# Britten & Elgar



## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

I don't know what to make (or to believe) of these two extremely nasty articles about arguably the two most famous British composers, Benjamin Britten and Edward Elgar......

http://www.wrightmusic.org.uk/britten.html

http://www.wrightmusic.org.uk/elgar.html


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## LvB (Nov 21, 2008)

I read the Britten article and skimmed that ostensibly on Elgar; the author is clearly a very disturbed person consumed by homophobia. Were it not that real harm is often done to living individuals by vicious people like this Wright fellow, these would be nothing but funny (my favorite line was "Sir Arthur Bliss was a normal man, being a married man." As we all know, no married man has ever, ever, _ever_ done anything abnormal.... ). His claims are outrageous, and often demonstrably wrong or inaccurate (the anecdote purportedly about Stanford is a rewrite of Max Reger's 1906 letter to Rudolf Louis, critic for the _Muenchener Neueste Nachrichten_; "Ich sitze in dem kleinsten Zimmer in meinem Hause. Ich habe Ihre Kritik vor mir. Im naechsten Augenblick wird sich _hinter_ mire sein." ("I sit in the smallest room of my house. I have your review in front of me. In the next moment it will be behind me.")). The logic of the diatribe, like the logic of most such, is questionable, and the musical "analysis" hilarious ("And so, we have a four movement symphony lasting about 58 minutes in which 62% is very slow, 24% is slowish and only 12% of it has any speed or liveliness.").

Oddly enough, these articles come from a web site with articles on other composers (an eclectic grouping including Peter Racine Fricker and William Walton), none of whom appears to irk him nearly as much as these two. I suppose a qualified psychologist could explain the rancor....


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

Having read this ****, the only thing I regret is that no judge could give the author capital punishment for this type of writing. Only a dictator would have the power.

Ooooh, how I would love to be Herr Hitler in this git's case... 

BTW, the 'quotations' from other contemporaries ought to be taken with extreme caution. They are probably all made-up. (Also, if Stanford really said something bad about Elgar, it doesn't serve him good, because such a mediocre composer as Mr Stanford is hard to find indeed. With due respect to his fans.)


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

Who is this guy? I want to meet him.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

It is true that Britten's relationship with children has been controversial. There have been a number of - more reputable - books written about this. I think that they all point to the fact that he wasn't a paedophile, but he was still pretty wierd.

Reading these articles, you'd think that Britten & Elgar were the worst composers in the world. It's all just subjective nonsense peppered with some quotes by famous people, probably out of context. Very unscholarly, indeed, but that's the democracy of the internet. Anyone can put up almost anything on a website, no matter how lame.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

I didn't even read these articles, but I don't take people like this writer very serious anyway. I mean what does any of this have to do with the music Elgar and Britten composed? Absolutely nothing. It's yet another case of a person throwing a bone and seeing who will bite first. He's simply creating his own controversy, which, in my opinion, does nothing but a disservice to the music.

All I have to say is when he wants to start talking about the music, then by all means let's talk, but anything that remotely deviates from the music isn't important to me.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

I skimmed through the Elgar piece (it's too irritating to read all of it with close attention), but I can't recognise either the man or the music in what is said here. Someone has a personal axe to grind, and he's ground it. The piece is the more insidious for its general approach, which is to take a meandering thread of known facts and interweave them with speculation and subjective opinion in an intentionally destructive way. It's not that Elgar didn't have some difficult or unpleasant character traits. Of course he did. And the quality of his music is unequal. But a hatchet job like this could be conducted by anyone with malicious intent on any composer - indeed, pretty well any human being. Not worth spending any time with really.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

jhar26 said:


> I don't know what to make (or to believe) of these two extremely nasty articles about arguably the two most famous British composers, Benjamin Britten and Edward Elgar......
> 
> http://www.wrightmusic.org.uk/britten.html
> 
> http://www.wrightmusic.org.uk/elgar.html


Dear God, that was _horrible_. Repellent calumny.


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## Drowning_by_numbers (May 30, 2006)

I couldn't even get past the first paragraph. 

Britten is my favourite composer, and his relationship with children is definately controversial. He may well have had unhealthy feelings towards children, but didn't ever act on them. You can debate this to the high heavens of course but this person describes him as "a criminal" which of course is just completely untrue. The whole article appears to be riddled with bias and no real fact. I say just ignore it, listen to the music and make up your own mind.


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