Britten's Children
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Britten's Children is a scholarly 2006 book by
Bridcut writes that 13-year-old boys were Britten's ideal. He liked to imagine himself as still thirteen years old and once explained his ability to write so well for children, "It's because I'm still thirteen".[4] Bridcut provides ample evidence that Britten was sexually attracted to young boys, but similarly shows that it is unlikely that Britten ever stepped over the line of propriety.
Britten lived with his long-time partner Peter Pears. Nevertheless, as Bridcut notes, there was frequent and continuing gossip in society about Britten's infatuation with boys. Britten would provide each new favourite with gifts and treats, and was a prolific letter-writer. The thousands of surviving letters are the source for many of Bridcut's observations.
Britten had a close friendship with
The relationship with Wulff overlapped Britten's meeting with Peter Pears – Pears is also the dedicatee of a song in the Rimbaud cycle. In 1989 Wulff recalled, "I adored Peter. He was a wonderful father figure ... and I thought in a sense that he was the father to Benjamin at the same time ... He would restrain Benjamin when Ben was going off the rails ... He had this air of stability that Ben didn't have."
Thirteen-year-old Piers Dunkerley, whom Britten met aged 20 and described by Bridcut as "emphatically good-looking",[6] was another early favourite. The composer's website reports that Dunkerley, one of Britten's closest friends, took part in the 1944 Normandy landings. Unlike the other three dedicatees of Britten's War Requiem, Dunkerley "survived the war but committed suicide in June 1959, two months before his wedding" and three years before the premiere of the requiem at Coventry Cathedral's reconsecration.[7]
Thirteen-year-old Harry Morris, whom Britten met in 1936,[8] was from a troubled home, and Harry was the only boy ever to accuse Britten of sexual abuse. They were on holiday in Cornwall together and Bridcut recounts that Harry claimed that Britten made "what he understood as a sexual approach from Britten in his bedroom".[9] Harry said he screamed and hit Britten with a chair and then Britten's sister Beth rushed into the room. Harry left the next morning and told his mother what had happened, but she did not believe him. John Bridcut was interviewed by Andrew Marr on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week in June 2006. Britten's sexual attraction for 13/14-year-old boys was the subject of the interview and the incident with Harry Morris, when Britten "may have crossed the line", was described in detail.[10]
Bridcut writes about Britten's friendship with
Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy was another friend of Britten. Fourteen-year-old Jonny "could not help flirting slightly" and was "at once aware I attracted him".[12] Jonny and his siblings and cousins provided the children's names for Britten's opera The Little Sweep. David Spenser was thirteen years old when he had the role of Harry in Britten's opera Albert Herring. When he first went to stay with Britten at Crag House, they shared a double bed, Britten explaining that with the recent move from the Old Mill at Snape it was the only bed in the house.[13] Not all Britten's young boys were musicians. He was very fond of a local boy Robin Long, known as "Nipper", and he used to take the boy sailing.[citation needed]
Bridcut interviewed a number of Britten's children including the actor David Hemmings. Hemmings was twelve when he came into Britten's life as the creator of the role of Miles in Britten's The Turn of the Screw. The conductor Charles Mackerras observed, "David Hemmings was an extremely good looking young chap and he also very much played up to Ben's obvious adoration of him, and drank it in," and adds, "Obviously it was a sexual attraction but I'm sure that it was never actually fulfilled."[14] Hemmings told Bridcut: "He was not only a father to me, but a friend – and you couldn't have had a better father or a better friend. [...] Everybody asks me whether or not he gave me one, whether or not it was a sexual relationship. The answer to that question, as I have often said, is: no, he did not. I have slept in his bed, yes, only because I was scared at night...and I have never ever, ever felt threatened by Ben at all because I was more heterosexual than Genghis Khan!"[15]
Bridcut also writes at length about Roger Duncan. Duncan was aged eleven when he first met Britten. Their relationship was unusual in that Britten persuaded Roger's father to share him and Roger spent many weeks staying with Britten. Roger's father was the writer Ronald Duncan, the librettist of
Bridcut makes it clear that Britten was inspired by his love of young boys to write extensively for children, and particularly for boy trebles. Among his finest works are The Turn of the Screw, with the dark relationship between Quint and Miles, and Death in Venice, based on Thomas Mann's novella about the tragic love of a novelist for the beautiful boy Tadzio.
Jonathan Keates' review in The Daily Telegraph sums up the dilemma of writing about Britten's children: "Nowadays a known homosexual who sought out the company and affection of small boys would probably end up on a police register or behind bars. In treating Britten's fondness for the young of his own sex as something more than lipsmacking paedophilia, this book does him a service both as a man and an artist."[16] In a similar vein, in a review in The Times, David Matthews wrote "Many paedophiles were abused as children, and their dangerous desires are motivated by hatred. Britten's were motivated by love, which may have been to a large extent narcissistic and, as John Bridcut's book reveals, often ended with an abrupt withdrawal of attention when the boy grew up, but which was fundamentally benign."[5]
Influence
Australian composer Lyle Chan discovered the relationship between Britten and Wulff Scherchen on reading Britten's Children in 2015. He sought out Scherchen, then a 95-year-old man living in Australia, and obtained his consent to create a song cycle out of the story of the relationship. The Serenade for Tenor, Saxophone and Orchestra ("My Dear Benjamin") was commissioned by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and premiered at the 2016 Brisbane Festival.[17]
References
- ^ Morrison, Richard (9 May 2006). "Crossing the line between affection and abuse". The Times. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
- ^ "Critical acclaim for 'Britten's Children'". Britten-Pears Foundation. 10 July 2006. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
- ^ "Summer of Opera programming". BBC. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
- ^ Bridcut, p. 8
- ^ a b Matthews, David (10 November 2006). "Lucky Thirteen". The Times. Archived from the original on 5 May 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2009.
- ^ Bridcut, p. 44
- ^ "Featured work: War Requiem, op.66". Britten-Pears Foundation. Retrieved 18 June 2009.
- ^ Bridcut, p. 47
- ^ Bridcut, p. 52
- BBC Radio Four. 5 June 2006. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
- ^ Bridcut, pp. 151–52
- ^ Bridcut, p. 160
- ^ Bridcut, p. 156
- ^ Bridcut, p. 197
- ^ Bridcut, p. 199
- ^ Keates, Jonathan (13 June 2006). "Boyishness as much as boys". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
- ABC Radio National, 16 September 2016, retrieved 16 March 2017
- John Bridcut, Britten's Children, Faber and Faber, 2006. ISBN 0-571-22839-9
- Donald Mitchell and Philip Reed (eds.), Letters from a Life: Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten 1913–1976, Faber and Faber, 1991