Ben Britten's 100th

[EcceQuamBonum]

Benjamin Britten was born 100 years ago today.  He easily ranks as one of the greatest choral composers of the 20th century, and, I think, one of the greatest British composers of all time. 

Of course, and more importantly, it's also the Feast of St. Cecilia!  So, in commemoration of which, here is Britten's magnificent Op. 27 "Hymn to St. Cecilia," the text of which was written by none other than Auden.

(Sung here by the King's College Choir, under the direction of Sir David Willcocks.)

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUgsaVMUdQM[/yt]

[Kaesekopf]

Thank you! 

He's been on WFMT, a classical station out of Chicago, all week, I think.  It's pretty cool.  His works sound very nice.

[Maximilian]

Benjamin Britten was born 100 years ago today.  He easily ranks as one of the greatest choral composers of the 20th century, and, I think, one of the greatest British composers of all time. 

Damning with faint praise.

here is Britten's magnificent Op. 27 "Hymn to St. Cecilia," the text of which was written by none other than Auden.

Very gay.

Wikipedia says this about their collaboration:

"Auden was a considerable influence on Britten, encouraging him to widen his aesthetic, intellectual and political horizons, and also to come to terms with his homosexuality. Auden was, as David Matthews puts it, "cheerfully and guiltlessly promiscuous"; Britten, puritanical and conventional by nature, was sexually repressed."

[EcceQuamBonum]

Benjamin Britten was born 100 years ago today.  He easily ranks as one of the greatest choral composers of the 20th century, and, I think, one of the greatest British composers of all time. 

Damning with faint praise.

I'm not sure which of my two evaluations is damning with faint praise, exactly.  But the nation that produced Handel, Purcell, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Tallis, Byrd, etc. etc. is clearly substandard.   

here is Britten's magnificent Op. 27 "Hymn to St. Cecilia," the text of which was written by none other than Auden.

Very gay.

Wikipedia says this about their collaboration:

"Auden was a considerable influence on Britten, encouraging him to widen his aesthetic, intellectual and political horizons, and also to come to terms with his homosexuality. Auden was, as David Matthews puts it, "cheerfully and guiltlessly promiscuous"; Britten, puritanical and conventional by nature, was sexually repressed."

Oh, come off it.  Quite frankly, who cares?  Unless you can point to specific, precise ways in which either man's sexual proclivities inflect this art, I fail to see how that really bears considering.  Britten may also have been a pederast.  That doesn't diminish the brilliance of his work; it merely makes him a rather repulsive human being.  Fortunately for us, many repulsive individuals have created great art throughout history.  Their particular moral turpitude does not thereby doom their art to manifesting the same.

[Kaesekopf]

Benjamin Britten was born 100 years ago today.  He easily ranks as one of the greatest choral composers of the 20th century, and, I think, one of the greatest British composers of all time. 

Damning with faint praise.

I'm not sure which of my two evaluations is damning with faint praise, exactly.  But the nation that produced Handel, Purcell, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Tallis, Byrd, etc. etc. is clearly substandard.   

Don't forget Holst!   

[Maximilian]

Quite frankly, who cares? 

I do. Music by left-wing faggots is not something that should be recommended.

Unless you can point to specific, precise ways in which either man's sexual proclivities inflect this art, I fail to see how that really bears considering. 

Completely wrong approach to life. This is the road to disaster, to believe that you can consort with evil people and not be affected.

Britten may also have been a pederast.  That doesn't diminish the brilliance of his work; it merely makes him a rather repulsive human being.  Fortunately for us, many repulsive individuals have created great art throughout history.  Their particular moral turpitude does not thereby doom their art to manifesting the same.

Once someone starts developing an attachment to British aesthetes, who seem to have a particular fascination for traditional Catholics, it's hard to recover. Art is an expression of the soul.  The turpitude of moral reprobates will be manifested in their art. Exposing our souls to it is imprudent and dangerous.

[EcceQuamBonum]

Quite frankly, who cares? 

I do. Music by left-wing faggots is not something that should be recommended.

It was a rhetorical question, but fair enough.  Your loss.

Unless you can point to specific, precise ways in which either man's sexual proclivities inflect this art, I fail to see how that really bears considering. 

Completely wrong approach to life. This is the road to disaster, to believe that you can consort with evil people and not be affected.

So, suddenly I'm "consorting with evil people" by listening to a composer's music?  That's one hell of a leap to make.  I can't imagine what the result would be if I actually knew and spoke to one of them!

Britten may also have been a pederast.  That doesn't diminish the brilliance of his work; it merely makes him a rather repulsive human being.  Fortunately for us, many repulsive individuals have created great art throughout history.  Their particular moral turpitude does not thereby doom their art to manifesting the same.

Once someone starts developing an attachment to British aesthetes, who seem to have a particular fascination for traditional Catholics, it's hard to recover.

Patronize much?  Perhaps it's because those British aesthetes actually produced some tremendously valuable art. 

Art is an expression of the soul.  The turpitude of moral reprobates will be manifested in their art. Exposing our souls to it is imprudent and dangerous.

If you base your entire response to an artwork on the state of the artist's soul (of which the art is "an expression"), what guarantee do you have that said soul was not, in fact, at the moment of the work's creation in a state of mortal sin, deprived utterly of God's grace, thereby infecting the work with its degeneracy?  None whatsoever.  You simply cannot know what state an artist's soul, be he notoriously sinful or putatively pious, was in at the moment he created a work.  That's why I prefer to take works on their own merits without trying to entangle myself in fruitless speculation about the state of an artist's soul.  This approach seems to me to be most prudent, for it saves one from rash judgments about the soul of another, whether they be well-founded or not.  If a work is truly morally dangerous, that will be apparent from the work itself, as anyone with a functioning rational capacity and well-formed conscience should be able to discern.  I reject this idea you seem to have of some kind of subliminal moral turpitude and of the easy equivalence you seem to draw between art as "expression of soul" and the necessity that the result of artistic production is morally coterminous with that soul.

Since you never bothered to respond to my challenge that you show me specifically and precisely in Britten's "Hymn" where the moral danger resides, perhaps you'd now care to do so?  Because, on the basis of your own theory of artistic creation, it must by necessity be there, somewhere.

Also, do you only partake of works of art composed by Catholics whom you personally know to be in a state of grace?

[EcceQuamBonum]

Benjamin Britten was born 100 years ago today.  He easily ranks as one of the greatest choral composers of the 20th century, and, I think, one of the greatest British composers of all time. 

Damning with faint praise.

I'm not sure which of my two evaluations is damning with faint praise, exactly.  But the nation that produced Handel, Purcell, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Tallis, Byrd, etc. etc. is clearly substandard.   

Don't forget Holst!   

Oh, goodness.  I just picked the ones who immediately sprang to mind.  Holst, Finzi, Walton, and others would definitely rank on the list!  (Holst is marvelous.  Though I need to be careful:  The Planets, after all, is based on astrology, and, as we know, it's quite impossible not to listen to a work of music without being thoroughly corrupted by the personal beliefs of the composer...)

[The Harlequin King]

If Catholics ought to reject art made by gay people, a great deal of the Vatican would need to be trashed. Possibly even the Sistine Chapel, if theories of Michelangelo's homosexuality are to be believed.

[MilesChristi]

Benjamin Britten was born 100 years ago today.  He easily ranks as one of the greatest choral composers of the 20th century, and, I think, one of the greatest British composers of all time. 

Damning with faint praise.

I'm not sure which of my two evaluations is damning with faint praise, exactly.  But the nation that produced Handel, Purcell, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Tallis, Byrd, etc. etc. is clearly substandard.   

Don't forget Holst!   

Oh, goodness.  I just picked the ones who immediately sprang to mind.  Holst, Finzi, Walton, and others would definitely rank on the list!  (Holst is marvelous.  Though I need to be careful:  The Planets, after all, is based on astrology, and, as we know, it's quite impossible not to listen to a work of music without being thoroughly corrupted by the personal beliefs of the composer...)

Not my joke, but, when I listen to Bach, I don't suddenly get the urge to nail papers to church doors