Britten in love
11 October 2026, 4:30pm - 6:00pm
In this the 50th-anniversary year of Britten’s death, two leading exponents of his songs bring a programme that reflects some of the key relationships in Britten’s life and music. The first half includes songs by Lennox Berkeley and some of Britten’s settings of W.H. Auden. Berkeley and Britten enjoyed a brief romantic relationship yet remained friends for their whole lives, while Auden was banished from Britten’s life after suggesting some home truths to the younger man. The second half revolves around Britten’s relationship with
Peter Pears: both music he wrote as an expression of his love for Pears, and music that the two of them performed in their countless recitals together.
Programme
- Lennox Berkeley (1903 - 1989)
- Lauds from Five Poems of W.H. Auden
- Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976)
- Sokrates und Alcibiades (1963)
- Fish in the unruffled lakes from Fish in the unruffled lakes
- Seascape from On This Island
- Underneath the abject willow from Fish in the unruffled lakes
- To lie flat on the back from Fish in the unruffled lakes
- Lennox Berkeley (1903 - 1989)
- What's in Your Mind, My Dove, My Coney
- Lay your sleeping head my love
- Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976)
- Die Jugend from Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente
- Lennox Berkeley (1903 - 1989)
- Night covers up the rigid land
- He would not stay for me from Five Housman Songs
- Because I liked you better
- Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976)
- Nocturne from On This Island
- Tell me the Truth About Love from Cabaret Songs
- Not even summer yet
- Batter my heart (1945) from The Holy Sonnets of John Donne
- Sonetto XXXI (1942) Op. 22 no.2 from Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo
- Oh, to vex me, contraryes meet in one (1945) from The Holy Sonnets of John Donne
- Sonetto XXXII (1942) Op. 22 no.6 from Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo
- Since she whom I love hath payd her last debt (1945) from The Holy Sonnets of John Donne
- The ash grove
- Down by the Salley Gardens (1943)
- The Foggy Foggy Dew
- The Miller of Dee
*****
- Anon. arr. Britten
- O waly, waly
- Purcell (1659 - 1695) / Britten (1913 - 1976)
- I attempt from love's sickness to fly
- If music be the food of love, sing on
- Sweeter than Roses
