Bringing together established authorities and new voices, this book
takes off the 'protective arm' around Britten.
Benjamin Britten Studies brings together established authorities and new
voices to offer a fresh perspective on previous scholarship models and a
re-contextualization of previously held beliefs about Britten. Using the
mostrecent and innovative historical, musicological, sociological,
psychological, and theoretical methodologies, the authors take off the
'protective arm' around Britten and disclose an unprecedented amount of
previously unpublishedand disregarded primary source materials. The
collection considers difficult questions of identity such as Britten's
retreat to America, his re-entry into the British musical scene, and
late-life revisions of his American works; scrutinizes the fraught
establishing of the English Opera Group contemporaneous with the
founding of the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts; explores his
break with Boosey & Hawkes and inspects international copyright concerns
in the Soviet Union' investigates sensitive issues of intimacy and
Britten's relationships; and combines closer analysis of Britten's
musico-rhythmic, harmonic, and compositional practices with a
description of the more overtlypolitical context within which he found
himself. Benjamin Britten Studies ends by asking what we can actually
know about the composer in a reconsideration of the materials he left
behind. All of this coalesces into avolume that not only serves as a
model of on-going and future Britten research but which generates a
greater understanding of the overall trends within the ever-synthesizing
and interdisciplinary musicological field of the twenty-first century.
VICKI P. STROEHER is Professor of Music History at Marshall University.
JUSTIN VICKERS is Assistant Professor of Voice at Illinois State
University.
Contributors: Byron Adams, Nicholas Clark, Jenny Doctor, Paul Kildea,
Christopher Mark, Thornton Miller, Louis Niebur, Philip Reed, Colleen
Renihan, Philip Rupprecht, Kevin Salfen, Vicki P. Stroeher, Justin
Vickers, Lucy Walker, Danielle Ward-Griffin, Lloyd Whitesell
