- “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
- 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.
- 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.
- Doctor et al, “Britten, (Edward) Benjamin,” Grove Music Online.
- May, “Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a,” The Kennedy Center.
- Doctor et al, “Britten, (Edward) Benjamin,” Grove Music Online.
- May, “Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a,” The Kennedy Center.
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