THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY COMPOSERS about the productions of their colleagues are usually interesting, and often controversial. Benjamin Britten is a case in point: his opinions were nothing if not opinionated. He arbitrarily divided music lovers into those who revered Mozart and Schubert, and those who were devotees of Beethoven and Wagner, placing himself firmly in the first camp.
Anyone who has heard Britten’s recording with the English Chamber Orchestra of the “Prague” symphony, or his playing alongside Peter Pears in Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise will agree that he had an especial affinity with these masters; but his implicit relegation of the German below the Austrian masters certainly throws down a gauntlet.
Britten was indeed possessed of strong and frequently quixotic likes and (especially) dislikes. Chief among these was his antipathy to Johannes Brahms, though as a teenager he had admired him. For some reason, this most widely-loved of