Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a

Composer: BRITTEN, Benjamin
  • “Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes” premiered on June 13, 1945 in Cheltenham, performed by the London Philharmonic, conducted by Britten.1
  • Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, composed in 1945, was an immediate success.2 It led to a revival of English opera and helped cement Britten as one of England’s great composers.3
  • Story: Peter Grimes is based on a poem from George’s Crabbe’s The Borough about an isolated, violent fisherman. He becomes a tragic figure when he is persecuted by townsfolk, who accuse him of murdering his apprentices.4
  • According to his article in Grove, Britten wanted “to get the audience to identify with Grimes and to locate the problem as one of society’s vicious treatment of difference.”5
  • Britten grew up in the kind of barren seaside landscape he depicts in Peter Grimes and in the “Four Sea Interludes.”6

Sources

  1. Jennifer Doctor et al, “Britten, (Edward) Benjamin,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 12, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000046435.
  2. Thomas May, “Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a,” The Kennedy Center, accessed August 12, 2019, https://www.kennedy-center.org/artist/composition/3178.
  3. Doctor et al, “Britten, (Edward) Benjamin,” Grove Music Online.
  4. May, “Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a,” The Kennedy Center.
  5. Doctor et al, “Britten, (Edward) Benjamin,” Grove Music Online.
  6. May, “Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a,” The Kennedy Center.

Cut IDs

14729 17645 19960 21665 42266 45309 48361