Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Simple Symphony
Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft, England, on November 22, 1913. He began his study of composition privately at
the age of just thirteen with Frank Bridge. Four years later he entered the Royal College of Music to study piano and
composition under Harold Samuel and Arthur Benjamin as well as John Ireland and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Britten was
a prolifc juvenile composer, with some 800 works and fragments preceding his early published works, and it is fragments
of these early works which form the basis of the Simple Symphony.
The Symphonys frst movement, entitled Boistrous Boure juxtaposes two themes from Brittens childhood. The frst, is
restless and contrapuntal, taken from Brittens Suite No.1 for Piano (1926) whilst the second, drawn from an early song
(1923) is sweet and lyrical. The Playful Pizzacato is based on a piano scherzo from 1924. Its tempo is indicated as being
Presto possibile ("as fast as possible"), or as it is often popularly referred to Tempo di Archers (listen out for the second
theme).
The third movement is a slow and heavy Sentimental Sarabande. It is a movement of haunting eloquence and
melancholy, but all cut through with an inextinguishable ray of hope. The brisk Frolicsome Finale begins with the
introduction of a powerful unison motif, which is based on a theme Britten frst used in a 1925 song, and then
incorporated into his Piano Sonata No. 9 (1926). From this striking opening Britten builds an incredibly unsettled
rhythmic opening, the tension of which is not eased by the introduction of the second theme (taken from a 1925 song),
whose lyrical quality is overpowered by its circling contour. Eventually Britten turns the restlessness of the opening
theme into a bubbling excitement which brings the piece crashing to a close.
Britten wrote the piece in 1934 at the age of 20 and, while it is a modest work, it gained him a large amount of popularity
very quickly.