Life lines

Musical Times, Spring 2005 by Howard, Patricia

SEYMOUR'S book promises much: to trace Britten's pursuit of 'a more personal, more interesting idiom' (Operas, p.i). An analysis of Britten's 'idiom' - which must, surely, focus on the development of his musical style - is an enticing prospect. Unfortunately the thrust of this study is the well-trodden path of libretto studies rather than a ground-breaking investigation of how the versatile student evolved into one of the most successful communicators in 20th-century music. Stylistic analysis is not, however, entirely absent, and is at its most interesting when Seymour associates particular pitches with Pears's voice, and traces the favouring of these pitches as melody notes and as tonics in a number of the operas. Noting the uncommon tessitura of Pears's voice, and in particular the lack of a break in register around e', she traces Britten's exploitation of the pitches et[musical flat]', e' and f' in the roles of Grimes, Quint and Aschenbach, and the dramatic juxtaposition of the same pitches as keys in Albert Herring, Billy Budd and Gloriana. This yields yet another example of the formative influence of Pears. It is high time someone undertook a fulllength study of the significance of his voice in each of the operas, together with the consequences for these roles in the post-Pears era - a topic Seymour touches on with facinating though inevitably subjective results.

I read this book with some exasperation. It promises more than it delivers and is carelessly put together, peppered with inaccuracies over names and dates and even crediting Britten with a knighthood (p. 316); the writing is sometimes dense and jargon-loaded, especially in the Conclusion, and Seymour relies on the most dubious 'research' notably Wayne Koestenbaum, who took all of 'several days' study' to conclude that 'sodomy changes the voice ' (p.7). But it is also a source of some solid enjoyment. To spend time with these operas is always a pleasure. Moreover the critic's job is to 'talk', and in doing so can help the listener to construct the work for him or herself. That Britten often expressed surprise when critics pointed out aspects of an opera of which he pleaded ignorance is no reason to hold back from exploring in the greatest detail the genesis, content and context of these magnificent dramas.

Patricia Howard's books include The operas of Benjamin Britten (1969) and the Cambridge Opera Handbook to The turn of the screw (1985).