Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten (1913-76), British composer. He studied music under the composer Frank Bridge and later at the Royal College of Music, London. In the 1930s Britten wrote music for plays, films, and radio, and for the poems of W. H. Auden. He wrote the operetta Paul Bunyan (1941), with libretto by Auden, during his stay in the US (1939-42). His operas Peter Grimes (1945) and The Rape of Lucretia (1946) brought fame in Britain, as a result of which he helped to found the English Opera Group and the annual Aldeburgh Festival (1947). He also wrote songs for his companion Peter Pears, who performed in many of his operas. His other well-known compositions include The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (1945), the comic opera Billy Budd (1951), and the choral work War Requiem (1962). He was awarded a life peerage in 1976.
