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Britten's Piano Concerto: The Original Version
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
Extract
Benjamin Britten's revision of the original (1938) version of his ‘First’ Piano Concerto (he wrote no other) was undertaken in 1945. There had been discussions of a revival of the work between the composer and his friend, the pianist Clifford Curzon, who had encouraged Britten to replace the original third movement, entitled ‘Recitative and Aria’, and was delighted with the substituted ‘Impromptu’. As Curzon wrote to Britten on 1 September, 1946:
It has arrived and is exquisite. I can't tell you how delighted I am…
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990
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1 Despite Curzon's seminal role in the revision it was Noel Mewton Wood and not Curzon who was to give the first performance of the revised version at the Cheltenham Festival of 1946. The correspondence on Curzon's side seems to indicate that a temporary break-down of relations had occurred between the two men as a result of Curzon's desire to acquire temporary sole performing rights with respect to the new version.
2 Peter Donohoe with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Steuart Bedford, Aldeburgh Festival 13 June 1989.
3 See Chissell, Joan on ‘The Concertos’ in Benjamin Britten ed. Mitchell, D. and Keller, H. (Rockliff, 1952), pp.257–260 Google Scholar. See also Evans, Peter in The Music of Benjamin Britten, (Dent, 1978), pp. 44–7Google Scholar, Whittall, Arnold in The Music of Britten and Tippett (C.U.P., 1982), p.46 Google Scholar, and Evans, John on ‘The Concertos’ in The Britten Companion edited by Palmer, Christopher (Faber and Faber, 1984), pp. 411–415 Google Scholar. Only Headington, Christopher in Britten (Eyre Metheum, 1981)Google Scholar touches on the question when he writes (p.42) ‘In fact the march finale of the Concerto may be related to other Britten marches of the thirties; wholly un-Elgarian pieces, tight-lipped and often bitter as doubtless befits a pacifist composer’.
4 The full score of the original version was not published by Boosey & Hawkcs.
5 The Listener, 25 August 1938.
6 The Times, 19 August 1938.
7 The phrase was suggested to me in conversation with Donald Mitchell.
8 See Cooke, Deryck, The Language of Music (O.U.P., 1959), pp. 51 Google Scholar ct seq. The Gershwin hit-song link finds, incidentally, a striking parallel in Ravel, whose influence on Britten is strongly to be felt in the first two movements of this Concerto (see p. 17). The dedication of the work to Lennox Berkeley, with whom Britten was sharing residence of the Old Windmill at Snape at this time, suggests a friendly acknowledgement of a shared French influence. Apropos of which – in addition to Ravel – there is an unmistakeable hint of Poulene in the music-hall theme that appears before the re-transition in the first movement at fig. 12. In the first movement of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major (1930–31) – a Concerto which, like Britten's, was intended to divert and entertain – the nostalgic second subject, with its rising pentatonic motif, could be taken as a direct allusion to one of Gershwin's most popular melodies; Maybe.(See Ex.2, opposite).
9 That Britten could relish pure ‘entertainment’ is revealed in a diary entry after a cinema visit to hear Disney's Snow-white and the Seven Dwarfs on 24.2.38:'…grand entertainment and some terrific incidents.’ See Peter Pears, a Tribute on his 75th Birthday, ed. Thorpe, Marion, (Faber, 1985), p. 111 Google Scholar.
10 Letter to Mary Behrend, 26 August 1938.
11 For Britten's negative feelings towards Beethoven, which developed in spite of his earlier adolescent admiration, see Stuart, Charles on ‘Britten the Eclectic’ in Music Survey New Series 1949–1952, ed. Mitchell, Donald and Keller, Hans (Faber, 1981), pp. 247–250 Google Scholar. An as yet unpublished lecture by DrReed, Philip (‘Britten's Beethoven’, Aldeburgh 1988)Google Scholar has rightly challenged Britten's notorious statement as misleading.
12 See Mitchell, Donald, Britten and Auden in the Thirties (Faber and Faber, 1981), pp. 98–99 Google Scholar.
13 Quoted by Mitchell, Donald in his article ‘Britten on “Oedipus Rex” and “Lady Macbeth”’, Tempo 120, 03 1977 Google Scholar.
14 Aldeburgh Festival Programme Book, 1971, p.44.
15 Benjamin Britten ed. Mitchell, Donald and Keller, Hans (Rockliff, 1952), pp. 259–260 Google Scholar.
16 This is not the only cross-reference in the movement. At fig.36 (flute, bassoon etc) the theme is artfully combined with an augmented version of the first movement's second subject.
17 Collected Poems of Louis Macneice (Faber and Faber, 1966) p. 108.
18 See footnote 8.
19 The Times, 19 August 1938.
20 McNaught, W., The Musical Times, 09 1938 Google Scholar.