Benjamin Britten by Neil Powell
Benjamin Britten, the greatest twentieth-century English composer and one of the outstanding musicians of his age, was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, in 1913. This title follows Britten through school and college days, involvement with Auden Generation in 1930s and self-imposed wartime exile in America, to his emergence as a paradoxical figure.
Neil Powell is a poet, and it showsFluent… intimate… psychologically adept… [Powell does] an exceptional job of bringing this strange, neurotic and evasive man to life. -- Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times *
A sensible, well-written book by an author who is a literary scholar: this is the biography to choose if you are new to Britten and want an introduction to his life. * Country Life *
Powell carries the torch into the present, naming those singers now performing the work anew, painting a portrait of the Aldeburgh festival as it is today. His account has air and light, and brings alive the sense of landscape – the East Anglian coast, the marshes, the wind and waves – which have coloured so much of Britten's music. * Observer *
[A] fine biography... Powell has a more personal touch... takes a more literary approach, and is good at relating the vocal pieces to their sources. * Daily Telegraph *
Tightly focused... sympathetic. Powell lives in Suffolk and has a strong understanding of the composer’s cultural rootedness in that part of the world. * Economist *
A sensible, well-written book by an author who is a literary scholar: this is the biography to choose if you are new to Britten and want an introduction to his life. * Country Life *
Powell carries the torch into the present, naming those singers now performing the work anew, painting a portrait of the Aldeburgh festival as it is today. His account has air and light, and brings alive the sense of landscape – the East Anglian coast, the marshes, the wind and waves – which have coloured so much of Britten's music. * Observer *
[A] fine biography... Powell has a more personal touch... takes a more literary approach, and is good at relating the vocal pieces to their sources. * Daily Telegraph *
Tightly focused... sympathetic. Powell lives in Suffolk and has a strong understanding of the composer’s cultural rootedness in that part of the world. * Economist *
Neil Powell is a poet and biographer who has written extensively on literature and music. His previous books include Roy Fuller: Writer and Society (1995), The Language of Jazz (1997), George Crabbe: An English Life (2004) and Amis & Son: Two Literary Generations (2008), as well as seven collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Proof of Identity (2012). He lives in Suffolk.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780091931230 |
| ISBN 10 | 0091931231 |
| Title | Benjamin Britten |
| Author | Neil Powell |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Cornerstone |
| Year published | 2013-01-31 |
| Number of pages | 528 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |