b i o g r a p h y of imagination more appropriate to a work of fiction. When Britten and Peter Pears, his lover from 1939 until his death, enter a church in Madras, Kildea writes that ‘finally they sought out either ghosts or consolation in the church Pears’s father had been christened in’. How does he know? The speculation about the feelings and motivations of the characters becomes wearing, and one begins to suspect that the author wishes to invest each banal moment with some significance that, quite often, it does not have. Kildea also from time to time writes breathlessly about his subject, and too adjectivally – the book should have been better edited.
There is, though, some good material beyond the discovery of Britten’s affliction by syphilis. Kildea is perceptive on the suffocating effect Pears had on the composer’s creativity (Pears also went to lengths to keep away from Aldeburgh, which he found dull and provincial). Kildea is a conductor and an artistic director (including at Aldeburgh), and he is suitably commanding when writing about Britten’s many stage works. Peter Grimes, regarded by many as Britten’s masterpiece, was only so good because its librettist, Montagu Slater, stood up to Britten and argued every point in the construction of the work. Britten, as Kildea is not shy to say, was impossibly thin-skinned – it got worse as he grew older – and so Slater was promptly booted off the Christmas card list. Later librettists, including E M Forster and Myfanwy Piper, did as they were told, which made for a quieter life but less successful operas.
Kildea has been narrow in his sources – the library of the Britten-Pears Foundation at Aldeburgh and the six-volume series of letters, whose publication has just been completed, dominate his footnotes. His apparent acceptance of Britten’s own musical prejudices gives his book a sectarian smell. He describes Elgar and Vaughan Williams as ‘supposed’ giants of English music. Just because Britten disliked them – for reasons Kildea would have been well advised to analyse in great depth, since jealousy and resentment would seem to have something to do with it – does not mean that they were objectively poor. The reputations of Elgar and, even more, Vaughan Williams have risen during the last thirty years, while Britten’s has, at best, flatlined. This may not be to Kildea’s liking, but it has happened nonetheless.
The clique of sycophants around Britten for the last thirty years of his life damaged him – that much, at least, becomes clear from Kildea’s book. The infantile narrowmindedness and crushing sense of superiority that took root before the war were grotesquely overindulged after it. Kildea hardly disputes this, as he catalogues one act of self-serving disloyalty by Britten after another. Friends and associates were dumped ruthlessly when of no further use. Critics who dared to criticise were banished. The clique had to make their worship apparent to remain in favour. The genius became a dictator. Kildea talks of Britten praising ‘the openness of Continental thought and the narrowness and lack of generosity in England and America’. Britten embodied the native spirit too well.
Anyone who has read Humphrey Carpenter’s fine biography, and supplemented it with the six volumes of letters, will not learn too much from Kildea. He concentrates so much on the operas and says relatively little – and little original – about the works that really displayed Britten’s genius when he was in his twenties, such as the Violin and Piano Concertos, the Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge and his overwhelming Sinfonia da Requiem. It is time the Piano Concerto in particular was given the understanding and praise it deserves. And for all the emphasis on Britten’s leftwing politics, it would be good if the paradox about his ruthless social climbing had been better explored: his relationship with the Queen, his friendship with her cousin Lord Harewood, and his close relationship with Princess Margaret of Hesse.
Kildea says Britten wasn’t an English gentleman – but he was. He was ever the betweeded public schoolboy, with a series of poses that might have made some think otherwise. Paul Kildea is critical, but not critical or objective enough. Britten overwhelmed others through a combination of genius and spiteful personality when alive. He still overwhelms when dead. His circle trod carefully then, and their successors tread carefully now. History has not finished with him, I suspect, nor with his reputation. To order this book for £24, see the Literary Review bookshop on page 45
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