first new opera for the rebuilt Maltings stage was to be
0:42:56 > 0:43:00Death In Venice, with a story fraught with danger.
0:43:00 > 0:43:03Britten understood all too well the infatuation Aschenbach
0:43:03 > 0:43:06develops for a beautiful Polish boy, Tadzio.
0:43:06 > 0:43:09Britten enhanced this idealised beauty by casting him
0:43:09 > 0:43:11a non-singing role, as a dancer
0:43:13 > 0:43:16For Aschenbach, a widower with a daughter,
0:43:16 > 0:43:20this is not a tender parental feeling as in Curlew River.
0:43:20 > 0:43:23He becomes torn between platonic admiration
0:43:23 > 0:43:25and a more sensual desire.
0:43:25 > 0:43:30# Oh, Tadzio, the charming Tadzio
0:43:31 > 0:43:33# That's what it was
0:43:33 > 0:43:37# That's what made it hard to leave
0:43:45 > 0:43:50# So be it
0:43:53 > 0:43:59# So be it... #
0:43:59 > 0:44:02Aschenbach has the chance to leave Venice, but instead,
0:44:02 > 0:44:06succumbs to his infatuation, which he mistakenly thinks he can control.
0:44:10 > 0:44:12# Here will I stay
0:44:12 > 0:44:15# Here dedicate my days to the sun
0:44:17 > 0:44:19# To the sun
0:44:19 > 0:44:26# And Apollo himself... #
0:44:28 > 0:44:30'Britten was attracted to young boys.'
0:44:36 > 0:44:39And to dramatise that was something
0:44:39 > 0:44:41he felt was an essential part of his art.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49Lots of composers would have stayed away from it.
0:44:49 > 0:44:52To confront it, in a way quite brave, I think.
0:44:54 > 0:44:58It's quite awkward to talk about, but it's not at all awkward to play.
0:45:01 > 0:45:04It was part of him that he was attracted in that way.
0:45:04 > 0:45:06It wasn't natural to Aschenbach
0:45:06 > 0:45:11Aschenbach was turned by the vision of this boy,
0:45:11 > 0:45:13and his view of the world was changed.
0:45:13 > 0:45:16I don't think Ben's view of the world ever varied,
0:45:16 > 0:45:19particularly, as far as young men were concerned.
0:45:21 > 0:45:24Tadzio and his friends played sports on the beach,
0:45:24 > 0:45:29danced on stage at a Greek pentathlon, the Games of Apollo
0:45:29 > 0:45:32Britten's librettist, Myfanwy Piper, even suggested that the boys
0:45:32 > 0:45:35should compete like the ancient Greeks - naked.
0:45:36 > 0:45:38The composer said the idea was excellent
0:45:38 > 0:45:43and could be wonderfully beautiful as well as Hellenically evocative.
0:45:43 > 0:45:47But he was wise enough to reject it for fear of unwelcome publicity
0:45:48 > 0:45:52In the event, Frederick Ashton's choreography was to cause a stir.
0:45:53 > 0:45:54I honestly don't think
0:45:54 > 0:45:57you'd be allowed to put it on the stage these days.
0:45:57 > 0:46:01It was pyramids of barely adolescent boys wearing loincloths.
0:46:03 > 0:46:05You know, it was kind of...
0:46:06 > 0:46:10I know it was considered by some people to be deeply,
0:46:10 > 0:46:13deeply offensive and embarrassing at the time.
0:46:13 > 0:46:16I personally wasn't bothered, I thought it was beautiful.
0:46:16 > 0:46:18I had always admired Ashton's choreography.
0:46:18 > 0:46:23'Britten's librettist, Myfanwy Piper, wanted the boys dancing naked.
0:46:25 > 0:46:27Now, I didn't know that.
0:46:27 > 0:46:28Yes, well...
0:46:28 > 0:46:31Perhaps just as well that she didn't get her way, isn't it?
0:46:31 > 0:46:35'Britten said, "I think it might be misconstrued.'"
0:46:35 > 0:46:36HE LAUGHS
0:46:36 > 0:46:39Yes, I think we can all agree about that.
0:46:40 > 0:46:42The Polish boy who, in real life,
0:46:42 > 0:46:47had caught the eye of the author Thomas Mann, was only 11.
0:46:47 > 0:46:50In the book, he made Tadzio 13
0:46:50 > 0:46:52the age which always appealed to Britten.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55But in the opera, because he has to dance,
0:46:55 > 0:46:57Tadzio usually looks more mature.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02No idea, actually, how old Tadzio is meant to be in the opera.
0:47:05 > 0:47:11Clearly, he seems to be around 5 or 16 in that original production.
0:47:11 > 0:47:13There probably was a consciousness
0:47:13 > 0:47:15that he shouldn't appear to be to young.
0:47:15 > 0:47:19I think it would be very difficult nowadays to compose an opera
0:47:19 > 0:47:21such as Death In Venice.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24Just as it would be very difficult to write a novel like Lolita,
0:47:24 > 0:47:26for that matter.
0:47:26 > 0:47:30I mean, in a strange way, we've become more conservative
0:47:30 > 0:47:34more politically correct now,
0:47:34 > 0:47:38than one could have been 30 years ago.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42Even at the time, some of Britten's colleagues were
0:47:42 > 0:47:45nervous about the subject of the opera.
0:47:45 > 0:47:50I was a bit puzzled and worried, in fact.
0:47:50 > 0:47:54I immediately saw a parallel to Britten's infatuation with
0:47:54 > 0:47:58David Hemmings in Venice at the time of The Turn Of The Screw.
0:47:58 > 0:48:02And it seems to me that this was a little bit too close to the bone.
0:48:05 > 0:48:07David Hemmings was 12
0:48:07 > 0:48:11when he created the role of Miles in The Turn Of The Screw in 195 .
0:48:13 > 0:48:14Before the Venice premiere,
0:48:14 > 0:48:18he'd spent two months in Britten's house, learning the part.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21The good-looking boy was, in a sense, Britten's Tadzio,
0:48:21 > 0:48:24almost 20 years before Death In Venice.
0:48:25 > 0:48:30He just sort of drank in all this adulation that Ben was giving him.
0:48:31 > 0:48:34But if you can believe David Hemmings,
0:48:34 > 0:48:38and I do, it never got to anything improper, even though
0:48:38 > 0:48:41apparently they slept in the same bed sometimes.
0:48:41 > 0:48:49My father told me, strangely enough in Leicester Square men's lavatory.
0:48:51 > 0:48:53He told me that...
0:48:55 > 0:48:57His words exactly...
0:49:00 > 0:49:02"You know he's a homo, don't you?"
0:49:04 > 0:49:09Now, I didn't understand cos I was about this big.
0:49:09 > 0:49:12I didn't understand what "homo" meant.
0:49:13 > 0:49:15But...
0:49:18 > 0:49:21..my father was therefore not concerned enough
0:49:21 > 0:49:23not to take the money...
0:49:25 > 0:49:31..that I earned from it, but he was concerned for my health.
0:49:31 > 0:49:35But I can unequivocally say
0:49:35 > 0:49:41he never endangered my health at all.
0:49:41 > 0:49:44Some of us were amused by it.
0:49:44 > 0:49:49But we were, none of us, shocked and none of us horrified,
0:49:49 > 0:49:52the ways some parents might have been.
0:49:54 > 0:49:55'Peter Pears is quoted as saying,
0:49:55 > 0:49:59'"While in Venice, I had to take him away to cool off a bit."
0:50:00 > 0:50:02'Do you remember that?'
0:50:02 > 0:50:05Well, if you really want to know, Peter had to be taken away to
0:50:05 > 0:50:07be cooled off as much as anybody else.
0:50:08 > 0:50:10It was the same with Death In Venice,
0:50:10 > 0:50:15when Peter became totally besotted with the guy who was doing Tadzio.
0:50:16 > 0:50:20And, eh...he always let his hair down much more than Ben did.
0:50:24 > 0:50:28I think, this cooling off business referred much more to Ben's
0:50:28 > 0:50:31frustration with David not really being able to hit the note,
0:50:31 > 0:50:34as it were.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37And that he wanted him to be perfect and David was imperfect.
0:50:37 > 0:50:39He was a dad to me.
0:50:39 > 0:50:46He really was, not only a father, but a friend.
0:50:46 > 0:50:51And you couldn't have had a better father, nor a better friend.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55Although there was this relationship with lots of young boys,
0:50:55 > 0:50:57never anything actually happened.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04And I know this from my own experience.
0:51:04 > 0:51:08I remember jumping into bed with him when he came on holiday
0:51:08 > 0:51:12on the Norfolk broads for a couple of nights.
0:51:12 > 0:51:13Went sailing with him as well.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16But I can assure you, nothing happened.
0:51:16 > 0:51:20There was no inappropriate behaviour, as we would call it now.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25Nothing happens in the opera either.
0:51:25 > 0:51:28In the book, Tadzio brushes past Aschenbach
0:51:28 > 0:51:33but Britten never lets them touch or even speak to each other.
0:51:33 > 0:51:36They merely exchange glances, and at one point,
0:51:36 > 0:51:39the boy smiles at Aschenbach.
0:51:39 > 0:51:40And that is all.
0:51:40 > 0:51:42The rest is in Aschenbach's head.
0:51:43 > 0:51:47There's a moment where he actually encounters Tadzio,
0:51:47 > 0:51:49has an opportunity to say, "Well done."
0:51:51 > 0:51:53Sees the boy and...
0:51:54 > 0:51:59I just can't say what he wanted to say. I couldn't even speak to him.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02And at the end of that one he then says, "I love you."
0:52:04 > 0:52:05And then spends act two
0:52:05 > 0:52:08trying to work out exactly he meant by the words "I love you".
0:52:08 > 0:52:11# I...
0:52:15 > 0:52:16# Love you... #
0:52:47 > 0:52:50This has an almost sort claustrophobia -
0:52:50 > 0:52:54Mahlerian...sound-world.
0:52:54 > 0:52:56But something quite English
0:52:56 > 0:52:59and quite...almost harking back to Peter Grimes.
0:53:01 > 0:53:02Stunning.
0:53:10 > 0:53:13It's remarkably thinly scored.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17It's as though he can trust the power of the single line,
0:53:17 > 0:53:19of the single phrase.
0:53:19 > 0:53:20That's it's enough.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46The contrasts of the deep darkness of the water
0:53:46 > 0:53:49and then these little drops.
0:54:08 > 0:54:13I think the tie between Aschenbach and Ben is extremely strong.
0:54:17 > 0:54:21I think he associated with that character more than any other
0:54:21 > 0:54:23characters - even Peter Grimes
0:54:33 > 0:54:37But the way things turned out, boys were not Britten's greatest worry.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41In August 1972, his doctor called him in for a check-up.
0:54:42 > 0:54:45He needed emergency surgery on his heart,
0:54:45 > 0:54:47otherwise his life would be very short.
0:54:48 > 0:54:54But the opera was still far from complete. He decided to press on.
0:54:54 > 0:54:56I remember him writing that second act
0:54:56 > 0:54:59when he really didn't think he was going to live to finish the opera.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03And he slashed everything out that he didn't feel was essential,
0:55:03 > 0:55:07so that he didn't have to deal with anything that wasn't necessary
0:55:07 > 0:55:10I think that's why the second act, which is written at white heat
0:55:10 > 0:55:15is so devastating, cos it wasn't just Aschenbach's predicament,
0:55:15 > 0:55:18but also his own life-or-death predicament.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23You have that strange story where Peter himself said,
0:55:23 > 0:55:27"Ben is writing an evil opera and it's killing him."
0:55:27 > 0:55:29An evil opera?
0:55:29 > 0:55:32I don't hear it as an evil opera.
0:55:32 > 0:55:34An evil opera? Well...
0:55:34 > 0:55:36'What do you think he meant?'
0:55:37 > 0:55:40That's very... That's really scary.
0:55:41 > 0:55:42I don't know.
0:55:43 > 0:55:45It's a very telling remark.
0:55:45 > 0:55:49I am perplexed by the use of the word "evil", I must say
0:55:49 > 0:55:52But it's killing him because he was working to a deadline.
0:55:52 > 0:55:56That was compounded by the fact that this was
0:55:56 > 0:55:59an opera in which he was confronting his own demons.
0:55:59 > 0:56:04And that the effort of doing that, intellectually,
0:56:04 > 0:56:07was also taking it out of him.
0:56:07 > 0:56:11Pears had always tolerated Britten's interest in adolescent boys.
0:56:11 > 0:56:15He himself was more detached, but he might have felt unease
0:56:15 > 0:56:18at having to enact the struggle going on in his partner's head
0:56:19 > 0:56:23I think one has to remember that Peter was a much fresher,
0:56:23 > 0:56:25more outgoing character than Ben.
0:56:26 > 0:56:32And something as desperately dark as this subject would have
0:56:32 > 0:56:33worried him.
0:56:33 > 0:56:36And to have to spend weeks
0:56:36 > 0:56:43and months on this topic would have been hard, very hard, for him.
0:56:43 > 0:56:47But if Peter could get dressed up in drag
0:56:47 > 0:56:51and convince everybody that he was a mad woman in Curlew River,
0:56:51 > 0:56:56I thought he would get away with being Aschenbach in Death In Venice.
0:56:56 > 0:56:59The white heat saw Britten through to the finish.
0:56:59 > 0:57:01The "evil opera" was done.
0:57:02 > 0:57:04My father got a phone call - Ben rang him up
0:57:04 > 0:57:07and said "I've finished it, come and have a drink!"
0:57:07 > 0:57:11So we went to The Red House library, Christmas Eve, or just before
0:57:11 > 0:57:16Christmas Eve, of 1972, and he was very pleased that he'd finished it.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23After some weeks preparing the full score,
0:57:23 > 0:57:27Britten handed himself over to the doctors, seven months late.
0:57:32 > 0:57:35He told his sister Beth, "I'm going into hospital
0:57:35 > 0:57:38"so they can find out what really is wrong.
0:57:38 > 0:57:40"I promise to do exactly as they say.
0:57:40 > 0:57:43"No-one expects anything very serious or something
0:57:43 > 0:57:45"that can't be coped with."
0:57:45 > 0:57:46He was 59.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51His cardiologist Graham Hayward arranged angiogram
0:57:51 > 0:57:53tests on his heart.
0:57:53 > 0:57:56The results were worse then expected.
0:57:58 > 0:58:03I could see that the valve was extraordinarily leaky,
0:58:03 > 0:58:04which we knew anyway.
0:58:04 > 0:58:10Also, that the pump function of the heart was seriously compromised
0:58:10 > 0:58:13That means that however successful valve surgery would be
0:58:13 > 0:58:18the heart would not make a good recovery.
0:58:18 > 0:58:20That I knew, from the moment I'd done the test.
0:58:24 > 0:58:25It was knackered.
0:58:25 > 0:58:31Because it had become stretched over the passage of time
0:58:31 > 0:58:36and I suspect particularly over the four years since the endocarditis.
0:58:39 > 0:58:44'So at that stage, you felt that his days were numbered?'
0:58:44 > 0:58:46Oh, yes, I didn't feel it, I knew it. We all knew it.
0:58:48 > 0:58:49Did he know it?
0:58:49 > 0:58:52It wasn't my job to explain it to him.
0:58:52 > 0:58:54That's was Graham Hayward's job
0:58:56 > 0:58:58Did he? I don't know.
0:58:58 > 0:59:01I rather doubt it, because otherwise,
0:59:01 > 0:59:06the subsequent story would have been more palatable.
0:59:08 > 0:59:14I don't recall anyone saying at the time that he definitely
0:59:14 > 0:59:16wasn't going to recover.
0:59:19 > 0:59:21Then came the operation he'd put off so long,
0:59:21 > 0:59:25to replace his heart valve - still quite a new form of surgery.
0:59:27 > 0:59:29Britten had told colleagues that, after convalescence,
0:59:29 > 0:59:32he "should be as good as new, even conducting."
0:59:34 > 0:59:39"The medical chaps," he went on "are optimistic about the future."
0:59:39 > 0:59:43He wasn't happy but he was quite accepting of what was going on
0:59:43 > 0:59:45I said to him,
0:59:45 > 0:59:48"Don't worry too much, we'll see this through together "
0:59:48 > 0:59:51And he always remembered that, right up
0:59:51 > 0:59:54until he was really very ill and dying.
0:59:54 > 0:59:56He said, "We'll see it through together,
0:59:56 > 0:59:58he used to say to me.
0:59:58 > 1:00:01The surgeon described Britten's heart as
1:00:01 > 1:00:03"Enlarged, bulky and flabby,"
1:00:03 > 1:00:06with all the extra muscle built up as it had struggled to
1:00:06 > 1:00:09compensate for the leaking valve.
1:00:09 > 1:00:14His assistant remembers it as, "Like a prize-fighter's heart.
1:00:14 > 1:00:17But the surgeon was puzzled by what he found.
1:00:17 > 1:00:21"The cause of the valve damage is not clear to me," he wrote.
1:00:21 > 1:00:23It wasn't consistent with what he'd been led to expect -
1:00:23 > 1:00:26the heart valve had not been malformed from birth.
1:00:28 > 1:00:30When the heart weakness was first diagnosed,
1:00:30 > 1:00:34the specialist had wondered whether syphilis was to blame.
1:00:34 > 1:00:37But Britten's medical file is incomplete
1:00:37 > 1:00:41and there's no definite evidence to prove or disprove the idea.
1:00:41 > 1:00:45It could rather have been the rare condition Marfan's disease.
1:00:47 > 1:00:49Altogether, a series of conundrums
1:00:49 > 1:00:52about an operation that did not go to plan.
1:01:25 > 1:01:26'O Rose thou art sick.
1:01:28 > 1:01:30'The invisible worm,
1:01:30 > 1:01:32'That flies in the night
1:01:32 > 1:01:35'In the howling storm -'
1:01:35 > 1:01:40"Has found out thy bed of crimson joy -
1:01:40 > 1:01:45"And his dark secret love
1:01:48 > 1:01:51"Does thy life destroy."
1:02:06 > 1:02:08'There's a touch of Liebestod there.'
1:02:10 > 1:02:13'It's very erotic that music.'
1:02:14 > 1:02:21# Oh, rose, though art sick
1:02:21 > 1:02:26# The invisible worm,
1:02:26 > 1:02:31# That flies in the night
1:02:31 > 1:02:37# In the howling storm -
1:02:37 > 1:02:41# Has found out thy bed
1:02:41 > 1:02:45# Of crimson joy -
1:02:46 > 1:02:53# And his dark secret love
1:02:53 > 1:03:01# Does thy life destroy. #
1:03:13 > 1:03:18The operation lasted the expected hour and 40 minutes, but there
1:03:18 > 1:03:22were serious problems once the new tissue valve had been sewn in.
1:03:26 > 1:03:30At the end of the procedure, when you expect the heart to start
1:03:30 > 1:03:37up again into a nice regular, rhythmic beating, it didn't do that.
1:03:37 > 1:03:41It got lots of extra beats and missed beats and it was irregular.
1:03:41 > 1:03:43'What did that signify?'
1:03:43 > 1:03:46Potential for a cardiac arrest
1:03:46 > 1:03:51So you keep the patient in theatre, watching,
1:03:51 > 1:03:54giving medication to see if it will settle down.
1:03:54 > 1:03:56Which it did with time.
1:03:56 > 1:04:00But that delayed the return to the intensive care unit.
1:04:01 > 1:04:04It then turned out that while he was in the operating theatre,
1:04:04 > 1:04:06he'd had a stroke.
1:04:07 > 1:04:11We realised that he had some weakness in is right arm because he
1:04:11 > 1:04:16could move it and do everything with it, but he didn't know where it was.
1:04:16 > 1:04:19The anaesthetist remembers it as quite a bad stroke,
1:04:19 > 1:04:23and says that when Britten came round, he was devastated.
1:04:25 > 1:04:28Ten days later he was moved to The London Clinic a few streets
1:04:28 > 1:04:30away to recuperate.
1:04:31 > 1:04:35He was on a stretcher and I went to the lift just to say goodbye
1:04:35 > 1:04:38to him and he said, "Come and see me."
1:04:38 > 1:04:41I said, "Yes, OK, I will." He said, "Come tonight."
1:04:41 > 1:04:43I said, "All right."
1:04:43 > 1:04:49So I went to The London Clinic and he was very unhappy there, really.
1:04:49 > 1:04:52'Why?' Well...
1:04:53 > 1:04:57When I was there that evening, the maid
1:04:57 > 1:05:03came in with his dinner on a big tray with big silver things on top.
1:05:03 > 1:05:05But he could hardly lift these far less...
1:05:05 > 1:05:10And it was a steak, a really thick steak which even in his full
1:05:10 > 1:05:13health and strength he wouldn't have eaten.
1:05:20 > 1:05:24I suppose, for the first three months or so, there was
1:05:24 > 1:05:25a lot of hope.
1:05:25 > 1:05:27But then, it slowed down and slowed down and then
1:05:27 > 1:05:29he started to go backwards.
1:05:29 > 1:05:33# This ae nighte
1:05:33 > 1:05:37# This ae nighte
1:05:37 > 1:05:41# Every nighte and alle,
1:05:41 > 1:05:45# Fire and fleet and candle-lighte
1:05:45 > 1:05:52# And Christe receive thy saule. . #
1:05:53 > 1:05:56'So it wasn't with that wonderful
1:05:56 > 1:05:58'joie de vivre that one used to have.'
1:05:58 > 1:06:03He said to me, "I sometimes wish I'd never had this operation."
1:06:03 > 1:06:07He would often hold his right hand with his left hand.
1:06:07 > 1:06:15# And Christe receive thy saule. . #
1:06:15 > 1:06:19And he would point with his left hand about something
1:06:19 > 1:06:21and his right hand would be very still.
1:06:21 > 1:06:25# Every nighte and alle... #
1:06:25 > 1:06:27One almost wonders what would have happened
1:06:27 > 1:06:29if he hadn't had the operation
1:06:29 > 1:06:32Would he have had a few more years of a slightly better life
1:06:32 > 1:06:35or would he have dropped dead?
1:06:35 > 1:06:36It's impossible to say.
1:06:36 > 1:06:39For the first time since he was five years old,
1:06:39 > 1:06:43Britten couldn't write a note of music.
1:06:43 > 1:06:4412 months after the operation,
1:06:44 > 1:06:49the anguish of his Serenade 30 years before seemed all too real.
1:06:49 > 1:06:53He'd had to give up playing the piano and things looked bleak.
1:06:57 > 1:07:04# From Brig o' Dread whence thou may'st pass,
1:07:04 > 1:07:08# Every nighte and alle,
1:07:08 > 1:07:12# To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last -
1:07:12 > 1:07:17# And Christe receive thy saule. #
1:07:17 > 1:07:20There was terrible doubt, terrible doubt as to
1:07:20 > 1:07:22whether he had it in him,
1:07:22 > 1:07:24to write any more now.
1:07:24 > 1:07:28But... Doubt from him, or...?
1:07:28 > 1:07:33From him. Yes, I think he doubted that he was able to write
1:07:33 > 1:07:36anything of consequence from now on.
1:07:36 > 1:07:40Because he just didn't feel that surge of energy in himself.
1:07:40 > 1:07:43It was at this point that Colin Matthews visited Aldeburgh
1:07:43 > 1:07:45after some months away.
1:07:46 > 1:07:50I was really shocked by how weak he looked and how ill.
1:07:50 > 1:07:52In what way?
1:07:52 > 1:07:54He just...
1:07:54 > 1:07:59He was just very, very feeble, found it quite difficult to communicate.
1:07:59 > 1:08:02Britten's nurse at the heart hospital was persuaded to
1:08:02 > 1:08:05leave London and become his full-time carer
1:08:05 > 1:08:09honouring her promise to see things through together.
1:08:09 > 1:08:12I think everybody felt that this was just the end,
1:08:12 > 1:08:13that he was just dying.
1:08:13 > 1:08:16But I felt that there was more that could be done for him.
1:08:17 > 1:08:19Straight after the operation,
1:08:19 > 1:08:23the doctors had realised the heart murmur was still there.
1:08:23 > 1:08:27Though in the climate of 1970s medicine, they didn't tell anyone.
1:08:27 > 1:08:30Now, they even contemplated a second operation.
1:08:31 > 1:08:37Ian Tait and I thought, "Well, do we want to consider repeat surgery?"
1:08:37 > 1:08:42But then that would be not likely to work
1:08:42 > 1:08:45because of the underlying flabby, weakened heart muscle.
1:08:47 > 1:08:49You did consider repeat surgery
1:08:49 > 1:08:52Yes. Yes.
1:08:52 > 1:08:55One option would have been to put in a mechanical heart valve to
1:08:55 > 1:08:57provide a better fit.
1:08:57 > 1:09:00That would have required blood-thinning treatment with
1:09:00 > 1:09:02warfarin, which doesn't mix well with some other drugs
1:09:02 > 1:09:05and with alcohol.
1:09:05 > 1:09:08His cardiologist thought that he was probably a heavy drinker
1:09:08 > 1:09:10because he was in the arts.
1:09:10 > 1:09:13He thought everybody in the arts was probably an alcoholic.
1:09:13 > 1:09:16But, of course, Ben wasn't.
1:09:16 > 1:09:17He wasn't a heavy drinker,
1:09:17 > 1:09:21but he would have, as I understand it,
1:09:21 > 1:09:26spurts of really quite heavy alcohol consumption,
1:09:26 > 1:09:30interspersed with very little alcohol consumption.
1:09:30 > 1:09:33That makes the warfarin levels very difficult to control.
1:09:33 > 1:09:36But you could have told him, "You can't drink any more."
1:09:36 > 1:09:41That's a bit unkind...denying him one of life's pleasures.
1:09:41 > 1:09:45They would ask Ben, "Do you drink?" And he would say, "Yes,"
1:09:45 > 1:09:47because, of course, he did.
1:09:47 > 1:09:50But if he'd been told, "You can't drink again,"
1:09:50 > 1:09:52he would just not have drunk again.
1:09:52 > 1:09:55He wasn't in any ways addicted
1:09:55 > 1:09:58Did you discuss this possibility with Britten?
1:09:59 > 1:10:01Reoperation? No.
1:10:01 > 1:10:04No. Why not?
1:10:04 > 1:10:09Because we thought that the decision was self-evident.
1:10:09 > 1:10:15And because he'd already had a stroke from the previous operation
1:10:15 > 1:10:18and it would have been unkind to burden him with a decision
1:10:18 > 1:10:23which was self-evidently in favour of leaving him as he was.
1:10:23 > 1:10:26He was going to die of the weakened heart muscle.
1:10:27 > 1:10:30And another operation might have accelerated that.
1:10:32 > 1:10:38And in medicine, in the early ' 0s, we were a bit more avuncular
1:10:38 > 1:10:41and didn't have to share everything with the patient.
1:10:41 > 1:10:47# And Christe receive thy saule. #
1:10:49 > 1:10:53Britten's medication was changed and under Rita Thompson's care
1:10:53 > 1:10:55he even began to compose again
1:10:56 > 1:10:59She was, I think, a breath of fresh air.
1:10:59 > 1:11:04She cut through a lot of the sort of stiffness
1:11:04 > 1:11:06and reputation surrounding Britten.
1:11:06 > 1:11:11I helped him bath and shave and get dressed and everything
1:11:11 > 1:11:14otherwise he all his energy would have gone on that.
1:11:14 > 1:11:16And then, in the morning,
1:11:16 > 1:11:21from about 11 o'clock to one was his best time for working.
1:11:21 > 1:11:25It seemed to be a sort of marriage made in heaven in some ways.
1:11:25 > 1:11:28I think she changed their lives in a way,
1:11:28 > 1:11:31and brought a lot on sunshine to The Red House.
1:11:31 > 1:11:36Peter, when you're talking about Rita, said,
1:11:36 > 1:11:38"Ben's going to marry her."
1:11:38 > 1:11:43That was just Peter being a bit dramatic, I think.
1:11:43 > 1:11:44It wasn't like that at all.
1:11:50 > 1:11:53Rita had a creative as well as a nursing role.
1:11:53 > 1:11:56Word that Britten was depressed and couldn't compose
1:11:56 > 1:11:57had reached the Queen,
1:11:57 > 1:12:00who some years before had paid two visits to the Maltings
1:12:02 > 1:12:05A letter arrived in her own hand asking "Dear Ben"
1:12:05 > 1:12:08to write something special for the Queen Mother's 75th birthday.
1:12:10 > 1:12:13Thanks to Rita, A Birthday Hansel was the result,
1:12:13 > 1:12:14with words by Robert Burns.
1:12:16 > 1:12:18He used to like someone to read aloud to him,
1:12:18 > 1:12:20and I used to read him Burns' poems.
1:12:20 > 1:12:22He thought, "Well, as she's Scottish,
1:12:22 > 1:12:25"that would be a good thing to do."
1:12:25 > 1:12:29# Wee Willie Grey, and his leather wallet... #
1:12:29 > 1:12:32The title was Rita's idea too.
1:12:32 > 1:12:35The Scots word "Hansel", meaning a good-luck gift at harvest time.
1:12:37 > 1:12:39SHE LAUGHS
1:12:39 > 1:12:43# The rose upon the breir will be him trews an' doublet... #
1:12:43 > 1:12:47He used to ask me sometimes, about Scottish tunes...
1:12:47 > 1:12:51# Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet... #
1:12:51 > 1:12:52..and I would say, "Dee-dee-de-de."
1:12:52 > 1:12:56He would say, "I can't take down deedles."
1:12:57 > 1:13:00# Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet,
1:13:00 > 1:13:04# Feathers of a flee wad feather, feather, feather up his bonnet.. #
1:13:04 > 1:13:07It's wonderful.
1:13:07 > 1:13:09He sent off his manuscript
1:13:09 > 1:13:11and received a thank-you letter from the Queen Mother,
1:13:11 > 1:13:13again in her own hand.
1:13:14 > 1:13:18"What lovely things you've chosen for your lovely music," she wrote.
1:13:18 > 1:13:21"I honestly do not think that anything in my life has
1:13:21 > 1:13:25"given me greater pleasure than your birthday gift."
1:13:25 > 1:13:27He was summoned to Sandringham
1:13:27 > 1:13:29for a private royal command performance
1:13:29 > 1:13:31by Pears, and the harpist Osian Ellis.
1:13:33 > 1:13:39We went there for Peter to sing and Osian to play to the Queen Mother.
1:13:39 > 1:13:43And the Queen was there and Princess Margaret.
1:13:43 > 1:13:45MUSIC PLAYS
1:13:47 > 1:13:49He was sitting, of course,
1:13:49 > 1:13:52and at the end Princess Margaret came over to talk to him
1:13:52 > 1:13:56and he tried to struggle his feet and she said, "Don't worry."
1:13:56 > 1:13:59And she sat - there was a little stool beside him
1:13:59 > 1:14:01and she sat there so that he wouldn't have to stand up
1:14:01 > 1:14:04which I thought was very kind and thoughtful.
1:14:07 > 1:14:12He enjoyed laughing, but from an ill man,
1:14:12 > 1:14:17you can't imagine that his mind was going like that all the time.
1:14:17 > 1:14:20MUSIC ENDS
1:14:22 > 1:14:25Britten himself never recovered any physical agility,
1:14:25 > 1:14:28but his late music never entirely lost the energy
1:14:28 > 1:14:32and quick wit that had defined him as a younger man.
1:14:32 > 1:14:36Take for example the medieval poem he found
1:14:36 > 1:14:38that poked fun at old age and death.
1:15:45 > 1:15:47Was he fun to be with? No.
1:15:47 > 1:15:49I always though he was a bit like a tortoise.
1:15:49 > 1:15:54I was a little uneasy in any case, as a young,
1:15:54 > 1:15:55relatively inexperienced musician.
1:15:55 > 1:15:58If you asked him anything awkward he would withdraw.
1:15:58 > 1:16:01His head would go back into his shell.
1:16:09 > 1:16:12It only took a furrowed brow to make people tremble.
1:16:12 > 1:16:16Like the woman who asked him, "What is the difference,
1:16:16 > 1:16:20"Mr Britten, between The Rape Of Lucretia and Albert Herring?"
1:16:21 > 1:16:25He said, "Same notes, different order!"
1:16:25 > 1:16:27With infuriate rage.
1:17:08 > 1:17:11He could be extremely cutting.
1:17:11 > 1:17:13If people didn't measure up to what he wanted,
1:17:13 > 1:17:17he could demolish them with a put down of a fairly savage nature
1:17:58 > 1:18:00I don't think that he took on friends
1:18:00 > 1:18:02just for the sake of friendship
1:18:02 > 1:18:04I think there was always a very good reason why
1:18:04 > 1:18:09he befriended or got close to other people.
1:18:09 > 1:18:14If you go too close to the flame you were in danger of getting burnt
1:18:14 > 1:18:16I saw what happened to people who did.
1:18:18 > 1:18:21This sort of respectful distance
1:18:21 > 1:18:26we kept from each other which on my part was quite deliberate
1:18:26 > 1:18:30brought me this wonderful gift at the end of his life.
1:18:32 > 1:18:35Britten was now too weak to write any more operas -
1:18:35 > 1:18:39he simply couldn't reach the top of the manuscript paper
1:18:39 > 1:18:43But in the cantata he wrote for Janet Baker, another story
1:18:43 > 1:18:48of infatuation, guilt and death he seemed to be defying his illness.
1:18:50 > 1:18:52'Phaedra is a masterpiece.'
1:18:57 > 1:19:00'Glorious beginning to that piece - radiant.'
1:19:01 > 1:19:09# In May in brilliant Athens
1:19:09 > 1:19:16# On my marriage day... #
1:19:16 > 1:19:18It really gets you between the eyes.
1:19:18 > 1:19:20We were all blown away by it. I certainly was.
1:19:26 > 1:19:31# I turned aside for shelter
1:19:31 > 1:19:36# From the smile of Theseus... #
1:19:37 > 1:19:41Phaedra, the wife of Theseus, the mythical founder of Athens,
1:19:41 > 1:19:45has become infatuated with her stepson Hippolytus.
1:19:45 > 1:19:52# Death was frowning in an aisle
1:19:52 > 1:19:55# Hippolytus!
1:19:56 > 1:20:01# I saw his face turned white... #
1:20:01 > 1:20:07I was presented with this fantastic mini-opera with the woman who
1:20:07 > 1:20:10was absolutely up my street.
1:20:11 > 1:20:14Britten chose the version of the story by the French
1:20:14 > 1:20:16playwright Racine,
1:20:16 > 1:20:18in which Phaedra owns up to Hippolytus about her
1:20:18 > 1:20:20incestuous feelings.
1:20:20 > 1:20:22# You monster!
1:20:22 > 1:20:24# You understood me too well!
1:20:25 > 1:20:30# Why do you hang there speechless, petrified, polite?
1:20:32 > 1:20:36# My mind whirls
1:20:39 > 1:20:44# What have I to hide? #
1:20:46 > 1:20:51It simply astonishes me that Ben can find this edgy passion of hers
1:20:54 > 1:21:02# ..Phaedra, in all her madness stands before you
1:21:04 > 1:21:15# Phaedra, Phaedra In all her madness stands before you
1:21:15 > 1:21:17# I love you
1:21:17 > 1:21:21# Fool, I love you
1:21:21 > 1:21:23# Fool, I love you Love you, love you
1:21:23 > 1:21:27# Fool, I adore you... #
1:21:27 > 1:21:30'That iciness of the strings.'
1:21:30 > 1:21:34Icy, cold...despair.
1:21:36 > 1:21:39When Janet Baker went to Aldeburgh to run through the work with
1:21:39 > 1:21:42the composer, she hadn't seen him for almost a year
1:21:42 > 1:21:45and wasn't sure what to expect
1:21:45 > 1:21:47And he looked fragile.
1:21:48 > 1:21:50Then we started to work.
1:21:51 > 1:21:54We didn't work too long at a time, but nevertheless,
1:21:54 > 1:22:00this process was giving him life and energy and strength.
1:22:00 > 1:22:02And you could see that.
1:22:02 > 1:22:05I remember he was very impressed because she was word-perfect.
1:22:07 > 1:22:09At one point in the score...
1:22:11 > 1:22:13..Phaedra cries out to her nurse
1:22:13 > 1:22:17and says words which I found un-singable.
1:22:18 > 1:22:26# Oenones, I want to die
1:22:26 > 1:22:32# Death will give me freedom... #
1:22:32 > 1:22:36"Enoni, I want to die."
1:22:36 > 1:22:41# ..It's nothing not to live... #
1:22:43 > 1:22:46'"Oh, it's nothing not to live
1:22:46 > 1:22:49'"Death to the unhappy is no catastrophe.'"
1:22:49 > 1:22:55# Death to the unhappy
1:22:55 > 1:23:03# Is no catastrophe... #
1:23:03 > 1:23:07When I first sang these words to him, it hit me like a bolt.
1:23:09 > 1:23:11What am I saying to this man?
1:23:16 > 1:23:18I felt...
1:23:18 > 1:23:20I'm feeling it now as I'm saying it...
1:23:23 > 1:23:30How to give them the sort of agony he must have been through.
1:23:32 > 1:23:35The strings take up the melody
1:23:35 > 1:23:39and turn it into something really quite ecstatic.
1:23:39 > 1:23:43An ecstatic acceptance of death which is not just Britten
1:23:43 > 1:23:46writing about Phaedra, it's him writing about himself
1:23:47 > 1:23:50They rise and they break, like waves, almost.
1:23:51 > 1:23:56Somehow or other he'd had to use this time of illness,
1:23:56 > 1:24:02as many people do, to come to terms with his life, his death, his work.
1:24:04 > 1:24:06'No words spoken about this?'
1:24:06 > 1:24:08No. Not necessary.
1:24:17 > 1:24:20# My time's too short, your highness
1:24:20 > 1:24:25# It was I who lusted for your son with my hot eye
1:24:25 > 1:24:30# The flames of Aphrodite maddened me
1:24:33 > 1:24:37# Then Oenones' tears troubled my mind
1:24:37 > 1:24:42# She played upon my fears until her pleading
1:24:42 > 1:24:48# Forced me to declare I loved your son
1:24:52 > 1:25:05# Theseus, I stand before you to absolve your noble son... #
1:25:06 > 1:25:11How it is this poor, broken figure huddled in a wheelchair,
1:25:11 > 1:25:15with a rug around his shoulders can produce music
1:25:15 > 1:25:18of such incredible power and passion,
1:25:18 > 1:25:20it just beggars belief.
1:25:21 > 1:25:23'In her resolve to take her own life,
1:25:23 > 1:25:26'Phaedra feels it's what she deserves.'
1:25:26 > 1:25:32# My eyes at last give up their light
1:25:32 > 1:25:46# And see the day they've soiled resume its purity... #
1:25:51 > 1:25:53SHE PUFFS
1:25:53 > 1:25:56Gosh.
1:25:56 > 1:25:58Incredible, isn't it?
1:25:59 > 1:26:04By this time, Peter Pears' last great part in Death In Venice
1:26:04 > 1:26:06was giving fresh life to his singing career,
1:26:06 > 1:26:09but no longer with Britten at the piano.
1:26:09 > 1:26:12It meant that just when Ben needed him most,
1:26:12 > 1:26:15Peter was away for weeks on end
1:26:15 > 1:26:18A mouthpiece for Britten's music, but away nonetheless.
1:26:19 > 1:26:21Ben absolutely adored Peter,
1:26:21 > 1:26:23was totally in love with him.
1:26:23 > 1:26:26Peter was slightly not less in love,
1:26:26 > 1:26:30but his adventures were slightly more loose.
1:26:30 > 1:26:31I think we know that.
1:26:31 > 1:26:34Ben was the monogamous one of that pair.
1:26:34 > 1:26:37Later on in life, Peter went pretty wild,
1:26:37 > 1:26:42but Ben went straight down the right path.
1:26:42 > 1:26:47And he didn't let anything deter him from this.
1:26:47 > 1:26:49Was he aware that Peter was wild?
1:26:49 > 1:26:53He was aware but he said, "I just don't want to know about it.
1:26:53 > 1:26:56"Let him do what he wants to do just don't tell me about it."
1:26:56 > 1:27:02But I do remember Peter getting a little bit anxious and cross
1:27:02 > 1:27:08at being quizzed rather a lot, and being watched rather carefully.
1:27:08 > 1:27:09By whom? By Ben.
1:27:11 > 1:27:12Yeah.
1:27:12 > 1:27:14Just very occasionally.
1:27:16 > 1:27:20And I sometimes felt that Peter would even encourage
1:27:20 > 1:27:23a relationship with a woman just for the hell of it.
1:27:26 > 1:27:31It wasn't always very helpful, but it did happen a little bit
1:27:31 > 1:27:35Was he entirely loyal to Ben, do you think?
1:27:35 > 1:27:38Yes, I think so. I believe so.
1:27:38 > 1:27:40Whatever anybody else may think
1:27:40 > 1:27:45And I remember Ben saying to me
1:27:45 > 1:27:48when Peter was out of the room. .
1:27:48 > 1:27:51Cos they'd been bantering and then he suddenly looked seriously at me
1:27:51 > 1:27:55and said, "The world will never know how much I owe Peter."
1:27:57 > 1:27:59I just always remember that.
1:28:01 > 1:28:04Death In Venice was the grand finale of everything that Ben had
1:28:04 > 1:28:06written for Peter.
1:28:06 > 1:28:09The biggest gift he'd ever given him.
1:28:09 > 1:28:14Yes. Although, what a gloomy, what a dark gift.
1:28:16 > 1:28:18Halfway through Act Two,
1:28:18 > 1:28:21I walked into the Maltings for the first orchestral rehearsal
1:28:21 > 1:28:24I attended, first stage rehearsal,
1:28:24 > 1:28:27and I've never forgotten the memory of that moment.
1:28:27 > 1:28:31Why? Just an extraordinary blaze of sound.
1:28:31 > 1:28:33It's in a scene called The Chase.
1:28:33 > 1:28:37MUSIC FROM DEATH IN VENICE
1:28:37 > 1:28:40Aschenbach is now so smitten with Tadzio
1:28:40 > 1:28:43that he pursues the boy into St Mark's Cathedral,
1:28:43 > 1:28:46then through the square and the streets.
1:28:46 > 1:28:48He's losing his self-control
1:28:48 > 1:28:52and his dignity as his obsession becomes reckless.
1:28:58 > 1:29:02# O, voluptuous days
1:29:04 > 1:29:08# O the joy I suffer
1:29:08 > 1:29:13# Feverish chase Exquisite fear
1:29:13 > 1:29:16# The taste of knowledge
1:29:16 > 1:29:19# Time gained by silence
1:29:22 > 1:29:27# While the echoing cries answer from the labyrinth...
1:29:31 > 1:29:35# ..Follow them... #
1:29:35 > 1:29:39There's still no direct contact with Tadzio, but Aschenbach has heard
1:29:39 > 1:29:43rumours of an outbreak of cholera in Venice, the dark side of beauty.
1:29:47 > 1:29:49# Stagando aou... #
1:29:49 > 1:29:53In his frantic chase, with the gondoliers' cries
1:29:53 > 1:29:54echoing down the canals,
1:29:54 > 1:29:58he resolves to shield Tadzio and his family from the rumours and
1:29:58 > 1:30:00pursues them back to their hotel.
1:30:02 > 1:30:05It still sends a shiver down my spine whenever I hear it.
1:30:15 > 1:30:19# Tadzio, Eros, charmer
1:30:19 > 1:30:22# See I am past all fear
1:30:22 > 1:30:25# Blind to danger, drunken, powerless? #
1:30:29 > 1:30:32Aschenbach even follows the boy upstairs.
1:30:32 > 1:30:36# Sunk in a bliss of madness
1:30:37 > 1:30:41# Tadzio, Eros, charmer... #
1:31:09 > 1:31:13The crucial thing is Aschenbach's self knowledge.
1:31:13 > 1:31:15That's what destroys him.
1:31:22 > 1:31:28He wakes to find himself absolutely sickened and disgusted with himself.
1:31:29 > 1:31:35That he'd gone so low as to be stalking the boy to that extent
1:31:37 > 1:31:40And I think this may have been a feeling of Ben's too.
1:31:44 > 1:31:47I think he felt the underlying danger all the time
1:31:47 > 1:31:49It's another part of his uneasiness.
1:31:51 > 1:31:54And he knew the dangers and, so, he didn't venture into them
1:31:56 > 1:31:59But, clearly, he felt guilt about this.
1:32:05 > 1:32:07It's very autobiographical, obviously.
1:32:07 > 1:32:12He examines himself and really rather condemns himself to death,
1:32:12 > 1:32:14because he's allowed...
1:32:14 > 1:32:16Well, in the opera,
1:32:16 > 1:32:19he allows the relationship to go further than he should.
1:32:29 > 1:32:33I think Aschenbach makes the decision that he deserves to
1:32:33 > 1:32:35die because he has had unworthy thoughts.
1:32:45 > 1:32:48# Gustav von Aschenbach!
1:32:51 > 1:32:53# What is this path you have taken?
1:32:55 > 1:32:58# What would your forebears say
1:32:58 > 1:33:02# Decent, stern men In whose respectable name
1:33:02 > 1:33:05# And under whose influence...
1:33:05 > 1:33:12# You, the artist, made the life of art into a service...
1:33:12 > 1:33:17# A hero's life of struggle and abstinence? #
1:33:17 > 1:33:19Everything around him in Venice is fake,
1:33:19 > 1:33:21but Tadzio is something real,
1:33:21 > 1:33:24something pure, something beautiful.
1:33:24 > 1:33:27It's not about sex, it's not about paedophilia.
1:33:29 > 1:33:33# Eros has flourished too. #
1:33:34 > 1:33:36I think an opera is only worthwhile
1:33:36 > 1:33:38if it's dealing with a dangerous subject.
1:33:39 > 1:33:41Art is art.
1:33:41 > 1:33:46Death In Venice is a masterpiece as a novella.
1:33:46 > 1:33:49The film is widely celebrated.
1:33:49 > 1:33:54I think that art transcends fashion and, you know,
1:33:54 > 1:33:58the dilemmas it articulates about old age,
1:33:58 > 1:34:02about older men loving younger boys,
1:34:02 > 1:34:04or women, for that matter...
1:34:04 > 1:34:08In a sense, this is a universal thing.
1:34:08 > 1:34:10They will be there for ever,
1:34:10 > 1:34:14and great artists inform the way we think about them.
1:34:16 > 1:34:18As Britten sat at home,
1:34:18 > 1:34:21too nervous to listen to more than a few minutes of the first
1:34:21 > 1:34:24performance on the radio, he could not have guessed that
1:34:24 > 1:34:27over the next 40 years, his newest offspring would have more
1:34:27 > 1:34:31than 500 performances in all six continents.
1:34:32 > 1:34:35Pears began its international journey by singing
1:34:35 > 1:34:39it in Venice itself, and then to great acclaim in New York.
1:34:41 > 1:34:44Britten wasn't well enough to go with him.
1:34:44 > 1:34:47Instead, we went with Rita to stay with friends in Germany.
1:34:50 > 1:34:56# Does beauty lead to wisdom, Phaedrus? #
1:34:58 > 1:35:01It was at this point, he accepted he would effectively be
1:35:01 > 1:35:03an invalid for the rest of his life.
1:35:04 > 1:35:07It was November and the weather was ghastly.
1:35:07 > 1:35:12It was grey and the clouds were right down on top of your head
1:35:12 > 1:35:17and I think that was the time that he really realised,
1:35:17 > 1:35:22or spoke about it, that he wasn't going to improve.
1:35:25 > 1:35:31# Knowledge to forgiveness. #
1:35:31 > 1:35:34He was in a rather emotional state
1:35:34 > 1:35:37because, of course, Death In Venice was in The Met
1:35:37 > 1:35:40Peter was having a wonderful time,
1:35:40 > 1:35:42wonderful reviews and everything there,
1:35:42 > 1:35:44and he couldn't be part of it,
1:35:44 > 1:35:47and he was missing Peter, and that was...
1:35:47 > 1:35:51I think all of that was very lowering, but he was still working.
1:35:51 > 1:35:55He still did his work and wrote letters.
1:35:55 > 1:35:58He wrote to Peter and spoke on the telephone.
1:35:58 > 1:36:00He couldn't speak on the phone very much,
1:36:00 > 1:36:02because sometimes he would just cry.
1:36:04 > 1:36:06At the end of a trip,
1:36:06 > 1:36:09he wrote Pears an impassioned letter that reads as if it came
1:36:09 > 1:36:13at the start of their relationship rather than after 35 years.
1:36:13 > 1:36:16He wrote things he couldn't say on the telephone. He said,
1:36:16 > 1:36:19"..Without bursting into those silly tears.
1:36:19 > 1:36:25"I do love you so terribly, and not only glorious you, but your singing.
1:36:25 > 1:36:27"What have I done to deserve such a man to write for?"
1:36:29 > 1:36:32I have a friend who was in the orchestra pit
1:36:32 > 1:36:35the first time Britten saw Death In Venice at Snape
1:36:35 > 1:36:38and, apparently, during the Phaedrus monologue
1:36:38 > 1:36:40on that first night,
1:36:40 > 1:36:44my friend glanced over into the box
1:36:44 > 1:36:47and Britten was in floods of tears watching it.
1:36:54 > 1:36:58# And now, Phaedrus...
1:36:58 > 1:37:02# I will go
1:37:02 > 1:37:08# But you stay here...
1:37:08 > 1:37:16# And when your eyes no longer see me...
1:37:17 > 1:37:24# Then you go too. #
1:37:28 > 1:37:32The love that went between them was so intense that it really hurt.
1:37:32 > 1:37:38It hurt badly a lot of the time and I suspect that Death In Venice
1:37:38 > 1:37:41brought all that up, brought up a whole lifetime of very,
1:37:41 > 1:37:43very intense love between two people.
1:37:45 > 1:37:47With the opera fully launched,
1:37:47 > 1:37:50Venice held Britten in thrall one more time
1:37:50 > 1:37:52for what was to be his final masterpiece.
1:37:53 > 1:37:56He was working on a new string quartet -
1:37:56 > 1:37:58his first for almost 30 years.
1:37:59 > 1:38:01He'd written four of its five movements
1:38:01 > 1:38:03when, in the autumn of 1975,
1:38:03 > 1:38:07friends suggested a trip to his favourite city.
1:38:09 > 1:38:12Part of him wanted to go, part of him was frightened of going.
1:38:12 > 1:38:13I remember in the drawing room
1:38:13 > 1:38:17there's a copy of Death In Venice on the table, and he just pointed,
1:38:17 > 1:38:21and he said, "Look," and I said "Oh, come on, don't be silly."
1:38:21 > 1:38:24He was staying in the Danieli Hotel,
1:38:24 > 1:38:28which is in a very prominent position and overlooks the lagoon.
1:38:28 > 1:38:30Best hotel.
1:38:30 > 1:38:33We had a suite.
1:38:33 > 1:38:36So he could rest in bed and work in a sitting room,
1:38:36 > 1:38:39and Rita could be near him.
1:38:39 > 1:38:44I'd taken my bell thing so he could ring me,
1:38:44 > 1:38:46and it only would go till about halfway
1:38:46 > 1:38:49to the middle of the sitting room.
1:38:49 > 1:38:52And you would hear the bells. That's what he loved.
1:38:52 > 1:38:54You hear one starts... "Bong, bong..."
1:38:54 > 1:38:56and then all little bells start.
1:38:56 > 1:39:00You hear all these bells. It's an amazing sound.
1:39:00 > 1:39:03I think that's why he went to Venice. Just to hear that.
1:39:07 > 1:39:09That marvellous moment in Death In Venice
1:39:09 > 1:39:11where the bells sound in the beginning of the church service
1:39:11 > 1:39:13There they are.
1:39:19 > 1:39:21He was working on a third quartet.
1:39:21 > 1:39:27He had it with him and that's what he was writing, the final piece
1:39:27 > 1:39:29He had a routine, he worked every day,
1:39:29 > 1:39:31he talked about it and was excited by it.
1:39:41 > 1:39:44Certainly, he said that the opening of the movement was
1:39:44 > 1:39:47influenced by the bells of Santa Maria della Salute...
1:39:47 > 1:39:53Which was built in the 17th century after a plague.
1:39:53 > 1:39:56You can see the connection with Death In Venice there.
1:39:59 > 1:40:01I remember talking about the smells
1:40:01 > 1:40:03and the sound of the water on the walls...
1:40:03 > 1:40:06Slapping, slapping, slapping sound.
1:40:08 > 1:40:11We would decide where we would go...
1:40:11 > 1:40:13to see the Caravaggio pictures
1:40:13 > 1:40:15or go to one of the churches.
1:40:15 > 1:40:18We went on vaporettos and things.
1:40:22 > 1:40:24We walked all round the back alleys and things,
1:40:24 > 1:40:29lifting his chair over the little bridges and so on.
1:40:29 > 1:40:31And had some fun, actually.
1:40:31 > 1:40:33Spun him round. SHE LAUGHS
1:40:37 > 1:40:40When he came back, I saw this extraordinary music
1:40:49 > 1:40:51With its flow...
1:40:51 > 1:40:55It moves with this wonderful freedom.
1:41:20 > 1:41:23This is almost like Gregorian Plainchant.
1:41:23 > 1:41:25It clearly influenced him.
1:41:25 > 1:41:28These notes are just one step away from each other.
1:41:34 > 1:41:38And the bass is using the same notes, but at a much slower speed.
1:41:43 > 1:41:47Again, we've got the feeling of water gently lapping.
1:41:55 > 1:41:58In the old days, he would happily have played the piece
1:41:58 > 1:42:00through to himself on the piano
1:42:00 > 1:42:04But now he had to ask the Matthews brothers to do it for him.
1:42:09 > 1:42:12He asked us both to come and play it to him in duet.
1:42:12 > 1:42:17Which was a little scaring, because it was like giving a performance.
1:42:17 > 1:42:19First, without... We made rather a lot of mistakes,
1:42:19 > 1:42:24so we stopped and had a little practice and then went back.
1:42:24 > 1:42:28And we got through to the wonderful ending, and there was a silence
1:42:28 > 1:42:31And Britten said, "Do you think it's any good?"
1:42:31 > 1:42:33In a very small voice.
1:42:33 > 1:42:35We didn't know quite what to say,
1:42:35 > 1:42:37but we did say something to the effect that it was.
1:42:37 > 1:42:40He wondered if it was the right length to go on the single
1:42:40 > 1:42:43side of an LP, which I think it just about worked out.
1:42:43 > 1:42:45There was that stillness afterwards,
1:42:45 > 1:42:49because I looked round the library where we were playing
1:42:49 > 1:42:50and saw all those paintings
1:42:50 > 1:42:55and all the evidence of this extraordinary culture,
1:42:55 > 1:42:57this high culture that Britten represented,
1:42:57 > 1:42:59and I remember thinking at that time, "This has got to be preserved.
1:42:59 > 1:43:01"This has got to carry on.
1:43:01 > 1:43:03"I've got to try and do something in my own way
1:43:03 > 1:43:06"to try to keep this going, because it's so important."
1:43:06 > 1:43:09And I knew he wasn't going to live much longer, and...
1:43:11 > 1:43:13Yes, that was a very important moment of my life.
1:43:16 > 1:43:19Britten, for me, was the key to sanity.
1:43:21 > 1:43:23Why? And I hung onto him...
1:43:23 > 1:43:28Well, because he could reinvent the simplest things,
1:43:28 > 1:43:32which seemed to me what a great composer does.
1:43:33 > 1:43:35I've been influenced by him enormously.
1:43:35 > 1:43:38Sometimes embarrassingly so.
1:43:38 > 1:43:40I remember, as a teenager,
1:43:40 > 1:43:45I really became absolutely fascinated with Britten's work
1:43:45 > 1:43:47Almost obsessed by it, actually
1:43:47 > 1:43:50and listened to as much as I could.
1:43:50 > 1:43:52Did people think you were odd?
1:43:52 > 1:43:55I don't think so. I don't remember that.
1:43:55 > 1:43:57I probably thought I was a bit odd.
1:43:57 > 1:44:01I think he is one of the great composers of the 20th century.
1:44:01 > 1:44:06I would put him alongside Stravinsky and Bartok
1:44:06 > 1:44:08Even those composers
1:44:08 > 1:44:09who perhaps don't feel that this
1:44:09 > 1:44:11is their aesthetic at all,
1:44:11 > 1:44:15admire the way he could create music.
1:44:16 > 1:44:20He will certainly last. There's no question, I think, of that.
1:44:20 > 1:44:24I don't think Britten will now ever go out of fashion.
1:44:28 > 1:44:30The premier of Britten's Third String Quartet
1:44:30 > 1:44:33was booked for December 19th, 1 76.
1:44:34 > 1:44:38In September, with the composer weaker by the day,
1:44:38 > 1:44:41the Amadeus String Quartet, led by Norbert Brainin,
1:44:41 > 1:44:43went to Suffolk to play it to him.
1:44:44 > 1:44:47And, of course, everybody was terribly nervous about how
1:44:47 > 1:44:52he was going to be able to cope with an influx of these boys.
1:44:57 > 1:45:01They didn't want anybody else to be there, so he said,
1:45:01 > 1:45:04"Don't worry about her," meaning me, "She's tone deaf."
1:45:14 > 1:45:16It was inspired by birdsong.
1:45:16 > 1:45:19Birds he was hearing in his garden in Horham,
1:45:19 > 1:45:21where he'd moved to get away from the jets.
1:45:28 > 1:45:31He dedicated it to Hans Keller who immediately wrote back
1:45:31 > 1:45:35and thought that the fingering for the first violin wasn't possible.
1:45:35 > 1:45:38And so he said to Norbert,
1:45:38 > 1:45:41"The fingering on this particular part, what do you think?"
1:45:41 > 1:45:43"Oh, perfect," said Norbet. "It's perfect."
1:45:43 > 1:45:46So he was terribly pleased about that.
1:45:59 > 1:46:03But the man was half asleep a lot of the time.
1:46:03 > 1:46:06He was just so near to death.
1:46:06 > 1:46:11There was not much of him apparently there
1:46:11 > 1:46:14and, yet, every now and then, he'd make a remark which made you
1:46:14 > 1:46:18realise that he was totally and absolutely there with it.
1:46:25 > 1:46:26The strings go up in natural harmonics.
1:46:26 > 1:46:30They all go up to their very highest note, and that's an extraordinary
1:46:30 > 1:46:35sound...unlike anything in any other piece by Britten, I think
1:46:42 > 1:46:45It's Fantasia on the key of C Major.
1:46:46 > 1:46:49Which is a key which was very close to him.
1:46:49 > 1:46:50Particularly the end,
1:46:50 > 1:46:54where it's this extraordinarily translucent harmony.
1:47:02 > 1:47:05They were going to come back later to work with him again,
1:47:05 > 1:47:08but, by that time, he was too ill.
1:47:08 > 1:47:10He said, "Just tell them they know it."
1:47:12 > 1:47:15And if one thinks of the late quartets of Beethoven,
1:47:15 > 1:47:18for example, if one thinks of the Mozart Requiems,
1:47:18 > 1:47:21some of Schubert's late music..
1:47:21 > 1:47:22what composers do -
1:47:22 > 1:47:28and I think Ben did it - is that they draw into themselves more
1:47:28 > 1:47:32and we, as an audience,
1:47:32 > 1:47:37are allowed to glimpse this mirror into the soul of the artist.
1:47:41 > 1:47:44"November 17th. Ben is dying.
1:47:46 > 1:47:48"The Garbieli, his friends, are playing
1:47:48 > 1:47:52"Schubert's Early Quartet in D Major on the radio.
1:47:52 > 1:47:54"He's slipping away from us, but
1:47:54 > 1:47:56"if he could hear them playing this
1:47:56 > 1:47:58"to him, if only he could carry
1:47:58 > 1:48:00"this magic music with him
1:48:00 > 1:48:03"on the journey, all would be well.
1:48:03 > 1:48:05"Schubert, his god, would go with him."
1:48:07 > 1:48:11# Ich traumte von bunten Blumen
1:48:11 > 1:48:15# So wie sie wohl bluhen im Mai .. #
1:48:17 > 1:48:21The thing about Winterreise is that it's really a cycle
1:48:21 > 1:48:23of an old man, isn't it?
1:48:23 > 1:48:26I mean, an experienced man and. .
1:48:27 > 1:48:31Although... We decided that I wasn't going to be sufficiently
1:48:31 > 1:48:34mature until I was 50, I think
1:48:34 > 1:48:39Yes, we put it off because, although Schubert was only 31...
1:48:39 > 1:48:40Wasn't it? Or was he 30?
1:48:40 > 1:48:43..when he wrote it, one feels that it was
1:48:43 > 1:48:49the experience of a long lifetime and that we wanted to be equally mature.
1:48:49 > 1:48:54"Today is Ben's birthday. He's 3.
1:48:55 > 1:48:58"I gave Peter Ben's birthday card, which he took indoors
1:48:58 > 1:49:02"with a handful of others. We talked in the yard for a moment.
1:49:02 > 1:49:06"He told me Ben had had a good night, was calm and peaceful,
1:49:06 > 1:49:09"but further away from us.
1:49:09 > 1:49:13"Ben had said to Peter, 'I'm going out like a lamb.'"
1:49:13 > 1:49:15That was when he was so ill.
1:49:15 > 1:49:17He was in bed and having oxygen and I was feeding him
1:49:17 > 1:49:20with his tea in the morning.
1:49:20 > 1:49:21He looked up at me and said,
1:49:21 > 1:49:24"Have you arranged a party for my birthday?"
1:49:24 > 1:49:27I said, "No, I never dreamt that you would want a party."
1:49:27 > 1:49:31He said, "Yes, I do. I want a champagne party."
1:49:32 > 1:49:35And I suppose there were about eight of us
1:49:35 > 1:49:39downstairs drinking champagne and wishing him happy birthday
1:49:41 > 1:49:43"Peter seemed elated.
1:49:43 > 1:49:46"He said that Ben was sitting up, drinking champagne
1:49:46 > 1:49:49"with a bravura attitude.
1:49:49 > 1:49:52"And he swung his arms and smiled, but it was an anxious smile."
1:50:05 > 1:50:07Party is going on downstairs,
1:50:07 > 1:50:10and he and I are upstairs in the bedroom, and then he would say
1:50:10 > 1:50:13"Well, I would like to see Mary " and I would go down and get Mary and
1:50:13 > 1:50:16she would come up, and he would have something to say to her,
1:50:16 > 1:50:18and then he would have a rest..
1:50:18 > 1:50:21"Now I'd like to see Bill," or "I'd like to see Pat."
1:50:21 > 1:50:25"Beth was openly tearful as she came down.
1:50:25 > 1:50:28"It is, I suppose, the last time she will ever see him."
1:50:29 > 1:50:32He said to people, you know, how much he loved them
1:50:32 > 1:50:35and how much they meant to him and things like that.
1:50:35 > 1:50:38"And Bill and Pat, much the same,
1:50:38 > 1:50:41"but a bit happier - 'Happier, they said afterwards,
1:50:41 > 1:50:46"'to see him so peaceful, so calm and perfectly compus mentis...
1:50:47 > 1:50:51"'..even asking about the Aldeburgh Festival Club meeting '"
1:50:55 > 1:50:58And he had something to say to every one of them
1:50:58 > 1:51:00that was personal to them.
1:51:00 > 1:51:04That was what he wanted. He'd obviously thought it all out.
1:51:06 > 1:51:09Leslie Brown, the Bishop, used to come and see him
1:51:09 > 1:51:13and, at that last visit, he had Communion
1:51:13 > 1:51:19and then Leslie Brown read prayers for the dying,
1:51:19 > 1:51:22and, you know, Ben was quite accepting of that
1:51:22 > 1:51:24I saw him the day before he died.
1:51:27 > 1:51:31Um, I think I went down specifically to say goodbye,
1:51:31 > 1:51:35and I was completely and absolutely tongue-tied.
1:51:37 > 1:51:39That evening, December 3rd,
1:51:39 > 1:51:43Rita asked Michael Petch to pay one final visit.
1:51:44 > 1:51:48I could see that he was dying,
1:51:48 > 1:51:52and he had all the features of somebody whose heart
1:51:52 > 1:51:54was about to give out.
1:51:56 > 1:51:59My most memorable part of the evening,
1:51:59 > 1:52:03apart from the patient himself of course, was having supper with
1:52:03 > 1:52:06Peter Pears, which was an excellent meal.
1:52:06 > 1:52:10And we both drank well, but not excessively,
1:52:10 > 1:52:14and it was a very congenial evening,
1:52:14 > 1:52:18and I would have thought that Ben would have enjoyed it too,
1:52:18 > 1:52:20if he had been in a position to do so.
1:52:22 > 1:52:24Ben was really very low and, in fact,
1:52:24 > 1:52:28Mike, I suppose, was the last person he said anything to, because he
1:52:28 > 1:52:32didn't really need to say goodnight to Peter or I because, you know ..
1:52:32 > 1:52:35But because he was very polite and well brought-up, when Mike said
1:52:35 > 1:52:38he was going to bed, he said, "Goodnight, Mike," you know?
1:52:38 > 1:52:41Peter Pears was there, Rita was there and I think, by then,
1:52:41 > 1:52:46the night nurse was there, and I went off and slept like a log.
1:52:48 > 1:52:52What I didn't know then was that he didn't speak any more after that.
1:53:09 > 1:53:11We'd faced up to what was going to come
1:53:11 > 1:53:14a good deal earlier than this
1:53:14 > 1:53:17and he was not in any terror
1:53:17 > 1:53:21of dying...
1:53:21 > 1:53:23and he died in my arms, in fact
1:53:28 > 1:53:33This kind of Mahlerian ending, with the vibraphone, of course
1:53:33 > 1:53:36Tadzio, gradually rising up in register
1:53:36 > 1:53:40until the whole thing just fades out.
1:53:40 > 1:53:42It's absolutely sublime.
1:53:46 > 1:53:50The final scene of Death In Venice finds Aschenbach in a deckchair -
1:53:50 > 1:53:53a passive victim of both cholera and his obsession.
1:53:55 > 1:53:58As he dies, he sees his nemesis -
1:53:58 > 1:54:02the untainted Tadzio - walking out to sea, leading him on.
1:54:05 > 1:54:09The last page of the piece transcends anything he ever wrote.
1:54:09 > 1:54:11I think it's magic.
1:54:14 > 1:54:16Right at the very end, it's very precarious, cos there s
1:54:16 > 1:54:21a trill underneath the music, that leaves off only at the final bar.
1:54:22 > 1:54:25And the final bar is this pure A -
1:54:25 > 1:54:27a justification for this relationship,
1:54:27 > 1:54:31which is moved back into the realms of pure beauty and innocence.
1:54:34 > 1:54:38In the boy's disappearance into the sunset, almost, with Aschenbach
1:54:38 > 1:54:45dead on the stage, there is an astonishingly redemptive moment.
1:54:55 > 1:54:57There was a blackboard in the foyer
1:54:57 > 1:54:58of the Royal College of Music..
1:54:58 > 1:55:00and I was a 16-year-old...
1:55:00 > 1:55:01I walked into the foyer,
1:55:01 > 1:55:04and I just saw this announcement that Lord Britten...
1:55:04 > 1:55:07I wasn't even aware he was a lord. And suddenly...
1:55:07 > 1:55:10And it's always stayed with me, this image of seeing that he'd died, and
1:55:10 > 1:55:13I was terribly affected, although I didn't know much of the music
1:55:16 > 1:55:18I remember being quite weepy about it.
1:55:32 > 1:55:35HE SIGHS
1:55:49 > 1:55:52This is about endings.
1:55:52 > 1:55:57This is definitely somebody at the end of their life.
1:55:58 > 1:56:00Just so beautiful.
1:56:11 > 1:56:13It's almost unbearable.
1:56:23 > 1:56:27The harmonics give you this very ethereal colour...
1:56:29 > 1:56:31..and then it's as though we're ascending
1:56:31 > 1:56:33the very steps of heaven...
1:56:35 > 1:56:36..towards oblivion.
1:56:54 > 1:57:01He, himself, his spirit, seemed to have gone to another place,
1:57:01 > 1:57:03and the music was coming from there.
1:57:03 > 1:57:06I still find it quite hard to listen to it. I find...
1:57:06 > 1:57:13I find it's like sitting in a room with Ben saying to me,
1:57:13 > 1:57:16"I know I'm dying,
1:57:16 > 1:57:21"and I don't want to die,
1:57:21 > 1:57:27"but this is a distillation of what I've learnt
1:57:27 > 1:57:31"and what I want to say and, in a way, it's my farewell to the world."
1:57:34 > 1:57:38# Lady, flow'r of ev'rything
1:57:38 > 1:57:42# Rosa sine spina
1:57:42 > 1:57:47# Thou bare Jesu, Heaven's King
1:57:47 > 1:57:52# Gratia divina
1:57:52 > 1:57:56# Of all thou bear'st the prize
1:57:56 > 1:58:02# Lady, Queen of Paradise
1:58:02 > 1:58:06# Electa
1:58:06 > 1:58:11# Maid mild...
1:58:11 > 1:58:15# Mother es...
1:58:15 > 1:58:23# Effecta
1:58:26 > 1:58:33# Effecta... #
1:58:37 > 1:58:41Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd