A short film by the artist Emily Richardson, made with materials from the Britten Pears Archive, considers Benjamin Britten’s artistic process.

Britten’s creative inspiration came from where he lived and worked. How did composing while walking in this particular Suffolk landscape shape the music he was writing?

The ever changing nature of the sea, the way light reflects on water giving seemingly endless different colour combinations, constant movement in the reedbeds combined with the rhythm of walking and birdsong give rise to a musical perception of landscape.

Directed and Filmed by Emily Richardson, 2023
Benjamin Britten voiced by Zeb Soanes reading extracts from Britten on Music, Edited by Paul Kildea, Oxford University Press, 2003