Britten Weekend 2018

The composer David Matthews wrote that ‘Like many of his predecessors, including the two composers closest to him in spirit, Mozart and Schubert, Britten found the string quartet medium a rigorously stimulating challenge to his creative powers’. This weekend provides a perfect opportunity to hear Britten’s responses to this compositional challenge in programmes that explore the background to and influences on his chamber works.

For a composer whose mature career was dominated by opera and vocal writing, Britten’s four quartets, written over nearly four decades, are fascinating, pivotal moments. Spanning a period from the 1930s to the very end of his life, they provide intriguing snapshots of a career and of influences both musical and biographical. From the elegant pastiche of the Divertimenti and the expansive open-hearted First Quartet to the gentle ebb and ambiguity that conclude the Third, these are heart-on-sleeve works.

To hear the Third Quartet in the hall in which it was premiered is always a rare privilege, and we will be taken on an imaginative journey by Robin Brooks in his newly devised Britten/Henry James mix, before we hear the remarkable and touching quartet in its pure form. Such experiments are one of the hallmarks of our work here. It is also a pleasure to welcome back the outstanding Doric Quartet. The ensemble’s performances preface its eagerly awaited new recording of the complete Britten quartets.

The weekend blends our work as a performance centre with our year-round activity as a leading international creative campus. The Britten–Pears Young Artists performing over the Britten Weekend have been participating in the Transatlantic Encounters masterclass course. This has been a week of intensive chamber music coaching by Alasdair Tait, Mark Steinberg, Vivian Weilerstein, Donald Weilerstein and Isabel Charisius, who have been uncovering the shared ideas and ideals of two great teaching traditions from either side of the Atlantic.