Music Man

This is the centenary year of the birth of Benjamin Britten.  Have to say he's not one of my favourite composers - a bit too acerbic for my taste - but he was enormously prolific, writing pieces for solo instruments, chamber music, orchestral and choral pieces, and songs for solo voice.  Best known perhaps for "A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra", the Sea Interludes from "Peter Grimes" and his "Simple Symphony" -  particularly  the "Playful Pizzicato" movement.  At the other end of the spectrum is his "War Requiem", very much an acquired taste, but indubitably a work of tremendous power and conviction - he was a pacifist and a conscientious objector - and for me the work is one of anger, even repressed rage. It is perhaps one of the most strident pieces of anti-war music ever written.  And his legacy - apart from his music - is the annual Aldeburgh Festival which he started back in 1948.