# Janáček vs. Britten



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Which composer do you prefer? Feel free to explain your preference.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

They're about equal to me; both great. Could be an interesting comparison, they do seem to have much in common, though I've never thought about it before—with the caveat that Janáček was roughly six decades older than Britten.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

An intriguing comparison. Britten’s music hasn’t really clicked for me outside of the War Requiem, though I haven’t heard his operas yet and I have heard that they contain his true masterpieces. For now it’s Janacek. The string quartets and Glagolitic Mass are great favorites of mine.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

If I had to choose Britten it was because his output was consistently good throughout his career - LJ had only a few highlights before that remarkable last fifteen or so years.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Neither is among my favorites, but I have to go with Janacek because of my affection for his solo piano music and string quartets.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I choose Janáček because I hear more consistent genius and uniqueness in his better works, my favorite being the Glagolitic Mass. 

Britten to my ears is consistently very good, but over all more ordinary in his compositional voice with occasional moments of brilliance.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Wish I'd have voted Britten—to see him staggering behind like that on a poll of this nature really is not reflective of his major stature as a composer.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

flamencosketches said:


> Wish I'd have voted Britten-to see him staggering behind like that on a poll of this nature really is *not reflective of his major stature as a composer.*


I must admit that is part of my reason for starting the thread. I'm not sure I understand why Britten has such stature as a composer, not to say that he is not very good.

I listened to a number of Janacek and Britten operas years ago. I wish I could remember more detail about them to comment besides general impressions, that said in general Janacek's operas seemed more enjoyable to me. Britten's more for specific moments or ideas. The four sea interludes extracted from Peter Grimes obviously are excellent, I also remember admiring Britten's use of snare drum percussion from a certain opera (I think either Billy Budd or Turn of the Screw*). Where there is discussion in a household contrasted with a kind of percussion I'd never heard in an opera before, it struck me as a great idea. As I said occasional brilliant moments, but over all I haven't found his music rewarding enough to return to that often.

* Edit - I think the Britten opera I am thinking of is actually Albert Herring


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

tdc said:


> I must admit that is part of my reason for starting the thread. I'm not sure I understand why Britten has such stature as a composer, not to say that he is not very good.
> 
> I listened to a number of Janacek and Britten operas years ago. I wish I could remember more detail about them to comment besides general impressions, that said in general Janacek's operas seemed more enjoyable to me. Britten's more for specific moments or ideas. The four sea interludes extracted from Peter Grimes obviously are excellent, I also remember admiring Britten's use of snare drum percussion from a certain opera (I think either Billy Budd or Turn of the Screw*). Where there is discussion in a household contrasted with a kind of percussion I'd never heard in an opera before, it struck me as a great idea. As I said occasional brilliant moments, but over all I haven't found his music rewarding enough to return to that often.
> 
> * Edit - I think the Britten opera I am thinking of is actually Albert Herring


I think if you only listen to Britten's operas, you're doing the subject a bit of a disservice.

Yes, operas were a significant aspect of his output, but if you don't listen to his choral works (Rejoice in the Lamb, Hymn to St. Cecila, A Boy was Born, Cantata Misericordium, Cantata Academica, A Ceremony of Carols, Festival Te Deum, Hymn to the Virgin, Sacred and Profane); his instrumental works (Cello Suites, String Quartets, Violin Concerto); his song cycles (the Canticles, Les Illuminations, Phaedra, Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, Our Hunting Fathers, Winter Words, Who Are These Children); or his orchestral works (Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Prince of the Pagodas, The Building of the House) there's a vast swathe of his music you're not being exposed to.

Even in his operas, we go from the grand Gloriana or Billy Budd, to the intensely intimate Curlew River or Turn of the Screw; from the polemic of Rape of Lucretia to the riotous laughter of A Midsummer Night's Dream. If you only listen to a handful of his operas, you're missing the extraordinary variety of them.

I love Janáček dearly, and he has a unique sound-world that intrigues me greatly (and The Cunning Little Vixen is a desert island disc of mine!), but for breadth of expression in a highly personal, yet technically polished, idiom, I think Britten is easily out in front.

But then I would say that, wouldn't I!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Britten, and it's not close for me.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Britten all the way, on every level of musicality.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I love Janacek's music but (for me - and not, it seems, for other voters) Britten is one of the true greats (endless great music in a variety of genres) so it is no contest.


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> If I had to choose Britten it was because his output was consistently good throughout his career - LJ had only a few highlights before that remarkable last fifteen or so years.


Need to explore janacek - what are some works from this late period please?


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Janáček by the proverbial country mile. 

He is one of my favourite composers - top five certainly - and his operas are works of genius, as are his orchestral pieces, the Glagolitic Mass, the Quartets, the piano music, the folk music.

My polite approach to Britten is that he has never "clicked" with me. In an honest and off-guard moment I'd say I despise his music (with a couple of exceptions)


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

juliante said:


> Need to explore janacek - what are some works from this late period please?


Take a look at this wiki page, and sort by year of composition. Anything after 1913 counts as "late period" -so you'll see that it covers things like the Cunning Little Vixen, Taras Bulba, The Makropulos Affair, Lachian Dances, Sinfonietta, Glagolitic Mass, From the House of the Dead, Katya Kabanova and so on.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

juliante said:


> Need to explore janacek - what are some works from this late period please?


Nearly everything of note is late. He bloomed as an old man. The Sinfonietta is the usual entry piece. The two quartets are excellent. There is some fine piano music. The Glagolitic Mass is a fine piece. But he was essentially an opera composer and if you like opera there are many fine ones (Katya Kabanova, The Cunning Little Vixen etc). Where possible it is worth looking for genuine Czech performances - Ancerl, Belohlavek, Firkusny.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Janacek by a long shot. I enjoy _Peter Grimes_, _Billy Budd_ and may be _The Turn of the Screw_, but Janacek's opera outputs win me over.

For me Janacek is _the_ opera composer of the 20th century (yes, I am aware of Puccini and Strauss!)


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Janáček or Britten?

It's kind of like choosing between steak and cheese cake, as both are separated by time periods and geography. If it were Elgar or Vaughan Williams, and Britten (Three Englishmen); or Britten, Barber and Shostakovich (roughly contemporaries) it may be easier to make a comparison. I voted team Britten, but I'm biased towards 20th Century composers, and have very little Janacek in my collection, probably less than five CDs, the _Glagolitic Mass_, _Taras Bulba_, _Sinfonietta_, and a CD of piano music and something-or-other chamber work programmed along with some Bartok fare.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

juliante said:


> Need to explore janacek - what are some works from this late period please?


The suggestions made so far are largely the ones I would make myself. My first purchase of LJ was this double set of (mainly) late orchestral and chamber works and I think it's a great starter pack. If this should go down well, then the other prominent gaps can be filled thereafter.










Works on this set are:

_Suite_ for strings (1877):
_Taras Bulba_ - rhapsody for orchestra (1915-18):
_Lachian Dances_ for orchestra (1924):
_Mládí_ [_Youth_] for wind sextet (1924): 
_Concertino_ for piano and chamber ensemble (1925):
_Capriccio_ for piano left-hand and chamber ensemble (1926):
_Sinfonietta_ for orchestra (1926):


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Coach G said:


> Janáček or Britten?
> 
> It's kind of like choosing between steak and cheese cake, as both are *separated by time periods* and geography. If it were Elgar or Vaughan Williams, and Britten (Three Englishmen); or Britten, Barber and Shostakovich (roughly contemporaries) it may be easier to make a comparison. I voted team Britten, but I'm biased towards 20th Century composers, and have very little Janacek in my collection, probably less than five CDs, the _Glagolitic Mass_, _Taras Bulba_, _Sinfonietta_, and a CD of piano music and something-or-other chamber work programmed along with some Bartok fare.


I didn't even realize there was that much difference in time period until I looked it up. I certainly don't hear that difference in the music. They both sound like modern era composers to me and considering Janacek's late works are what he is generally graded on, he is a modern composer. Britten is the same, he lived into a later age but definitely does not sound post modern. Actually ignoring the dates Janacek's music probably sounds more modern to me than Britten's, Shostakovich or Barber's music.

I don't think composers necessarily have to be from the same geographical region to be compared. I don't see the comparison as steak and cheese cake. I hear two modern era composers which share some substantial similarities, they both excelled in opera and vocal music, and both composed fine string quartets.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I've been listening to Britten more lately, due to MikeH's and AbsoluteBachKing's advocacy. I'd say Janacek has more thrills and memorable tunes up front, especially his Sinfonietta for me, since he was inspired by folk music. But Britten was more original and his craft was deeper, more multi-dimensional. His part writing and the way it utilizes dissonance is more unique.


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Janacek for me. Britten is one of the few popular composers of whom I have found almost nothing I enjoy listening to.


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

I don't do opera (or much vocal music at all really). Hence, the contributions of J and B to opera pass me by.

I do think it's a really thought-provoking pairing though, as there does seem to be a similarity between the two in the way I think of them.

I voted for Janacek. This was not because there aren't Britten pieces that I enjoy (4 Sea Interludes, Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, Sinfonia da Requiem, even the Simple Symphony). There may well be more of these than there are of Janacek pieces which I listen to much (Piano stuff - really like the CD by Mikhail Rudy, String Quartets, Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba).

However, I just find Janacek so unique that I think the world (my world anyway) would lose more if it didn't have his voice in it than is the case with Britten. I think the Overgrown Path piano pieces and the String Quartets are irreplaceable in my listening universe.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

tdc said:


> I didn't even realize there was that much difference in time period until I looked it up. I certainly don't hear that difference in the music. They both sound like modern era composers to me and considering Janacek's late works are what he is generally graded on, he is a modern composer. Britten is the same, he lived into a later age but definitely does not sound post modern. Actually ignoring the dates Janacek's music probably sounds more modern to me than Britten's, Shostakovich or Barber's music.
> 
> I don't think composers necessarily have to be from the same geographical region to be compared. I don't see the comparison as steak and cheese cake. I hear two modern era composers which share some substantial similarities, they both excelled in opera and vocal music, and both composed fine string quartets.


Perhaps my assessment was too extreme, and I'm not familiar enough with Janacek to make a fair judgement as to which is the better composer. I do think of Janacek as among the Nationalists, with a sound that is close to Czech folk music, whereas, Britten is more the sophisticate and cosmopolitan, though still unmistakably English is a his own way.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> I've been listening to Britten more lately, due to MikeH's and AbsoluteBachKing's advocacy. I'd say Janacek has more thrills and memorable tunes up front, especially his Sinfonietta for me, since he was inspired by folk music. But Britten was more original and his craft was deeper, more multi-dimensional. His part writing and the way it utilizes dissonance is more unique.


There's no 'K' in absolutelybaching. 

As in barking mad.

Janáček is undoubtedly one of the most surprising composers I've ever come across. He seems a man outside of his time... and I think that a completely true view. We have a man in the 1910s and 20s writing as someone from the 1940s, at least.

I think Britten suffers by being a man out of _his_ time, but no-one notices it, because his time was full of atonal atrocities and he kept a mostly tonal 'ordinariness' in the face of it, so everyone wrote him off at the time as 'old, conventional, boring'. Put Britten back 30 years and he'd sound like the most inventive, audacious composer of the era! Just as Janáček did when you move him _forward_ 30 years. He was, very briefly, regarded as such around 1934-6.

Interesting you say 'Janáček has more thrills, [because] he was inspired by folk music'. I don't know if you know or not, but Britten was utterly entranced by English folk music. I don't know if you can get BBC websites working properly, but this one's a corker. If you are not a license player, use this one instead.

Anyway. I'm glad I've had a tiny hand in expanding your aural horizons. It's happened to me here as a result of a casual posting or two, as well. It means the place is working!


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

^ The folk music influence was more on memorable tunes. I don't find Britten tunes as memorable because his stuff was more polyphonic than Janacek, and less easy to linger in my memory. I think of the folk tunes arrangement as not representative of his more serious stuff in general.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Eclectic Al said:


> I don't do opera (or much vocal music at all really). Hence, the contributions of J and B to opera pass me by.
> 
> I do think it's a really thought-provoking pairing though, as there does seem to be a similarity between the two in the way I think of them.
> 
> ...


Now, please don't take this the wrong way, but the 4 Sea Interludes aren't 'a piece he wrote'. They are four pieces ripped out of context and paraded on the concert platform when people can't be bothered to do the full opera of which they are an utterly integral part 

I'm glad you enjoy them, and I realise Britten doesn't help my case by having subsequently crafted them as a separate piece for orchestral performance (though he had the gas bill to pay), but I do wish people would put them in their proper context.

It's like a number of people about these parts who feel that War Requiem is his masterpiece: which it decidedly isn't. It's an imaginatively conceived piece, no doubt, but it's not even in the top ten of his works (in my opinion, naturally).

When people judge BB by 4 Sea Interludes and War Requiem (which I realise you _weren_'t doing!!), I sort of silently scream inside


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> ^ The folk music influence was more on memorable tunes. I don't find Britten tunes as memorable because his stuff was more polyphonic than Janacek, and less easy to linger in my memory. I think of the folk tunes arrangement as not representative of his more serious stuff in general.


Fair enough. Then of course you get RVW, discarded as 'cowpat music' because he stuck to the folk music line more rigidly than BB ever did. I guess you can't win, really!

Additionally, I want to point you to _The Miller of Dee_, to which Britten wrote a decidedly minor-key accompaniment. Someone complained and said the Miller was supposed to be 'jolly': Britten's response was 'Jolly: Suffolk word for miserable'. The folk music suffuses his music more than I think you credit.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Now, please don't take this the wrong way, but the 4 Sea Interludes aren't 'a piece he wrote'. They are four pieces ripped out of context and paraded on the concert platform when people can't be bothered to do the full opera of which they are an utterly integral part
> 
> I'm glad you enjoy them, and I realise Britten doesn't help my case by having subsequently crafted them as a separate piece for orchestral performance (though he had the gas bill to pay), but I do wish people would put them in their proper context.
> 
> ...


So you would say that taking Britten's _Four Sea Interludes_ as a representation of Britten's output, is analogous to taking Wagner's _Ride of the Valkyries_, _Forest Murmurs_, _Siegfried's Rhine Journey_, and _Seigfried's Funeral March_ and enjoying them as fantastical orchestral concert fare, is to misunderstand the sum total of Wagner's Ring cycle and overall musical vision?


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

Coach G said:


> So you would say that taking Britten's _Four Sea Interludes_ as a representation of Britten's output, is analogous to taking Wagner's _Ride of the Valkyries_, _Forest Murmurs_, _Siegfried's Rhine Journey_, and _Seigfried's Funeral March_ and enjoying them as fantastical orchestral concert fare, is to misunderstand the sum total of Wagner's Ring cycle and overall musical vision?


Indeed, the funny thing is that I do like the 4 Sea Interludes, and if they caused me to hypothesise a judgement of Britten's operas, it would be a positive one. I just don't like opera (Britten or Janacek or anyone else). I see the 4 Sea Interludes as a parallel to pieces like Debussy's La Mer or Frank Bridge's "The Sea". Given that they don't pale in comparison I am quite happy to assume that the opera is really good as an opera. It's just that I'll stick with the interludes. They only enhance my opinion of Britten, and if that's on the basis of something inferior then that only enhances it further.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Coach G said:


> So you would say that taking Britten's _Four Sea Interludes_ as a representation of Britten's output, is analogous to taking Wagner's _Ride of the Valkyries_, _Forest Murmurs_, _Siegfried's Rhine Journey_, and _Seigfried's Funeral March_ and enjoying them as fantastical orchestral concert fare, is to misunderstand the sum total of Wagner's Ring cycle and overall musical vision?


Pretty much, I think, yes.

I would have answered an unequivocal yes if you'd stopped at the _Ride of the Valkyries_. That seems to me to sum up Wagner about as much as the Sea Interludes sum up Britten: i.e., not very much at all.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Eclectic Al said:


> Indeed, the funny thing is that I do like the 4 Sea Interludes, and if they caused me to hypothesise a judgement of Britten's operas, it would be a positive one. I just don't like opera (Britten or Janacek or anyone else). I see the 4 Sea Interludes as a parallel to pieces like Debussy's La Mer or Frank Bridge's "The Sea". Given that they don't pale in comparison I am quite happy to assume that the opera is really good as an opera. It's just that I'll stick with the interludes. They only enhance my opinion of Britten, and if that's on the basis of something inferior then that only enhances it further.


I think if you've never engaged with Mrs. Sedley's laudanum addiction, you're missing a trick or two. 

I always find Balstrode's injunction to 'sail out till you lose sight of land' to be the point I lose it. If you don't know Balstrode, you've missed most of the point, I suspect. He's you or I. He's what the acceptable face of intolerance looks like.

But, each to his own. I'm not mandating anything. Other than: listen.

PS. It's not that they are "inferior". It's that they're "partial". It's like judging a Rembrandt on three brush strokes and a hint of charcoal.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I think if you've never engaged with Mrs. Sedley's laudanum addiction, you're missing a trick or two.
> 
> I always find Balstrode's injunction to 'sail out till you lose sight of land' to be the point I lose it. If you don't know Balstrode, you've missed most of the point, I suspect. He's you or I. He's what the acceptable face of intolerance looks like.
> 
> ...


Is the main interest for you such elements of character and story? I have watched the opera twice but find the music difficult to enjoy apart from the interludes.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

janxharris said:


> Is the main interest for you such elements of character and story? I have watched the opera twice but find the music difficult to enjoy apart from the interludes.


It's a fair question. I don't know how to respond to it, really, other than 'Peter Grimes! We are here to investigate...' sets off the entire thing for me _musically_, in a way I just love following along with. (In the same way, if I ever hear the first 60 seconds of Rheingold, I'm sucked in for a 19 hour ride I can't get out of). It's character-full, it's expertly character_ised_. I know the place, I know the people, they speak to me in an idiom I don't find weird. I despise Mrs. Sedley; I love Balstrode (until he lets himself down); Ellen annoys me, like Donna Moss in _West Wing_: dumb and irritating! The Mayor's roses are beautiful; the Prostitutes' song is gorgeous and heart-rending.

I suppose that means it's the characters and story that get me, yes.

But have you walked along Aldeburgh beach at midnight in the full moon (preferably with a bag of chips from the Aldeburgh Fish & Chip shop)? If you have, you'll know it's more than just characters and story that make the magic. It's that it's *real*. Mrs. Sedley lives three doors up from you, and a Balstrode catches the same bus you take to work every day.

PS. In case I wasn't clear, the music is utterly impossible (for me) to divorce from the personalities and the place. So maybe it's not just the characters and story, either. I think a musicologist would say Peter speaks to you in one key; Ellen speaks to you in another; their bitonal duet tells you they're never really going to manage getting together etc etc etc. Who knows: the whole thing just works for me in profound, funny and lovely ways, musically.

PPS. Don't watch it on video. Listen to it on record, with a score. Just a suggestion. _*Imagine*_ it and read the music as written: it's going to be a lot better than any staging of it I've ever seen. I think I've already admitted elsewhere in these parts to walking out of a Jon Vickers performance (before the first Act had ended) because it didn't match my imagined expectations.


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