Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.

Life

Jarman was born in Northwood, Middlesex. His father was a military officer, born in New Zealand, and his mother was half-Jewish. He boarded at Canford School in Dorset, and from 1960 studied at King's College London. This was followed by four years at the Slade School of Art, University College London, starting in 1963. He had a studio at Butler's Wharf, London, and was part of the Andrew Logan social scene in the 1970s. Jarman was outspoken about homosexuality, his never-ending public fight for gay rights, and his personal struggle with AIDS.

On 22 December 1986, Jarman was diagnosed as HIV positive, and discussed his condition in public. His illness prompted him to move to Prospect Cottage, Dungeness in Kent, near the nuclear power station. In 1994, he died of an AIDS-related illness in London, aged 52. He is buried in the graveyard at St. Clements Church, Old Romney, Kent.

The band Chumbawamba subsequently released ''Song for Derek Jarman'' in his honour. Andi Sexgang, another music artist, released the CD ''Last of England'' as a Jarman tribute. The ambient experimental album ''The garden is full of metal'', by Robin Rimbaud, includes Jarman speech samples. Manic Street Preachers' Bassist, Nicky Wire, also recorded a track titled ''Derek Jarman's Garden'' as a b-side to his single ''Break My Heart Slowly'' in 2006.

Films

Jarman's first films were experimental super 8 mm shorts, a form he never entirely abandoned, and later developed further in his films ''Imagining October'' (1984), ''The Angelic Conversation'' (1985), ''The Last of England'' (1987) and ''The Garden'' (1990) as a parallel to his narrative work. The Angelic Conversation featured Toby Mott and other members of the Radical artist collective The Grey Organisation

Jarman first became known as a stage designer, getting his break in the film industry as production designer for Ken Russell's ''The Devils'' (1970). He later made his debut in "overground" narrative filmmaking with the groundbreaking ''Sebastiane'' (1976), arguably the first British film to feature positive images of gay sexuality, and the first film entirely in correct Latin. ''Sebastiane'' is a story about the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, which created a stir on the art cinema market because of its overt depiction of homosexual desire. Its stylistic tendency to camp was enhanced by its dialogue being in Latin.

He followed this with the film many regard as his first masterpiece, ''Jubilee'' (shot 1977, released 1978), in which Queen Elizabeth I of England is transported forward in time to a desolate and brutal wasteland ruled by her twentieth century namesake. ''Jubilee'' was arguably the first UK punk movie, and among its cast featured punk groups and figures such as Wayne County of Wayne County & the Electric Chairs, Jordan, Toyah Willcox, and Adam and the Ants.

This was followed by Jarman's unconventional adaptation of Shakespeare's ''The Tempest'' in 1979. Praised by several Shakespeare scholars, but dismissed by some traditionalist critics, the film contains a considerable amount of nudity (mostly male, but also some female, including a scene in which Caliban's mother Sycorax breast-feeds her son), some unconventional casting (Toyah Willcox's Miranda hardly suggests innocent purity) and an unusual setting (a crumbling mansion as opposed to an island). Throughout the film, Jarman is liberal with Shakespeare's text, using it as a springboard for his own interpretation.

During the 1980s Jarman was still one of the few openly gay public figures in Britain and was a leading campaigner against Clause 28. He also worked to raise awareness of AIDS. His artistic practice in the early 1980s reflected these commitments, perhaps most famously in ''The Angelic Conversation'' (1985), a film in which the imagery is accompanied by a voice reciting Shakespeare's sonnets, obviously chosen for their openness to a homoerotic re-reading.

Jarman spent seven years making experimental super 8 mm films and attempting to raise money for ''Caravaggio'' (he later claimed to have rewritten the script seventeen times during this period).

Released in 1986, ''Caravaggio'' attracted a comparatively wide audience (and is still, barring the cult hit ''Jubilee'', probably Jarman's most widely-known work). This is partly due to the involvement, for the first time, of the British television company Channel 4 in funding and distribution. Funded by the BFI and produced by film theorist Colin MacCabe, ''Caravaggio'' became Jarman's most famous film, and marked the beginning of a new phase in Jarman's filmmaking career: from now on all his films would be partly funded by television companies, often receiving their most prominent exhibition in TV screenings. ''Caravaggio'' also saw Jarman work with actress Tilda Swinton for the first time. Here, his trademark aesthetics flourished: overt depictions of homosexual love, narrative ambiguity, and superb visuals, particularly the live representations of Caravaggio's most famous paintings, are all prominent features of the work.

The conclusion of ''Caravaggio'' also marked the beginning of a temporary abandonment of traditional narrative in Jarman's films. Frustrated by the formality of 35 mm film production, and the institutional dependence and resultant prolonged inactivity associated with it (which had already cost him seven years with ''Caravaggio'', as well as derailing several long-term projects), Jarman returned to and expanded the super 8 mm-based form he had previously worked in on ''Imagining October'' and ''The Angelic Conversation''. The film was entered into the 36th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear for an outstanding single achievement.

The first film to result from this new semi-narrative phase, ''The Last of England'' told the death of a country, ravaged by its own internal decay and the economic restructuring of Thatcher's government. "Wrenchingly beautiful…the film is one of the few commanding works of personal cinema in the late 80's – a call to open our eyes to a world violated by greed and repression, to see what irrevocable damage has been wrought on city, countryside and soul, how our skies, our bodies, have turned poisonous", wrote a ''Village Voice'' critic. This film re-interpreted Ford Madox Brown's famous painting of emigrants leaving the English shores for a life in the New World, and has been compared to Humphrey Jennings's documentary ''Listen to Britain'' (1942) which constitutes its very antithesis. Where ''Listen to Britain'' indulges in the idyllic, The Last of England tries to expose the decay.

During the making of his film ''The Garden'', Jarman became seriously ill. Although he recovered sufficiently to complete the work, he never attempted anything on a comparable scale afterwards, returning to a more pared-down form for his concluding narrative films, ''Edward II'' (perhaps his most politically outspoken work, informed by his Queer activism) and the Brechtian ''Wittgenstein'', a delicate tragicomedy based on the life of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. It was a later complaint of Jarman's that with the disappearance of the Independent Film sector it had become impossible for him to get finance. Jarman made a side income by directing music videos for various artists including Marianne Faithfull, The Smiths and the Pet Shop Boys.

In 1989, Jarman's film ''War Requiem'' brought the legendary actor Laurence Olivier out of retirement. It turned out to be Olivier's last performance.

By the time of his 1993 film ''Blue'', Jarman was losing his sight and dying of AIDS-related complications. ''Blue'' consists of a single shot of saturated blue colour filling the screen, as background to a soundtrack composed by Simon Fisher Turner, and featuring original music by Coil and other artists, in which Jarman describes his life and vision. When it was shown on British television, Channel 4 carried the image whilst the soundtrack was broadcast simultaneously on BBC Radio 3, a collaborative project unique for its time.

His final testament as a film-maker was the film ''Glitterbug'' made for the Arena slot on BBC Two, and broadcast shortly after Jarman's death. Compiled and edited from many hours of super 8 footage shot with friends and companions throughout his career, it is a moving collage of memories, people and moments lost in time, accompanied by a specially commissioned soundtrack from Brian Eno.

Other works

Jarman's work broke new ground in creating and expanding the fledgling form of 'the pop video' in England, and in gay rights activism. Several volumes of his diaries have been published.

Jarman also directed the 1989 tour by the UK duo Pet Shop Boys. By pop concert standards this was a highly theatrical event with costume and specially shot films accompanying the individual songs. Jarman was the stage director of Sylvano Bussotti's opera ''L'Ispirazione'', first staged in Florence in 1998.

Jarman is also remembered for his famous shingle cottage-garden, created in the latter years of his life, in the shadow of Dungeness nuclear power station. The house was built in tarred timber. Raised wooden text on the side of the cottage is the first stanza and the last five lines of the last stanza of John Donne's poem, ''The Sun Rising''. The cottage's beach garden was made using local materials and has been the subject of several books. At this time, Jarman also began painting again (see the book: ''Evil Queen: The Last Paintings'', 1994).

Jarman was the author of several books including his autobiography ''Dancing Ledge'', a collection of poetry ''A Finger in the Fishes Mouth'', two volumes of diaries ''Modern Nature'' and ''Smiling In Slow Motion'' and two treatises on his work in film and art ''The Last of England'' (also published as ''Kicking the Pricks'') and ''Chroma''. Other notable published works include film scripts (''Up in the Air'', ''Blue'', ''War Requiem'', ''Caravaggio'', ''Queer Edward II'' and ''Wittgenstein: The Terry Eagleton Script/The Derek Jarman Film''), a study of his garden at Dungeness ''Derek Jarman's Garden'', and ''At Your Own Risk'', a defiant celebration of gay sexuality.

Filmography

Feature films

''Sebastiane'' (1976)

''Jubilee'' (1977)

''The Tempest'' (1979)

''The Angelic Conversation'' (1985)

''Caravaggio'' (1986)

''The Last of England'' (1988)

''War Requiem'' (1989)

''The Garden'' (1990)

''Edward II'' (1991)

''Wittgenstein'' (1993)

''Blue'' (1993)

Short films

''Electric Fairy'' (1971)

''Studio Bankside'' (1971)

''Garden of Luxor'' (1972)

''Burning the Pyramids'' (1972)

''Miss Gaby'' (1972)

''A Journey to Avebury'' (1971)

''Andrew Logan Kisses the Glitterati'' (1972)

''Tarot'' (aka ''the Magician'', 1972)

''Sulphur'' (1973)

''Stolen Apples for Karen Blixen'' (1973)

''Miss World'' (1973)

''The Devils at the Elgin'' (aka ''Reworking the Devils'', 1974)

''Fire Island'' (1974)

''Duggie Fields'' (1974)

''Ula's Fete'' (aka ''Ula's Chandelier'', 1975)

''Picnic at Ray's'' (1975)

''Sebastian Wrap'' (1975)

''Sloane Square: A Room of One's Own'' (1976)

''Gerald's Film'' (1976)

''Art and the Pose'' (1976)

''Houston Texas'' (1976)

''Jordan's Dance'' (1977)

''Every Woman for Herself and All for Art'' (1977)

''The Pantheon'' (1978)

''In the Shadow of the Sun'' (1974) ''(in 1980 Throbbing Gristle was commissioned to provide a new soundtrack for this 54 minute film eponymous piece by Throbbing Gristle)''

''T.G.: Psychic Rally in Heaven'' (1981)

''Jordan's Wedding'' (1981)

''Pirate Tape (William S. Burroughs Film)'' (1982)

''Waiting for Waiting for Godot'' (1982)

''Pontormo and Punks at Santa Croce'' (1982)

''B2 Tape/Film'' (1983)

''Catalan'' (1984)

''Imagining October'' (1984)

''Aria'' (1987)

*segment: ''Depuis le Jour''

''L'Ispirazione'' (1988)

''Glitterbug'' (1994) ''(one-hour compilation film of various Super-8 shorts with music by Brian Eno)''

Jarman's early Super-8 mm work has been included on some of the DVD releases of his films.

Music videos

The Sex Pistols: ''The Sex Pistols Number One'' (1976). Early live footage of the band.

Marianne Faithfull: "Broken English", "Witches' Song", and "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" (all 1979)

Throbbing Gristle: ''TG Psychic Rally in Heaven'' (1981).

Language: "Touch The Radio Dance" (1984) (notable because it was shown at the Museum of Modern Art)

Orange Juice: "What Presence?!" (1984).

Marc Almond: "Tenderness Is a Weakness" (1984).

The Smiths:

* ''The Queen Is Dead'', a short film incorporating the Smiths songs "The Queen Is Dead", "Panic", and "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" (1986)

* The "Panic" sequence from ''The Queen Is Dead'' was edited to form the video for that single (1986)

* "Ask" (1986)

Matt Fretton: "Avatar" (1986)

Pet Shop Boys: "It's a Sin", "Rent", and "Projections".

Pet Shop Boys: "King's Cross"

Suede

Scenic design

''Jazz Calendar'' at Covent Garden. ''Don Giovanni'' at the Coliseum. ''The Devils'', directed by Ken Russell. ''Savage Messiah'', directed by Ken Russell. ''The Rake's Progress'', directed by Ken Russell in Florence. 1991: ''Waiting for Godot'' by Samuel Beckett, at the Queen's Theatre in the West End.

Documentaries

''The Last Paintings of Derek Jarman'' (Mark Jordan, Granada TV 1995). Broadcast by Granada TV and shown at the San Francisco Frameline Film Festival. Last footage shot of Derek producing his final works. Guests inc Margi Clarke. Toyah Wilcox. Brett Anderson. Frank Schofield. Jon Savage. To coincide with the broadcast the exhibition Evil Queen was premiered at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. (Contact BFI for footage).

''Derek'' (2008): a biography of the life and work of Jarman, directed by Isaac Julien, narrated by Tilda Swinton.

''Red Duckies'' (2006): Short film directed by Luke Seomore & Joseph Bull, featuring a voice-over from Simon Fisher Turner commissioned by Dazed & Confused (magazine) for World Aids Day 2006.

''Delphinium: A Childhood Portrait of Derek Jarman'' (2009): a "stylized and lyrical coming-of-age" short film combining narrative and documentary elements directed by Matthew Mishory depicting Jarman's "artistic, sexual, and political awakening in postwar England". Jarman's surviving muse Keith Collins and Siouxsie and the Banshees founder Steven Severin both participated in the making of the film, which screened at the 2009 Raindance Film Festival in London.

References

Further reading

Martin Frey. ''Derek Jarman – Bewegte Bilder eines Malers.'' (BoD, 2008), ISBN 978-3-8370-1217-0

Steven Dillon. ''Derek Jarman and Lyric Film: The Mirror and the Sea.'' (2004).

Tony Peake. ''Derek Jarman'' (Little, Brown & Co, 2000). 600-page biography.

Michael O'Pray. ''Derek Jarman: Dreams of England''. (British Film Institute, 1996).

Howard Sooley. ''Derek Jarman's Garden.'' (Thames & Hudson, 1995).

Derek Jarman. 'Modern Nature' (Diaries 1989–1990)

Derek Jarman. 'Smiling in Slow Motion' (Diaries 1991–1994)

'Evil Queen' Exhibition catalogue. Forward by Mark Jordan ISBN 0-9524356-0-8

External links

Bibliography of books and articles about Jarman via UC Berkeley Media Resources center

Slow Motion Angel – a Derek Jarman Information and Resource Site

Derek Jarman: Radical Traditionalist

Preserving A Harlequin – a Jarman retrospective by Nick Clapson

Photographs of Prospect Cottage & garden details at Flickr

Derek Jarman on Find-A-Grave

Derek Jarman – Moving Pictures of a Painter

Derek Jarman; On lyrical love and dedication

Audio recording of Derek Jarman interviewed by Ken Campbell at the ICA, London, 7 February 1984

Category:Alumni of the Slade School of Art Category:English film directors Category:English diarists Category:English artists Category:British experimental filmmakers Category:LGBT rights activists from the United Kingdom Category:Alumni of King's College London Category:Old Canfordians Category:People from Northwood, London Category:Gay writers Category:LGBT directors Category:LGBT people from England Category:1942 births Category:1994 deaths Category:AIDS-related deaths in England

de:Derek Jarman es:Derek Jarman fr:Derek Jarman id:Derek Jarman it:Derek Jarman he:דרק ג'רמן la:Derek Jarman hu:Derek Jarman nl:Derek Jarman ja:デレク・ジャーマン pl:Derek Jarman pt:Derek Jarman ru:Джармен, Дерек fi:Derek Jarman tr:Derek Jarman

name	Edward III
alt	Medieval drawing of Edward III with the Order of the Garter.
succession	King of England
moretext	(more...)
reign	1 February 1327 – 21 June 1377
coronation	1 February 1327
predecessor	Edward II of England
regent	Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March& Queen Isabella ''(de facto)''Council inc. Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster (1327–1330; ''de jure'')
successor	Richard II
spouse	Philippa of Hainault
issue	Edward ''the Black Prince'', Prince of WalesIsabella, Lady of CoucyLady JoanLionel ''of Antwerp'', 1st Duke of ClarenceJohn ''of Gaunt'', 1st Duke of LancasterEdmund ''of Langley'', 1st Duke of YorkMary, Duchess of BrittanyMargaret ''of Windsor'', Countess of PembrokeThomas ''of Woodstock'', 1st Duke of Gloucester
house	House of Plantagenet
father	Edward II of England
mother	Isabella of France
birth date	November 13, 1312
birth place	Windsor Castle, Berkshire
death date	June 21, 1377
death place	Sheen Palace, Richmond
place of burial	Westminster Abbey, London}}

Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377) was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe. His reign saw vital developments in legislation and government – in particular the evolution of the English parliament – as well as the ravages of the Black Death. He remains one of only six monarchs to have ruled England or its successor kingdoms for more than fifty years.

Edward was crowned at the age of fourteen, following the deposition of his father. When he was only seventeen years old, he led a coup against the ''de facto'' ruler of the country, his mother's consort Roger Mortimer, and began his personal reign. After a successful campaign in Scotland in 1333, he declared himself rightful heir to the French throne in 1337, starting what would become known as the Hundred Years' War. Following some initial setbacks, the war went exceptionally well for England; the victories of Crécy and Poitiers led to the highly favourable Treaty of Brétigny. Edward's later years, however, were marked by international failure and domestic strife, largely as a result of his inactivity and bad health.

Edward III was a temperamental man, but also capable of unusual clemency. He was in many ways a conventional king, whose main interest was warfare. Admired in his own time and for centuries after, Edward was denounced as an irresponsible adventurer by later Whig historians such as William Stubbs. This view has been challenged recently, and modern historiography credits him with some significant achievements.

Biography

Early life

Edward was born at Windsor Castle on 13 November 1312, and was often referred to as Edward of Windsor in his early years. The reign of his father, Edward II, was a particularly problematic period of English history. One source of contention was the king's inactivity, and repeated failure, in the ongoing war with Scotland. Another controversial issue was the king's exclusive patronage of a small group of royal favourites. The birth of a male heir in 1312 temporarily improved Edward II's position in relation to the baronial opposition. To further bolster the independent prestige of the young prince, the king had him created Earl of Chester at only twelve days of age.

In 1325, Edward II was faced with a demand from the French king, Charles IV, to perform homage for the English Duchy of Aquitaine. Edward was reluctant to leave the country, as discontent was once again brewing domestically, particularly over his relationship with the favourite Hugh Despenser the Younger. Instead he had his son Edward created Earl of Aquitaine in his place, and sent him to France to perform the homage. The young Edward was accompanied by his mother Isabella, who was the sister of King Charles, and was meant to negotiate a peace treaty with the French. While in France, however, Isabella conspired with the exiled Roger Mortimer to have the king deposed. To build up diplomatic and military support for the venture, Isabella had Prince Edward engaged to the twelve-year-old Philippa of Hainault. An invasion of England was launched and Edward II's forces deserted him completely. The king was forced to relinquish the throne to his son, who was crowned as Edward III on 1 February 1327.

It was not long before the new reign also met with other problems, caused by the central position at court of Roger Mortimer, who was now the ''de facto'' ruler of England. Mortimer used his power to acquire noble estates and titles, and his unpopularity grew with the humiliation at Stanhope Park and the ensuing Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton, signed with the Scots in 1328. Also the young king came into conflict with his guardian. Mortimer knew his position in relation to the king was precarious, and subjected Edward to disrespect and humiliation. The tension increased after Edward and Philippa, who had married on 24 January 1328, had a son on 15 June 1330. Eventually, Edward decided to take direct action against Mortimer. Aided by his close companion William Montagu and a small number of other trusted men, Edward took Mortimer by surprise at Nottingham Castle on 19 October 1330. Mortimer was executed, and Edward III’s personal reign began.

Early reign

Edward III was not content with the peace agreement made in his name, but the renewal of the war with Scotland originated in private, rather than royal initiative. A group of English magnates known as The Disinherited, who had lost land in Scotland by the peace accord, staged an invasion of Scotland and won a great victory at the Battle of Dupplin Moor in 1332. They attempted to install Edward Balliol as king of Scotland in David II's place, but Balliol was soon expelled, and was forced to seek the help of Edward III. The English king responded by laying siege to the important border town of Berwick, and defeated a large relieving army at the Battle of Halidon Hill. Edward reinstated Balliol on the throne, and received a substantial amount of land in southern Scotland. These victories proved hard to sustain, however, as forces loyal to David II gradually regained control of the country. In 1338, Edward was forced to agree to a truce with the Scots.

One reason for the change of strategy towards Scotland was a growing concern for the relationship between England and France. As long as Scotland and France were in an alliance, the English were faced with the prospect of fighting a war on two fronts. The French carried out raids on English coastal towns, leading to rumours in England of a full-scale French invasion. In 1337, Philip VI confiscated the English king's duchy of Aquitaine and the county of Ponthieu. Instead of seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict by paying homage to the French king, the way his father had done, Edward responded by laying claim to the French crown, as the only living male heir of his maternal grandfather, Philip IV. The French, however, invoked the Salic law of succession, and rejected the claim. Instead they pronounced Philip IV's nephew, Philip VI, the true heir, thereby setting the stage for the Hundred Years' War (see family tree below). In the early stages of the war, Edward's strategy was to build alliances with other Continental princes. In 1338, Louis IV named Edward vicar-general of the Holy Roman Empire, and promised his support. These measures, however, produced few results; the only major military victory in this phase of the war was the English naval victory at Sluys on 24 June 1340, which secured English control of the Channel.

Meanwhile, the fiscal pressure on the kingdom caused by Edward's expensive alliances led to discontent at home. The regency council at home was frustrated by the mounting national debt, while the king and his commanders on the Continent were angered by the government in England's failure to provide sufficient funds. To deal with the situation, Edward himself returned to England, and arrived unannounced in London on 30 November 1340. Finding the affairs of the realm in disorder, he purged the royal administration of a great number of ministers and judges. These measures did not bring domestic stability, however, and a stand-off ensued between the king and John de Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury. Stratford claimed that Edward had violated the laws of the land by arresting royal officers. A certain level of conciliation was reached at the parliament of April 1341. Here Edward was forced to accept severe limitations to his financial and administrative freedom, in return for a grant of taxation. Yet in October the same year, the king repudiated this statute, and Archbishop Stratford was politically ostracised. The extraordinary circumstances of the April parliament had forced the king into submission, but under normal circumstances the powers of the king in medieval England were virtually unlimited, a fact that Edward was able to exploit.

Fortunes of war

By the early 1340s, it was clear that Edward's policy of alliances was too costly, and yielded too few results, to be continued. The following years saw more direct involvement by English armies, including in the Breton War of Succession, but these interventions also proved fruitless at first. A major change came in July 1346, when Edward staged a major offensive, sailing for Normandy with a force of 15,000 men. His army sacked the city of Caen, and marched across northern France, to meet up with English forces in Flanders. It was not Edward's initial intention to engage the French army, but at Crécy, just north of the Somme, he found favourable terrain and decided to fight an army led by Philip VI. On 26 August, the English army defeated a far larger French army in the Battle of Crécy. Shortly after this, on 17 October, an English army defeated and captured King David II of Scotland at the Battle of Neville's Cross. With his northern borders secured, Edward felt free to continue his major offensive against France, laying siege to the town of Calais. The operation was the greatest English venture of the Hundred Years' War, involving an army of 35,000 men. The siege started on 4 September 1346, and lasted until the town surrendered on 3 August 1347.

After the fall of Calais, factors outside of Edward's control forced him to wind down the war effort. In 1348, the Black Death struck England with full force, killing a third or more of the country's population. This loss of manpower led to a shortage of farm labour, and a corresponding rise in wages. The great landowners struggled with the shortage of manpower and the resulting inflation in labour cost. To curb the rise in wages, the king and parliament responded with the Ordinance of Labourers in 1349, followed by the Statute of Labourers in 1351. These attempts to regulate wages could not succeed in the long run, but in the short term they were enforced with great vigour. All in all, the plague did not lead to a full-scale breakdown of government and society, and recovery was remarkably swift. This was to a large extent thanks to the competent leadership of royal administrators such as Treasurer William de Shareshull and Chief Justice William Edington.

It was not until the mid-1350s that military operations on the Continent were resumed on a large scale. In 1356, Edward's oldest son, Edward, the Black Prince, won an important victory in the Battle of Poitiers. The greatly outnumbered English forces not only routed the French, but captured the French king, John II. After a succession of victories, the English held great possessions in France, the French king was in English custody, and the French central government had almost totally collapsed. There has been a historical debate as to whether Edward's claim to the French crown originally was genuine, or if it was simply a political ploy meant to put pressure on the French government. Regardless of the original intent, the stated claim now seemed to be within reach. Yet a campaign in 1359, meant to complete the undertaking, was inconclusive. In 1360, therefore, Edward accepted the Treaty of Brétigny, whereby he renounced his claims to the French throne, but secured his extended French possessions in full sovereignty.

Later reign

While Edward's early reign had been energetic and successful, his later years were marked by inertia, military failure and political strife. The day-to-day affairs of the state had less appeal to Edward than military campaigning, so during the 1360s Edward increasingly relied on the help of his subordinates, in particular William Wykeham. A relative upstart, Wykeham was made Keeper of the Privy Seal in 1363 and Chancellor in 1367, though due to political difficulties connected with his inexperience, the Parliament forced him to resign the chancellorship in 1371. Compounding Edward's difficulties were the deaths of his most trusted men, some from the 1361–62 recurrence of the plague. William Montague, Earl of Salisbury, Edward's companion in the 1330 coup, died as early as 1344. William de Clinton, who had also been with the king at Nottingham, died in 1354. One of the earls created in 1337, William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, died in 1360, and the next year Henry of Grosmont, perhaps the greatest of Edward's captains, succumbed to what was probably plague. Their deaths left the majority of the magnates younger and more naturally aligned to the princes than to the king himself.

Increasingly, Edward began to rely on his sons for the leadership of military operations. The king's second son, Lionel of Antwerp, attempted to subdue by force the largely autonomous Anglo-Irish lords in Ireland. The venture failed, and the only lasting mark he left were the suppressive Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366. In France, meanwhile, the decade following the Treaty of Brétigny was one of relative tranquillity, but on 8 April 1364 John II died in captivity in England, after unsuccessfully trying to raise his own ransom at home. He was followed by the vigorous Charles V, who enlisted the help of the capable Constable Bertrand du Guesclin. In 1369, the French war started anew, and Edward's younger son John of Gaunt was given the responsibility of a military campaign. The effort failed, and with the Treaty of Bruges in 1375, the great English possessions in France were reduced to only the coastal towns of Calais, Bordeaux and Bayonne.

Military failure abroad, and the associated fiscal pressure of constant campaigns, led to political discontent at home. The problems came to a head in the parliament of 1376, the so-called Good Parliament. The parliament was called to grant taxation, but the House of Commons took the opportunity to address specific grievances. In particular, criticism was directed at some of the king's closest advisors. Chamberlain William Latimer and Steward of the Household John Neville were dismissed from their positions. Edward's mistress, Alice Perrers, who was seen to hold far too much power over the ageing king, was banished from court. Yet the real adversary of the Commons, supported by powerful men such as Wykeham and Edmund de Mortimer, Earl of March, was John of Gaunt. Both the king and the Black Prince were by this time incapacitated by illness, leaving Gaunt in virtual control of government. Gaunt was forced to give in to the demands of parliament, but at its next convocation, in 1377, most of the achievements of the Good Parliament were reversed.

Edward himself, however, did not have much to do with any of this; after around 1375 he played a limited role in the government of the realm. Around 29 September 1376 he fell ill with a large abscess. After a brief period of recovery in February 1377, the king died of a stroke at Sheen on 21 June. He was succeeded by his ten-year-old grandson, King Richard II, son of the Black Prince, since the Black Prince himself had died on 8 June 1376.

Achievements of the reign

Legislation

The middle years of Edward's reign were a period of significant legislative activity. Perhaps the best-known piece of legislation was the Statute of Labourers of 1351, which addressed the labour shortage problem caused by the Black Death. The statute fixed wages at their pre-plague level and checked peasant mobility by asserting that lords had first claim on their men's services. In spite of concerted efforts to uphold the statute, it eventually failed due to competition among landowners for labour. The law has been described as an attempt "to legislate against the law of supply and demand", which made it doomed to fail. Nevertheless, the labour shortage had created a community of interest between the smaller landowners of the House of Commons and the greater landowners of the House of Lords. The resulting measures angered the peasants, leading to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

The reign of Edward III coincided with the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the papacy at Avignon. During the wars with France, opposition emerged in England against perceived injustices by a papacy largely controlled by the French crown. Papal taxation of the English Church was suspected to be financing the nation's enemies, while the practice of provisions – the Pope providing benefices for clerics – caused resentment in the English population. The statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, of 1350 and 1353 respectively, aimed to amend this by banning papal benefices, as well as limiting the power of the papal court over English subjects. The statutes did not, however, sever the ties between the king and the Pope, who were equally dependent upon each other.

Other legislation of importance includes the Treason Act of 1351. It was precisely the harmony of the reign that allowed a consensus on the definition of this controversial crime. Yet the most significant legal reform was probably that concerning the Justices of the Peace. This institution began before the reign of Edward III but, by 1350, the justices had been given the power not only to investigate crimes and make arrests, but also to try cases, including those of felony. With this, an enduring fixture in the administration of local English justice had been created.

Parliament and taxation

Parliament as a representative institution was already well established by the time of Edward III, but the reign was nevertheless central to its development. During this period, membership in the English baronage, formerly a somewhat indistinct group, became restricted to those who received a personal summons to parliament. This happened as parliament gradually developed into a bicameral institution, composed of a House of Lords and a House of Commons. Yet it was not in the upper, but in the lower house that the greatest changes took place, with the expanding political role of the Commons. Informative is the Good Parliament, where the Commons for the first time – albeit with noble support – were responsible for precipitating a political crisis. In the process, both the procedure of impeachment and the office of the Speaker were created. Even though the political gains were of only temporary duration, this parliament represented a watershed in English political history.

The political influence of the Commons originally lay in their right to grant taxes. The financial demands of the Hundred Years' War were enormous, and the king and his ministers tried different methods of covering the expenses. The king had a steady income from crown lands, and could also take up substantial loans from Italian and domestic financiers. To finance warfare on Edward III's scale, however, the king had to resort to taxation of his subjects. Taxation took two primary forms: levy and customs. The levy was a grant of a proportion of all moveable property, normally a tenth for towns and a fifteenth for farmland. This could produce large sums of money, but each such levy had to be approved by parliament, and the king had to prove the necessity. The customs therefore provided a welcome supplement, as a steady and reliable source of income. An "ancient duty" on the export of wool had existed since 1275. Edward I had tried to introduce an additional duty on wool, but this unpopular ''maltolt'', or "unjust exaction", was soon abandoned. Then, from 1336 onwards, a series of schemes aimed at increasing royal revenues from wool export were introduced. After some initial problems and discontent, it was agreed through the Ordinance of the Staple of 1353 that the new customs should be approved by parliament, though in reality they became permanent.

Through the steady taxation of Edward III's reign, parliament – and in particular the Commons – gained political influence. A consensus emerged that in order for a tax to be just, the king had to prove its necessity, it had to be granted by the community of the realm, and it had to be to the benefit of that community. In addition to imposing taxes, parliament would also present petitions for redress of grievances to the king, most often concerning misgovernment by royal officials. This way the system was beneficial for both parties. Through this process the commons, and the community they represented, became increasingly politically aware, and the foundation was laid for the particular English brand of constitutional monarchy.

Chivalry and national identity

Central to Edward III's policy was reliance on the higher nobility for purposes of war and administration. While his father had regularly been in conflict with a great portion of his peerage, Edward III successfully created a spirit of camaraderie between himself and his greatest subjects. Both Edward I and Edward II had been limited in their policy towards the nobility, allowing the creation of few new peerages during the sixty years preceding Edward III's reign. The young king reversed this trend when, in 1337, as a preparation for the imminent war, he created six new earls on the same day. At the same time, Edward expanded the ranks of the peerage upwards, by introducing the new title of duke for close relatives of the king. Furthermore, Edward bolstered the sense of community within this group by the creation of the Order of the Garter, probably in 1348. A plan from 1344 to revive the Round Table of King Arthur never came to fruition, but the new order carried connotations from this legend by the circular shape of the garter. Polydore Vergil tells of how the young Joan of Kent, Countess of Salisbury – allegedly the king's favourite at the time – accidentally dropped her garter at a ball at Calais. King Edward responded to the ensuing ridicule of the crowd by tying the garter around his own knee with the words ''honi soit qui mal y pense'' – shame on him who thinks ill of it.

This reinforcement of the aristocracy must be seen in conjunction with the war in France, as must the emerging sense of national identity. Just as the war with Scotland had done, the fear of a French invasion helped strengthen a sense of national unity, and nationalise the aristocracy that had been largely Anglo-French since the Norman conquest. Since the time of Edward I, popular myth suggested that the French planned to extinguish the English language, and as his grandfather had done, Edward III made the most of this scare. As a result, the English language experienced a strong revival; in 1362, a Statute of Pleading ordered the English language to be used in law courts, and the year after, Parliament was for the first time opened in English. At the same time, the vernacular saw a revival as a literary language, through the works of William Langland, John Gower and especially ''The Canterbury Tales'' by Geoffrey Chaucer. Yet the extent of this Anglicisation must not be exaggerated. The statute of 1362 was in fact written in the French language and had little immediate effect, and parliament was opened in that language as late as 1377. The Order of the Garter, though a distinctly English institution, included also foreign members such as John V, Duke of Brittany and Sir Robert of Namur. Edward III – himself bilingual – viewed himself as legitimate king of both England and France, and could not show preferential treatment for one part of his domains over another.

Assessment and character

Edward III enjoyed unprecedented popularity in his own lifetime, and even the troubles of his later reign were never blamed directly on the king himself. Edward's contemporary Jean Froissart wrote in his ''Chronicles'' that "His like had not been seen since the days of King Arthur".}}

Influential as Stubbs was, it was long before this view was challenged. In a 1960 article, titled "Edward III and the Historians", May McKisack pointed out the teleological nature of Stubbs' judgement. A medieval king could not be expected to work towards the future ideal of a parliamentary monarchy; rather his role was a pragmatic one—to maintain order and solve problems as they arose. At this, Edward III excelled. Edward had also been accused of endowing his younger sons too liberally and thereby promoting dynastic strife culminating in the Wars of the Roses. This claim was rejected by K.B. McFarlane, who argued that this was not only the common policy of the age, but also the best. Later biographers of the king such as Mark Ormrod and Ian Mortimer have followed this historiographical trend. However, the older negative view has not completely disappeared; as recently as 2001, Norman Cantor described Edward III as an "avaricious and sadistic thug" and a "destructive and merciless force."

From what is known of Edward's character, he could be impulsive and temperamental, as was seen by his actions against Stratford and the ministers in 1340/41. At the same time, he was well known for his clemency; Mortimer's grandson was not only absolved, but came to play an important part in the French wars, and was eventually made a Knight of the Garter. Both in his religious views and his interests, Edward was a conventional man. His favourite pursuit was the art of war and, in this, he conformed to the medieval notion of good kingship. As a warrior he was so successful that one modern military historian has described him as the greatest general in English history. He seems to have been unusually devoted to his wife, Queen Philippa. Much has been made of Edward's sexual licentiousness, but there is no evidence of any infidelity on the king's part before Alice Perrers became his lover, and by that time the queen was already terminally ill. This devotion extended to the rest of the family as well; in contrast to so many of his predecessors, Edward never experienced opposition from any of his five adult sons.

Family tree

Edward's claim on the French throne was based on his descent from King Philip IV of France, through his mother Isabella. The following, simplified family tree shows the dynastic background for the Hundred Years' War:

Ancestry

Issue

15 June 1330 16 June 1332 1333 16 February 1337 29 November 1338 6 March 1340 5 June 1341 1342 10 October 1344 20 July 1346 24 June 1348 7 January 1355

!Name!!Birth!!Death!!Notes
Edward, the Black Prince	|	8 June 1376	Married his cousin Joan, Countess of Kent on 10 October 1361; Had issue among which includes the future King Richard II of England.
Isabella de Coucy	Isabella	|	1379	Married Enguerrand VII de Coucy, 1st Earl of Bedford on 27 July 1365; Had issue.
Joan of England (1335-1348)	Joan	|	2 September 1348	Pedro of Castile but died of black death>the plague before the marriage could take place.
William of Hatfield	|	8 July 1337	Died young. Was buried at York Minster.
Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence	|	7 October 1368	Married (1) Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster in 1352; Had issue. Married (2) Violante Visconti on 28 May 1368; No issue.
John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster	|	3 February 1399	Blanche of Lancaster on 19 May 1359; Had issue among which includes the future Henry IV of England. Married (2) Constance of Castile, Duchess of Lancaster>Infanta Constance of Castile in 1371; Had issue. Married (3) Katherine Swynford in 1396; Had issue. The Dukes of Beaufort continue in the male line today.
Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York	|	1 August 1402	Married Infanta Isabella of Castile sister of Gaunt's second wife; Had issue.
Blanche	|	1342	Died shortly after birth.
Mary of Waltham	Mary	|	1362	Married John V, Duke of Brittany on 3 July 1361; No issue.
Margaret, Countess of Pembroke	Margaret	|	1361	Married John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke on 13 May 1359; No issue.
William of Windsor	|	5 September 1348	Died young, possibly of the plague.
Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester	|	8/9 September 1397	Married Eleanor de Bohun in 1376; Had issue.

Footnotes

References

External links

The ''Medieval Sourcebook'' has some sources relating to the reign of Edward III:

*The Ordinance of Labourers, 1349

*The Statute of Labourers, 1351

*Thomas Walsingham’s account of the Good Parliament of 1376

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Category:1312 births Category:1377 deaths Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey Category:Earls in the Peerage of England *307 Category:English people of French descent Category:Knights of the Garter Category:House of Plantagenet Category:Medieval child rulers Category:People of the Hundred Years' War Category:People of the Wars of Scottish Independence Category:Pretenders to the throne of the kingdom of France (Plantagenet) Category:Deaths from stroke Category:Roman Catholic monarchs

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Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work ''A Boy Was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of his opera ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. For the next fifteen years he devoted much of his compositional attention to writing operas, establishing him as one of the leading 20th century figures in this genre. Britten's interests as a composer were wide-ranging; he produced important music in such varied genres as orchestral, choral, solo vocal (much of it written for the tenor Peter Pears), chamber and instrumental, as well as film music. He also took a great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, and was a fine pianist and conductor.

Life

Britten was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, on 22 November 1913, the youngest of four children. His father, Robert, was a dentist, and his mother Edith, a talented amateur musician who gave Britten his first lessons in piano and notation. He showed musical gifts very early in life, making his first attempts at composition aged five, and thereafter composing prolifically as a child. He started piano lessons with a teacher from his pre-prep school when aged 7, and viola lessons with Audrey Alston when 10 years old.

Britten heard Frank Bridge’s orchestral poem ''The Sea'' at a festival and was, as he put it, ‘knocked sideways’. Alston was a family friend of Frank Bridge and was able to arrange an introduction. After examining Britten's work, Bridge took him on as a composition pupil, and the first lesson took place on 10 January 1928, a few weeks after Britten's 14th birthday. One of the first pieces composed during the period of Bridge's tutelage was the ''Quatre Chansons françaises'' for soprano and orchestra, though it appears that Britten's abilities as an orchestrator were essentially self-taught rather than learned from Bridge.

He later studied, 1930–33, at the Royal College of Music under John Ireland (composition) and Arthur Benjamin (piano). Britten also used his time in London to attend concerts and become better acquainted with the music of Igor Stravinsky, Gustav Mahler, and Dmitry Shostakovich. Although ultimately dissuaded by his parents (at the suggestion of College staff), Britten had also intended postgraduate study with Alban Berg in Vienna.

Britten was a prolific juvenile composer: some 800 works and fragments precede his early published works. His first compositions to attract wide attention were the ''Sinfonietta'' Op. 1, ''A Hymn to the Virgin'' (1930) and a set of choral variations ''A Boy was Born'', written in 1934 for the BBC Singers. In this same period he wrote ''Friday Afternoons'', a collection of 14 songs mostly for unison singing, for the pupils of Clive House School, Prestatyn where Britten's brother, Robert, was headmaster.

Early professional life

In April 1935, he was approached by the film director Alberto Cavalcanti to write the film score for the documentary ''The King's Stamp'', produced by the GPO Film Unit. He subsequently met W. H. Auden, who was also working for the GPO Film Unit; together they worked on the films ''Coal Face'' and ''Night Mail''. They also collaborated on the song cycle ''Our Hunting Fathers'' Op. 8, radical both in politics and musical treatment, and other works.

Of more lasting importance to Britten was his meeting in 1937 with the tenor Peter Pears, who was to become his musical collaborator and inspiration as well as his life partner. In the same year he composed a ''Pacifist March'' (words, Ronald Duncan) for the Peace Pledge Union, of which, as a pacifist, he had become an active member, but the work was not a success and soon withdrawn. One of Britten's most noteworthy works from the 1930s was ''Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge'' for string orchestra, Op. 10, written in 1937.

In early 1939, Britten and Pears followed Auden to America. There, in 1940, Britten composed ''Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo'', the first of many song cycles for Pears. Already friends with the composer Aaron Copland, Britten encountered his latest works ''Billy the Kid'' and ''An Outdoor Overture'', both of which manifestly influenced his own music. While in America Britten wrote his first music drama, ''Paul Bunyan'', an operetta (to a libretto by Auden). The period in America was also remarkable for a number of orchestral works, including the ''Violin Concerto'' Op. 15, and ''Sinfonia da Requiem'' Op. 20 (for full orchestra).

In the meantime, Britten had had his first encounter with Balinese gamelan music through the transcriptions for two pianos made by the Canadian composer Colin McPhee. Britten first met McPhee at Stanton Cottage in the summer of 1939, and the two subsequently performed a number of McPhee's transcriptions for a recording. This musical encounter was to bear fruit decades later in several Balinese-inspired works including ''The Prince of the Pagodas'', ''Noye's Fludde'' and ''Death in Venice''.

Return to England

Britten and Pears returned to England in 1942, and both applied for recognition as conscientious objectors; Britten was initially refused recognition, but gained it on appeal. He completed the choral works ''Hymn to St. Cecilia'' (his last large-scale collaboration with Auden) and ''A Ceremony of Carols'' during the long sea voyage. He had already begun work on his opera ''Peter Grimes'' based on the writings of Suffolk poet George Crabbe, and its première at Sadler's Wells in 1945 was his greatest success thus far. However, Britten encountered opposition from sectors of the English musical establishment and gradually withdrew from the London scene, founding the English Opera Group in 1947 and the Aldeburgh Festival the following year, partly (though by no means solely) to perform his own works. From 1949 to 1951 he had his only private pupil, Arthur Oldham. One of Oldham's achievements was the setting for full orchestra of Britten's ''Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge'', for the Frederick Ashton ballet ''Le Rêve de Léonor'' (1949).

''Peter Grimes'' was the first in a series of English operas, of which ''Billy Budd'' (1951) and ''The Turn of the Screw'' (1954) were particularly admired. His Shakespeare opera, ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', followed in 1960. These operas share common themes. Even in his comic opera ''Albert Herring'' of 1947, all feature an 'outsider' character excluded or misunderstood by society. Often this is the eponymous protagonist, as in ''Peter Grimes'' and ''Owen Wingrave''.

Britten was appointed a Companion of Honour (CH) in the Coronation Honours, 1953.

An increasingly important influence was the music of the East, an interest that was fostered by a tour with Pears in 1957, when Britten was struck by the music of the Balinese gamelan and by Japanese Noh plays. The fruits of this tour include the ballet ''The Prince of the Pagodas'' (1957) and the series of semi-operatic "Parables for Church Performance": ''Curlew River'' (1964), ''The Burning Fiery Furnace'' (1966) and ''The Prodigal Son'' (1968). The greatest success of Britten's career was, however, the ''War Requiem'', written for the 1962 consecration of the newly reconstructed Coventry Cathedral.

Britten developed close friendships with Russian musicians Dmitri Shostakovich and Mstislav Rostropovich in the 1960s. He composed his ''Cello Suites'', ''Cello Symphony'' and ''Cello Sonata'' for Mstislav Rostropovich, and conducted the first Western performance of Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony. Shostakovich dedicated this score to Britten, and often spoke very highly of his music. Britten himself had previously dedicated ''The Prodigal Son'' (the third and last of the 'Church Parables') to Shostakovich. He was honoured again by appointment to the Order of Merit (OM) on 23 March 1965.

In his last decade, Britten's health deteriorated, and his later works became more and more sparse in texture. They include the operas ''Owen Wingrave'' (1970) and ''Death in Venice'' (1971–1973), the ''Suite on English Folk Tunes "A Time There Was"'' (1974) and ''Third String Quartet'' (1975)— which drew on material from ''Death in Venice''— as well as the dramatic cantata ''Phaedra'' (1975), written for Janet Baker.

Having previously declined a knighthood, Britten accepted a life peerage on 2 July 1976 as Baron Britten, of Aldeburgh in the County of Suffolk. A few months later he died of heart failure at his house in Aldeburgh. He is buried in the churchyard of St. Peter and St. Paul's Church there, with a gravestone carved by Reynolds Stone. The grave of his partner, Sir Peter Pears, lies next to his, and near to that of Imogen Holst, a close friend. A memorial stone to him was unveiled in the north choir aisle of Westminster Abbey in 1978.

The Red House in Aldeburgh, where Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears lived and worked together for almost thirty years, is now the home of the Britten-Pears Foundation established to promote their musical legacy.

Music

Operas

Britten's operas are firmly established in the international repertoire. According to Operabase, he has more operas played worldwide than any other composer born in the 20th century, and only Puccini and Richard Strauss come ahead of him if the list is extended to all operas composed after 1900. Operetta in two acts, 114' op. 33 op. 37 op. 39 op. 43 op. 45 op. 50 op. 50 op. 53 op. 54 op. 59 op. 64 the composer and Peter Pears, after A Midsummer Night's Dream op. 85 op. 88

Title	! Opus	Description	Libretto and source	! Premiere	Publ.
''Paul Bunyan (operetta)	Paul Bunyan''	op. 17	|	W H Auden, after the American Paul Bunyan>folktale	, Brander Matthews Hall, New York	Faber
''Peter Grimes''	|	Opera in a prologue and three acts, 147'	Montagu Slater, after the poem ''The_Borough_(George_Crabbe_poem)>The Borough'' by George Crabbe	, Sadler's Wells, London	B&H
''The Rape of Lucretia''	|	Opera in two acts, 107'	Ronald Duncan, after the play ''Le Viol de Lucrèce'' by ''André Obey''	, Glyndebourne_Festival_Opera>Glyndebourne	B&H
''Albert Herring''	|	Comic opera in three acts, 137'	Eric Crozier, loosely after the short story ''Le Rosier de Mme. Husson'' by Guy de Maupassant	, Glyndebourne_Festival_Opera>Glyndebourne	B&H
''The Beggar's Opera''	|	Ballad opera, 108'	after the ballad opera by John Gay	, Cambridge Arts Theatre	B&H
''The Little Sweep	Let's Make an Opera (The Little Sweep)''	|	An Entertainment for Young People, 130'	Eric Crozier	, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh Festival	B&H
''Billy Budd (opera)	Billy Budd''	|	Opera in four acts, 162'	E M Forster and Eric Crozier, after Billy_Budd>the novella by Herman Melville	, Royal Opera House, London	B&H
''Billy Budd (opera)	Billy Budd'' (revised)	|	Opera in two acts, 158'		, Royal Opera House, London (revised version)	B&H
''Gloriana''	|	Opera in three acts, 148'	William Plomer, after ''Elizabeth and Essex'' by Lytton Strachey	, Royal Opera House, London	B&H
''The Turn of the Screw (opera)	The Turn of the Screw''	|	Opera in a prologue and two acts, 101'	Myfanwy Piper, after The Turn of the Screw>the novella by Henry James	, Teatro La Fenice, Venice	B&H
''Noye's Fludde''	|	Music-theatre for community performance, 50'	After the Chester Miracle Play	, Orford Church, Aldeburgh Festival	B&H
''A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera)	A Midsummer Night's Dream''	|	Opera in three acts, 144'	the play by Shakespeare||	, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh Festival	B&H
''Owen Wingrave''	|	Opera for television in two acts, 106'	Myfanwy Piper, after the short story by Henry James	, BBC2 TV broadcast; , Royal Opera House, London (staged)	Faber
''Death in Venice (opera)	Death in Venice''	|	Opera in two acts, 145'	Myfanwy Piper, after Death in Venice>the short story by Thomas Mann	, Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh Festival	Faber

Other genres

Britten was an accomplished pianist, frequently performing chamber music and accompanying lieder and song recitals. However, apart from the ''Holiday Diary'' (1934), ''Piano Concerto'' (1938), ''Young Apollo'' (1939), ''Diversions'' (written for Paul Wittgenstein in 1940), ''Scottish Ballad'' (1941), he wrote relatively little music that puts the piano in the spotlight, and in a 1963 interview for the BBC said that he thought of it as "a background instrument".

One of Britten's best known works is ''The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1946), which was composed to accompany ''Instruments of the Orchestra'', an educational film produced by the British government, narrated and conducted by Malcolm Sargent. Its subtitle is ''Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell''; the theme is a melody from Henry Purcell's ''Abdelazar''. Britten gives individual variations to each of the sections of the orchestra, starting with the woodwind, then the string instruments, the brass instruments and finally the percussion. Britten then brings the whole orchestra together again in a fugue before restating the theme to close the work. The original film's spoken commentary is often omitted in concert performances and recordings.

Britten's church music is also considerable: it contains frequently performed 'classics' such as ''Rejoice in the Lamb'', composed for St Matthew's Northampton (where the Vicar was Revd Walter Hussey), as well as ''A Hymn to the Virgin'', and ''Missa Brevis'' for boys' voices and organ.

As a conductor, Britten performed the music of many composers, as well as his own. Among his celebrated recordings are versions of Mozart's 40th Symphony and Elgar's ''The Dream of Gerontius'' (with Pears as Gerontius), and an album of works by Grainger in which Britten features as pianist as well as conductor.

''Nocturnal after John Dowland'' for guitar (1963) has an indisputably central place in the repertoire of its instrument. This work is typically spare in his late style, and shows the depth of his lifelong admiration for Elizabethan lute songs. In each of the eight variations Britten focuses on a different feature of the work's theme, Dowland's song ''Come, Heavy Sleep'', or its lute accompaniment, before the theme emerges complete at the close of the work.

In 2005, the Britten-Pears Foundation in partnership with the University of East Anglia was awarded funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to produce a thematic catalogue of Britten's works. The project is distinguished by being the first composer thematic catalogue to be published initially online. (All previous thematic catalogues have been print publications, though some have been published online later.) The work involves gathering and cataloguing manuscript and published notation and published recordings, producing a chronology, and assigning identifiers to Britten's works. These identifiers are in addition to Britten's own opus numbers and, after the style of preceding thematic catalogues such as BWV for J.S. Bach, comprise the letters 'BTC' followed by numbers assigned in chronological order. The catalogue includes numerous unpublished works and is expected, when completed in 2013, to include around 1,200 works. (Britten's ''published'' output includes around 200 works, of which 95 were assigned opus numbers.)

Reputation

Early in his career, Britten made a conscious effort to set himself apart from the English musical mainstream, which he regarded as complacent, insular and amateurish. Many contemporary critics distrusted his facility, cosmopolitanism and admiration for composers such as Mahler, Berg, and Stravinsky, not at the time considered appropriate models for a young English musician.

Britten's status as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century is now secure among professional critics. However, criticism of his music is apt to become entangled with consideration of his personality, his politics (especially his pacifism in World War II) and his sexuality. Humphrey Carpenter's 1992 biography further described Britten's often fraught social, professional and sexual relationships, as did Alan Bennett's 2009 play ''The Habit of Art'', set while Britten is composing the opera ''Death in Venice'' and centred on a fictional meeting between Britten and W. H. Auden (Britten was played in the premiere production by Alex Jennings).

In 2003, a selection of Britten's writings, edited by Paul Kildea, revealed other ways that he addressed such issues as his pacifism. A further study along the lines begun by Carpenter is John Bridcut's ''Britten's Children'', 2006, which describes Britten’s infatuation with a series of pre-adolescent and adolescent boys throughout his life, most notably David Hemmings.

For many musicians, however, Britten's technique, broad musical and human sympathies and ability to treat the most traditional of musical forms with freshness and originality place him at the head of composers of his generation. A notable tribute is ''Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten'', an orchestral piece written in 1977 by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.

Awards

UNESCO’s International Rostrum of Composers 1961, (for ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'')

Grammy Awards 1963 – Classical Album of the Year, Best Classical Composition by a Contemporary Composer, Best Classical Performance – Choral (Other Than Opera) (all for War Requiem)

Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal, 1964

Sonning Award 1967 (Denmark)

Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 1974

BRIT Awards 1977 – Best Orchestral Album (of the past 25 years) (for War Requiem)

Grammy Hall of Fame Award 1998 (for War Requiem)

Recordings by Britten

Facets of Benjamin Britten Pearl, Pavilion Records (0220 GEM)

Benjamin Britten – Premiere recordings 1938–46 Pearl, Pavilion Records (0002 GEM)

Britten the Performer (BBC Legends Music)

Benjamin Britten: In Rehearsal and Performance with Peter Pears

See also

''Britten's Children''

List of compositions by Benjamin Britten

References

Sources

F. Avellar de Aquino. "Song of Sorrow". in The Strad Magazine, London, v. 117, Vol. 1391, p. 52–57, 2006. (on Britten's 3rd. Cello Suite)

Philip Brett. "Benjamin Britten", ''Grove Music Online'', ed. L. Macy (accessed 18 October 2004), grovemusic.com (subscription access).

Bridcut, John, ''Britten's Children'', Faber and Faber, 2006. ISBN 0-571-22839-9

Britten, Benjamin (edited by Philip Reed, Mervyn Cooke and Donald Mitchell) ''Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Volume IV, 1952–1957'' The Boydell Press, 633pp

Britten, Benjamin (edited by John Evans) ''Journeying Boy: the Diaries of the Young Benjamin Britten, 1928–1938'' (London: Faber and Faber), 2009)

Humphrey Carpenter, ''Benjamin Britten: a biography'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1992) ISBN 0-571-14324-5

Peter Evans. ''The Music of Benjamin Britten'' (London: J. M. Dent, 1979) ISBN 0-460-04350-1

Michael Kennedy, 1981. ''Britten'' (London: J. M. Dent, 1983) ISBN 0-460-02201-6

Donald Mitchell, "Britten, (Edward) Benjamin, Baron Britten (1913–1976)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 18 October 2004: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30853

Michael Oliver. ''Benjamin Britten'' (London: Phaidon Press, 1996) ISBN 0-7148-3277-4

External links

Britten-Pears Foundation: biographies of Britten and Pears, timelines, work lists and descriptions, performance schedules.

Boosey & Hawkes (Britten's publishers up to 1963): biographies, work lists and descriptions, recordings, performance schedules

Faber Music (Publishers set up by Britten for his works after 1963): biography, work lists, recordings, performance schedules

Biographies and profiles

MusicWeb International. Benjamin Britten (1913–1976), by Rob Barnett

Gresham College. 'Britten and Bridge', lecture and performance investigating the relation between the two composers, 5 February 2008 (available for download as text, audio or video file).

On An Overgrown Path (blog). Photo essay on Britten's childhood home, November 2008.

BBC. Audio (.ram files) of 1957 and 1963 interviews

Portraits

National Portrait Gallery. Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (1913–1976), 109 portraits.

Worklists and performances

Scott Eric Smith. An extensive list of Benjamin Britten's works (archived / current)

Britten-Pears Foundation/AHRC. A thematic catalogue of Britten's works (under development)

Operabase. Recent and future performances of Britten operas.

Interpretations

Britten: A Ceremony of Carols (op. 28). Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge/ Harp: Frances Kelly/ Conductor: Richard Marlow (1997)

Britten: On This Island, Kishani Jayasinghe

Britten: Cello Symphony performed by cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner

University of Iowa. Audio recording of Lachrymae, Viola: Christine Rutledge, piano: Darlene Lawrence. Clapp Recital Hall (1998).

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Donna McKevitt (born 1970) is an English composer based in London. She studied viola with Gustav Clarkson and voice with Linda Hirst and gained a BA Hons in music at Kingston Polytechnic.

She was a member of Miranda Sex Garden between 1991 and 1994 recording Iris, Suspiria and Fairytales of Slavery with them for Mute Records and touring Japan, The States and Europe.

She began a collaboration with Greg Roberts of Dreadzone going on to write, sing and play on their albums Second Light and Biological Radio with Virgin Records.

While touring and recording full time Donna set some of Maya Angelou's poems for voice, trumpet and double bass and in 1993, after contributing to the soundtrack of Derek Jarman's last film Blue, she began work on 'Translucence'. These settings of Jarman's poems were recorded for Warner Classics in 1997 by Andrew Keener and featured the voices of Michael Chance and Melanie Pappenheim. "A work of haunting and unpretentious beauty", 'Translucence' has been performed by the original ensemble at Columbia University (broadcast live on WNYC Radio), at The City of London Festival and at Tate Modern. It has also been performed at The Edinburgh Festival and in Boston, Tokyo, Sydney and Zurich by other ensembles.

In 2000 Donna moved to Sarajevo where she continued writing, producing settings of poetry by Paul Celan, e.e cummings, Ben Okri and later, in collaboration with film maker Chris Briggs, work by Pablo Neruda. 'Love Songs for Michael', the settings of three Michaelangelo sonnets for Michael Chance and lutist Nigel North, were commissioned and performed at The Radovljica Festival in Slovenia in 2000.

Donna is a member of the band The Mabuses and composer for the photographer Emma Summerton contributing film scores and soundtracks for the fashion house Bodyamr, London and Paris Fashion Week, Jaeger and Italian Vogue.

July 2010 saw the release of 'This is what I wanted to give you' a collaboration with The Cesarians' drummer and poet Jan Noble and the beginning of a new song cycle from McKevitt. The debut album by 'McKevitt & Noble' is due to be released this Autumn with a live preview of the work at this year's East End Film Festival on May 2nd.

Discography

''Iris'' with Miranda Sex Garden, 1992, Mute Records

''Suspiria'' with Miranda Sex Garden, 1993, Mute Records

''Fairytales of Slavery'' with Miranda Sex Garden, 1993, Mute Records

''Second Light '' with Dreadzone, 1995 , Virgin Records

''Earth Angel'' (single) with Dreadzone, 1997, Virgin Records

''Biological Radio'' with Dreadzone, 1997, Virgin Records

''Translucence'' Jarman/McKevitt, 1998, Warner Classics

''Translucence'' Jarman/McKevitt, 2004, Dharma Records

''This is what I wanted to give you'' (single) McKevitt & Noble, 2010, Not Your Average Type

''This is a Bucket'' (single) McKevitt & Noble, 2010, Not Your Average Type

External links

Official website

[ Donna McKevitt] at Allmusic

References

Category:1970 births Category:Living people