Journeying Boy: The Diaries of the Young Benjamin Britten 1928-1938

Journeying Boy: the Diaries of the Young Benjamin Britten, 1928-1938, ed by John Evans: review

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Britten was the youngest of four children of a Lowestoft dentist.

His mother encouraged him in music. He was a talented pianist and viola player, but from an early stage composed music almost promiscuously. There he meets established composers such as Vaughan Williams, for whose work he has almost complete disregard with, it seems, the exception of the Tallis Fantasia and Holst, who fares little better in the estimation of the boy from Lowestoft.

Journeying Boy: The Diaries, by Benjamin Britten

Part of it was down to his commendable loyalty to his teacher Frank Bridge, who was largely disregarded he thought by that establishment. He was especially angry that composers such as Vaughan Williams and Holst favoured Adrian Boult so much as a conductor, whereas he thought Bridge was far better; they all suffered accordingly when he trained his sights on them.

He does this against the backdrop of a remarkably normal life — although one shot through with pain, as his father and mother die when he is in his early twenties, within a short space of each other. There is the occasional burst of self-pity, though not so much as conditions might sometimes have merited.

Benjamin Britten (Composer & Performer)

The Diaries, by Benjamin Britten ,. The Diaries, 3. Benjamin Britten's radical politics and his sexuality have ensured that he remains a controversial public figure. This book is a selection of his diaries which offer the reader an unseen insight into this complex man.

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Robert rated it it was amazing Jun 09, John Martin Marks rated it it was amazing May 01, John rated it really liked it Apr 09, Marla Lowen rated it did not like it Nov 05, Christian Helgen rated it did not like it Jan 12, Mina rated it liked it Dec 12, Dunx rated it really liked it Apr 07, Lera Auerbach rated it it was amazing Feb 05, Elizabeth rated it it was amazing Dec 14, Colin Stuart rated it liked it Mar 01, But now, the diaries the composer kept for a decade from the age of 14 are to be published and they reveal a lonely but driven schoolboy; a young man exposed to a glamorous world of metropolitan homosexuality; and an artist of stupendous talent, with uncompromising opinions of fellow musicians.

The later parts of the diaries reveal Britten trying to navigate his sexuality, often with the help of older gay friends. He becomes close to the tenor Peter Pears — "one of the nicest people I know" — but it was only later, during the second world war, that the two fell in love.

He finds himself the object of the desires of composer Lennox Berkeley, who would later become the father of composer Michael Berkeley. According to the diaries' editor, John Evans, Berkeley was "besotted" with Britten, despite being kept at arm's length.

Benjamin Britten's diaries reveal boys, bitching and brilliance

But, according to Evans: If you look at Britten's catalogue you see how often he and Auden were artistic collaborators — but that was a professional relationship. He was intellectually intimidated by Auden, but Isherwood was a pal. Britten wrote of Isherwood on 29 July On one occasion Isherwood took him to a bathhouse in Jermyn Street, central London, which Evans calls "a favourite haunt for London homosexuals".

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