Editor's note: Someone accidentally put this article in the refrigerator, and we forgot about all about it. But that's the beauty of the refrigerator (and lots of preservatives), you can let stuff sit, and it doesn't really go bad. These events happened three months ago, but they're still fit for your "consumption". They're just not so fresh any more:
Earlier this evening I heard Britten's Double Concerto as part of the San Francisco Symphony's weekly radio broadcast.
San Francisco: This is the second thing of interest I have received from San Francisco this week. The first was a set of vocal scores that were first mistakenly sent to Grace Cathedral. But, no, they weren't by Britten.
I really enjoyed listening to the work but I was also surprised by it. I didn't remember hearing anything about it during my graduate-level course on Britten, and I couldn't find any mention of the piece in Michael Kennedy's Britten biography.
It seems that Colin Matthews completed the work from Britten's rather complete sketches some time before 1997. This is an early work from the composer, and I think it is certainly worth hearing.
Matthews's program note explains more.
Labels: Britten
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