The Building of the House, op. 79 is an "overture with or without chorus" by Benjamin Britten written in 1967. The overture is notable for the use of Asian-influenced heterophony. [1]
The Building of the House, op. 79 is an "overture with or without chorus" by Benjamin Britten written in 1967. The overture is notable for the use of Asian-influenced heterophony. [1]
The optional text is taken from Psalm 127, adapted by Imogen Holst from The Whole Book of Psalms (set in English). It is set using the chorale melody "Vater unser im Himmelreich". In performance the chorale can be sung by a choir or played on the organ.
The piece was written for the inauguration of the Snape Maltings concert hall, which took place in June 1967. [2] This has been described as the first performance, [3] although it was played at the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London which took place earlier the same year. [4] Constantin Silvestri introduced the work to Bournemouth, conducting the BSO in a performance on November 23, 1967.
This piece was played at the United Nations General Assembly on 24 October 1969, by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Kempe. The concert commemorated the 25th anniversary of United Nations Day. [5]
The Building of the House, which had not been played in the Snape Maltings Concert Hall since the 1987 Aldeburgh Festival, was again performed there for the 2017 Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the composition.
The piece was played in 2018 by Chineke!, a BME orchestra in residence at the South Bank, in a concert to mark the reopening of the Queen Elizabeth Hall after refurbishment. [6]
The piece has been recorded by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle.
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).
The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk and is centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. With a limited performance size, the orchestra specializes in 18th-century music and was created to perform Baroque Music. The orchestra regularly tours in the UK and internationally, and holds the distinction of having the most extensive discography of any chamber orchestra and being the most well-traveled orchestra in the world; no other orchestra has played concerts (as of 2013, according to its own publicity) in as many countries as the English Chamber Orchestra.
Stuart Oliver Knussen was a British composer of contemporary classical music and conductor. Among the most influential British composers of his generation, his relatively few compositions are "rooted in 20th-century modernism, [but] beholden to no school but his own"
Imogen Clare Holst was a British composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, musicologist, and festival administrator. The only child of the composer Gustav Holst, she is particularly known for her educational work at Dartington Hall in the 1940s, and for her 20 years as joint artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. In addition to composing music, she wrote composer biographies, much educational material, and several books on the life and works of her father.
Snape Maltings Concert Hall is an arts complex on the banks of the River Alde at Snape, Suffolk, England. It is best known as one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival. It is now one of two headquarters for Britten Pears Arts, with the other being The Red House.
The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34, is a 1945 musical composition by Benjamin Britten with a subtitle Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell. It was based on the second movement, "Rondeau", of the Abdelazer suite. It was originally commissioned for the British educational documentary film called Instruments of the Orchestra released on 29 November 1946, directed by Muir Mathieson and featuring the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent; Sargent also conducted the concert première on 15 October 1946 with the Liverpool Philharmonic in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, England.
Snape is a small village in the English county of Suffolk, on the River Alde close to Aldeburgh. At the 2011 census the population was 611. In Anglo-Saxon England, Snape was the site of an Anglo-Saxon ship burial. Snape is now best known for Snape Maltings, no longer in commercial use, but converted into a tourist centre together with a concert hall that hosts the major part of the annual Aldeburgh Festival.
The cello suites by Benjamin Britten are a series of three compositions for solo cello, dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich. The suites were the first original solo instrumental music that Britten wrote for and dedicated to Rostropovich, but Britten had earlier composed a cadenza for Joseph Haydn's Cello Concerto in C major, for Rostropovich, in 1964. Rostropovich gave the first performances of each work, and recorded Suite No. 1 and 2 commercially.
Newson Garrett was an English maltster, instrumental in the revival of the town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, of which he became mayor at the end of his life. His daughter Elizabeth became the first woman in Britain to qualify as a medical doctor. Both his daughters, Millicent and Elizabeth, became famous as women's rights activists.
Cecil Aronowitz was a British viola player, a founding member of the Melos Ensemble, a leading chamber musician, and an influential teacher at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music.
Adrian Simon Beers MBE was a British double bass player and teacher at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music. He was a principal player in the Philharmonia Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra, and a chamber musician, notably in the Melos Ensemble that he helped found.
Rae Woodland was a British soprano who studied with Roy Henderson. Her debut was as Queen of the Night at Sadlers Wells. She sang in many European festivals, and debuted at Covent Garden in La sonnambula with Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti. She was first asked to sing for Benjamin Britten on the English Opera Group's tour of Russia, and played many roles for him subsequently. She also created roles for Gottfried von Einem, Nicholas Maw and Sir Arthur Bliss, and made many live broadcasts for the BBC, from the RAH Proms to Friday Night is Music Night. She retired from the opera stage in 1984. She then taught singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and at the Britten-Pears School in Snape Maltings on the invitation of Sir Peter Pears.
Variations on an Elizabethan Theme is a set of variations for string orchestra, written collaboratively in 1952 by six English composers: Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Oldham, Humphrey Searle, Michael Tippett and William Walton.
Benjamin Britten's Piano Concerto, Op. 13, is the composer's sole piano concerto.
The Britten-Pears Orchestra, formerly The Snape Maltings Training Orchestra, is the youth orchestra of the Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme at Snape Maltings, run by the Aldeburgh Festival.
Britten Pears Arts is a large music education organisation based in Suffolk, England. It aims to continue the legacy of composer Benjamin Britten and his partner, singer Peter Pears, and to promote the enjoyment and experience of music for all. It is a registered charity.
Elizabeth Atherton is a British lyric soprano. Born and brought up in London, she is the daughter of conductor David Atherton. She studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama with Patricia MacMahon. She is a winner of the Maggie Teyte Prize and the Handel Singing Competition.
The National Anthem is a 1962 choral and orchestral arrangement of God Save the Queen by Benjamin Britten. The arrangement was written for the Leeds Festival. It has been described as an "extraordinary progression from pianissimo prayer to pealing, overlapping choral fortissimo".
With Britten's celebratory The Building of the House we remember that Britten conducted at the opening concert of the QEH in 1967
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