Not long ago I attended a formal dinner at a college belonging to one of Britain's most ancient and prestigious universities, and was introduced to the institution's head of house as someone engaged in researching the music of Benjamin Britten. ‘Really?’ came the Master's reply. ‘There's not much point to the Aldeburgh Festival now that Britten and Pears are both dead, is there?’ Before I could respond, the Master had moved swiftly down the line, presumably to impart another morsel of wisdom in whatever subject-area was appropriate to the next guest. After dinner, I sat next to the wife of a senior fellow and was introduced in a similar manner. ‘Well,’ she said as she sipped her coffee thoughtfully, ‘I'm afraid I find Britten's music just too aggressively homosexual, don't you?’ This time I managed to issue a sophisticated rejoinder (the single word ‘Why?’, if I remember rightly), upon which she rapidly changed the subject.

The persistence of such bigoted views on Britain's most internationally successful and respected twentieth-century composer seems scarcely credible as the century draws to a close, and it remains an uncomfortable fact that – in his native country, at least – a small but vociferous body of commentators still seeks to denigrate Britten's self-evidently significant artistic achievements. Britten was himself no stranger to such negativity, and the seeds of an incipient critical malaise were sown as early as the 1930s when he was making a name for himself as a precocious newcomer armed with a formidable compositional technique embodying a resourcefulness and flexibility never before encountered in British music.