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BRITTEN (BENJAMIN) Two typed letters signed ("Benjamin Britten"), to the novelist Anthony Powell, the first agreeing "to read your next novel in proof, and make any suggestions about musical matters"; the second making those suggestions, The Red House, Aldeburgh, 2 January 1959 and 19 March 1960
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BRITTEN (BENJAMIN)
Footnotes
ʻTHE MUSICAL CONVERSATION AND ATMOSPHERE SEEM TO ME PERFECTLY NATURAL' – Benjamin Britten on Anthony's Powell's Casanova's Chinese Restaurant, the fifth novel in the Dance sequence. It was to be published the following June. It features the character of Hugh Moreland, generally thought to be based on Powell's friend the composer Constant Lambert. In January 1936, during the period in which the novel is set, the real-life Lambert had opined in a review that ʻMr Britten is, I admit, rather a problem to me. One cannot but admire his extremely mature and economical methods, yet the rather drab and penitential content of his music leaves me quite unmoved. At the same time he is the most outstanding talent of his generation and I would always go to hear any first performance of his' (quoted by Eric Walter White, Benjamin Britten: His Life and Operas, 1970, p.28).





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