Britten’s arrangement of the National Anthem for a reduced orchestra
Credit: copyright, Britten Pears Arts1. Benjamin Britten composed four works for the Royal Family, and arranged the National Anthem specially for Queen Elizabeth II (his version is often used today).
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Queen Elizabeth II with Benjamin Britten, opening Snape Maltings in 1967
Credit : Clive Strutt
The Queen, Benjamin Britten, Peter Peers and Imogen Holst at Snape Maltings Concert Hall
Queen Elizabeth II opening Snape Maltings in 1967
Credit : Eastern Daily Press2. The Queen opened Snape Maltings Concert Hall twice. The first time was in 1967, but on 7 June, 1969 the Concert Hall was gutted by fire. Britten wanted the hall rebuilt, “just as it was”, and remarkably it opened in time for the 1970 Festival. The Queen duly returned, commenting that she hoped not to be asked to come back a third time. (On the second occasion, as she had already officially opened it in 1967, this was considered more a royal visit.)
Benjamin Britten with the Queen Mother at The Red House, Aldeburgh
3. Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears had a porch built for The Red House especially for a royal visit – stepping in off the drive didn’t seem quite grand enough.
Joan Cross as Queen Elizabeth I in the first production of Gloriana, 1953
Credit: copyright Helga Sharland4. Benjamin Britten had to receive permission from the Queen before beginning work on the opera Gloriana to celebrate her coronation in 1953.
Letter from HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, to Benjamin Britten, in the Britten Pears Arts archive
5. The Queen Mother was Patron of the Aldeburgh Festival from 1974 until her death in 2001. The Queen Mother had a particularly close relationship with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, and the Britten Pears Arts Archive at the Red House contains twenty items of correspondence between her and Benjamin Britten.
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears with HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Lady Fermoy at Snape, 1971
Credit: East Anglian Daily Times6. The song cycle A Birthday Hansel was composed at the Queen’s secret request to Benjamin Britten as a gift for the Queen Mother’s 75th birthday.
Benjamin Britten with the Duke of Edinburgh who opened the Festival Club in Aldeburgh High Street on the 14 June 1962
Credit: copyright B.W. Allan and unidentified photographer7. Benjamin Britten wrote the Jubilate Deo in C in 1961 for St George’s Chapel, Windsor, at the request of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.
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Benjamin Britten and Rita Thomson in the Red House garden, 1976
Credit : Nigel Luckhurst, copyright Britten Pears Arts
Benjamin Britten's life peerage
8. When in 1976 Benjamin Britten was offered a Life Peerage he was uncertain whether he should accept it, but his nurse Rita Thomson threatened never to talk to him again if he didn’t.
Britten's peerage is decorated with a Bearded Reedling
9. The Letters Patent for Benjamin Britten’s Life Peerage is decorated with local birdlife, specifically a Bearded Reedling. Appropriate as Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears were avid bird watchers, and a nod to how significant Britten’s local landscape was to him.
Britten’s Welcome Ode, and the programme for the 1977 concert at which it was first performed
Credit: copyright, Britten Pears Arts