Neil Powell (2) (1948–)

A frustrating, occasionally elitist, intermittently brilliant biography that ultimately fails to quite succeed in any of its chosen fields.

Is that harsh? Perhaps. I don't really agree with negative reviews since, as a working writer myself, I think that the job, the chance, and the salary come before individual judgment on the internet. But here I am, determined to have my say anyhow.

Powell is clearly a Britten acolyte, and a dedicated one at that. His work is carefully researched and shows a true love of the source material. Benjamin Britten deserves to be studied and discussed, and I applaud this latest edition. Unfortunately... well, it's a bit irritating, isn't it?

Where to start? Powell's writing style, perhaps. I don't know anything about the man - whether he be 25 or 105 - but his language comes across as tiresomely academic at times. This is a Britten biography, but Powell also expects you to be more than conversant with the poets Britten set, including Auden, Crabbe, and Rimbaud. Moreso, he expects you to understand the details of Auden's life, to be familiar with Crabbe's manifesto, and to speak French well enough that you can grasp the subtleties of Rimbaud's texts. There is no elucidation here, no translation (even in footnotes), and, worse, a lot of use of that dreaded phrase "of course", to show the reader that the author is more knowledgeable than you are. ("Of course, the final movement of this symphony is far more than that..." -- um, is it? Shouldn't your book be showing us that, Mr. Powell, rather than assuming we know it already?)

If this is a biography, it's a gratingly one-sided example. Truth be told, it's more of a hagiography. Powell isn't a prude; he'll happily discuss sexual intimacy. He's also level-headed enough to acknowledge that Britten's relationships with teenage boys were neither salacious nor completely pure, grounded as they were in his own psychological concerns. Still, wherever possible, the author finds a way to absolve Britten of anything approaching psychological complexity. Dealing with a rather harsh letter Auden wrote to the composer, in which he accused him of - among other things - deliberately surrounding himself by devotees to avoid any objective treatment of his career, Powell bends over backwards to defend Britten against Auden's comments, even as he himself acknowledges they were true! It all feels a little too awkwardly defensive, like this book was being written primarily for the Britten Estate, and he didn't want to tread on any toes. Not, mind you, that I'm expecting some kind of tabloid journalism piece, but I'd like at least the veneer of objectivity.

At times, Powell's reliances on sources can become tiresome. While the early years of Britten's life are primarily known to us through the composer's own diaries, I still felt as if the extensive quoting at some times came close to lazy writing. The fact of the matter is, this is the 21st century. Many people reading this biography will be of an age young enough to not necessarily understand the complexities of 1920s schoolboy slang, whereas Powell clearly expects that we will. Little moments like this stand out. If the book wants to be a biography of Britten, it fails from both an objective standpoint and an explanatory one. If the book wants to be an annotated study of his every movement and private thought, it gets a little closer to the mark, but the book is not advertised or presented as such.

Well, what about the subtitle, "A Life for Music"? A little clearer, perhaps, but not by much. Simply put, unless you have heard most pieces Britten wrote in his 50-year career, you're out of luck. Powell rarely provides more than a one-sentence description of a work, even for the early pieces, and he'll often refer off-the-cuff to an individual song or movement from a work. It reminds me a little of Joan Sutherland's heartwarming but repetitive biography ("February 16th, another Norma. February 19th, rehearsal for Esclarmonde. February 21st, Esclarmonde."). On occasion, Powell - gasp! - is even willing to be dismissive of a piece of music, but even then doesn't go into detail. Despite his introductory comments, Powell is very well-versed in music, and he provides thoughts on British music of the early 20th century on a regular basis, but again he will refer to composers and their works without giving any kind of explanation. Essentially, if you get yourself a Complete Works of Britten, along with books on the history of music and numerous other recordings of other composers, you'll be set with the knowledge to parse this text. Well, you may say, perhaps this book is intended as a musicological study. If so, unfortunately it also fails. Powell doesn't provide enough information for newcomers to the works, but nor does he provide much cogent discussion of individual works to appeal to those who already know them. Altogether, it is deeply unsatisfying.

There are moments of delight. Rhetorical flashes. Insights into the young Britten's character that benefit from the fact that Powell is trying to see through the eyes of someone from the era. An academic's ability to read between the lines of personal correspondence. Yet, I can't shake the feeling that this book is one big disappointment. Lacking in even a cursory introduction to musicology, philosophy, or languages, the book forges on assuming its reader is an Oxford don in his 50s, with access to an academic library and a working knowledge of not just every Britten work, but all the popular recordings. The worship of Britten is so intense that at one point, Powell goes openly defensive using the phrase "anyone who ever met Britten or [Peter] Pears knows..."! However, by keeping the study at a surface level, Powell is rarely able to articulate the place of Britten's music in a larger cultural web, beyond quoting the inadequately conservative major newspaper reviews. The result is a book that appeals neither to the anorak nor the newcomer. I class myself somewhere in between - I'm conversant in most of Britten's operas, and have a passionate love of the works of other early 20th century British composers such as Vaughan Williams - and I sometimes found myself struggling, or at least bemused on the part of readers with less of a tertiary education.

Powell's failure to articulate reaches its apex in his attempts to uncover the unspoken moments of Britten's life. While I mentioned above that he brings insight, I should clarify that this is mostly in cases where the event is a known quantity, and Powell is primarily clearing up queries. In cases of hypothesised events, Powell is either drawing his conclusions from thin air, or is just poor at explaining them to the lay-reader. Interpreting examples of the teenage Britten's (wonderfully erudite) diaries, he will cite a specific sentence as near-proof of an infatuation, when the sentence reads as simply that: a sentence. I have no doubt Powell is closer to the era than I, and he may well be finding hidden meanings I cannot. However, he ploughs on with his volley of "of course"s and "clearly"s, never stopping to explain his findings. (This is even more frustrating when the visionary Powell sees evidence in photographs of, for instance, Peter Pears' discontent while living at Crabbe Street... but includes the photograph in the book, where it looks to all eyes like a perfectly friendly group shot.) I'll stand up for his overall motivation, absolutely. Powell is not looking for the "naughty", and he shows a proper hesitance in ever reaching outright conclusions, but few of his opinions ever feel definitive.

(In a moment of defense, it should be noted that Powell does grapple with the biases both for and against Britten that emerged in his mid- and later-life.)

This is not the definitive Britten biography, not by far. It's a helpful guide to the composer's movements throughout his life, and not an unworthy read. But, ultimately, this is a disappointment. The target audience - being neither music-lovers nor musicologists - must surely be opera house gift shops and other biographers who need a handy collection of Britten quotes. I guess I will start the search for a better book on the subject, and in the meantime continue my exploration of the composer's complete works. If nothing else, at least this book helps whet the appetite for all the works the reader may not be familiar with.… (mere)

As a composer and as a voice for the arts, Benjamin Britten was a monumental figure for music and for the Arts in England during the 20th Century. His compositions, lasting provisions for musicians, and his operas are all enduring legacies, as is the simple goodness that all who knew him seem to attest to. Coming into this biography, I knew him as a sometime contemporary of W.H. Auden who was also the composer of the operas based on James' Turn of the Screw and Mann's Death in Venice, and somewhere I had a passing memory that his compositions often fed off of poetry, such as that of Thomas Hardy, Whitman, and Shakespeare.

Powell's biography, though, is ambitious. Moving through Britten's entire life, it undertakes a study of how his life fed off of music, and fed music in return. With constant quotations from Briten's own journals (especially in the first half of the book when his life was not so well documented by others), and with constant attention to what was being written and performed when, Powell's book is many things. It is biography. It is also a monument and a catalogue and a celebration.

In truth, there were sections where I found this work to be incredibly slow-moving--the constant attention to what was being written and performed, for who and when and how, and the constant attention to names whose lives intersected with Britten's, however briefly, was sometimes tedious--particularly in the middle portion of the book when Britten's life revolved entirely around his compositions, many of them shorter works, so that the biography sometimes felt like a listing or a cataloguing exercise moreso than prose. (Though, no doubt, this is an impressive bout of research on Powell's part.) And, these sections were probably all the more tedious for me because I am not a musician, or even really versed in the language of orchestras and music theory. Certainly, these sections would have been far more interesting for readers more knowledgeable about these areas or Britten's work in particular. And yet.

The beginning of the work so fascinated me, even so detached as it was, that I couldn't help but keep going through these middle reaches of the text, and the final sections of the work more than made up for those few sections where I found myself struggling with any desire to continue. In the end, I so appreciate Powell's careful objectiveness, and his care in staying away from the more media-driven scandals which were sometimes associated with Britten's name in the press (primarily because of homophobia and/or suspicions regarding his pacifist nature) which, really, had little to no basis in Britten's reality.

On the whole, this work does have its faults, but it is also a fascinating study of a leading composer of the twentieth century and a man who, very simply, ensured that his life revolved around music, from beginning to end. For those interested, it will be a worthwhile read.… (mere)

Benjamin Britten: A Life for Music is a wonderful celebration of Britten's life on the 100th anniversary of his birth. He is arguably the most important English composer of the twentieth century and this biography does him justice.A sympathetic biography that is well written. I suspect the audience is limited as you have to be really interested in music. The book gives you a look at Peter Pears, the tenor and long time lover of Britten. This biography is worth a detour. I have placed this review on my Facebook page and on Twitter where you can readily follow my reviews.… (mere)