A minor Classical-era composer, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, wrote a series of symphonies based on Ovid's Metamorphoses ( not to be confused with Twentieth-Century composer Benjamin Britten's Six Metamorphoses after Ovid ).

The diva made many recordings, including Eugene Onegin ( 1956 and 1970 ), Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death ( 1961 and 1976 ), Britten's War Requiem ( with Sir Peter Pears and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, conducted by the composer ; 1963 ), The Poet's Echo ( 1968 ), Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov ( 1970 and 1987 ), Puccini's Tosca ( 1976 ), Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades ( with Regina Resnik, 1976 ), Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk ( 1978 ), Tchaikovsky's Iolanta ( with Nicolai Gedda, 1984 ), and Prokofiev's War and Peace ( 1986 ).

John Bridcut describes the passionate exchanges of letters between the famous composer and the young boy in Britten's Children.

Vaughan Williams told them they were " in the presence of greatness " ( referring to the young composer ) and that if they did not want to play Britten's work they would not play his ( RVW was premiering his own Five Tudor Portraits at the same festival ).

The premiere was one of Britten's few critical failures, and the opera was not included in the series of complete Decca recordings conducted by the composer.

Further episodes in Series 6, include an extract from a piece by the French composer and pianist, Erik Satie, ( from his " Gymnopédies No 1 "), music from the Disney-Pixar 2009 film, Up, composed by Michael Giacchino, and a famous extract from Benjamin Britten's opera, Peter Grimes.

One of the first pieces composed during the period of Bridge's tutelage was the Quatre Chansons Françaises for soprano and orchestra, though it appears that Britten's abilities as an orchestrator were essentially self-taught rather than learned from Bridge.

His delivery, and Britten's compositional style, were mercilessly ( and accurately ) satirised by Dudley Moore in Beyond the Fringe ( Little Miss Muffet ).

Reviews were friendly, but the work has rarely been performed since, and has been eclipsed by another choral work written for Coventry at the same time, Britten's War Requiem.

Cross announced her intention to re-open Sadler's Wells theatre with Peter Grimes, by the young Benjamin Britten, with herself and Pears in the leading roles ; there were many complaints from company members about supposed favouritism and the " cacophony " of Britten's score.

In his memoirs Moore wrote that his services were not needed at Benjamin Britten's Aldeburgh Festival, ' as the presiding genius there is the greatest accompanist in the world.

In December 2005, an additional performance of Britten's cantata St. Nicolas and Arthur Honegger's A Christmas Cantata with the Basel Girls ' Choir were successfully brought to the stage.

As noted by Sciannameo, his relations with the Fascist government of the 1940s were often positive, sometimes mixed ; he received at one point high awards, and the one symphony of his mature years was the product of a commission from their Japanese allies to celebrate the " XXVI Centennial of the foundation of the Japanese Empire " ( Benjamin Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem was also commissioned for this event, though it was rejected on account of its finale ; its original finale was rediscovered after Britten's death and only premiered then.

During the following season Gaetano Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia and Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes were given, while the

Many of Benjamin Britten's operas are scored for as few as 13 instrumentalists ; Mark Adamo's two-act realization of Little Women is scored for 18 instrumentalists.

Benjamin Britten wrote the leading role of Oberon in his setting of A Midsummer Night's Dream ( 1960 ) especially for him ; the countertenor role of Apollo in Britten's Death in Venice ( 1973 ) was created by James Bowman, the best-known amongst the next generation of English countertenors.

It featured a performance of Albert Herring by the English Opera Group ; Britten's newly-written Saint Nicolas, op. 42 ; and performances by Clifford Curzon and the Zorian String Quartet.

He gave the world premières of Walton's second Façade Suite, and Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem and Violin Concerto ; he also introduced pieces by Jacques Ibert, Eugene Goossens, and Arthur Bliss and by many American composers including Samuel Barber, Deems Taylor and Daniel Gregory Mason.

In addition to seven original songs, the album included three covers: " Lilac Wine ", based on the version by Nina Simone ; " Corpus Christi Carol ", from Benjamin Britten's A Boy Was Born, Op. 3, a composition that Buckley was introduced to in high school, based on a 15th century hymn ; and " Hallelujah " by Leonard Cohen, based on John Cale's recording from the Cohen tribute album, I'm Your Fan.

Subsequent productions included a new production of Wagner's Lohengrin, also conducted by Conlon and starring Ben Heppner, Soile Isokoski and Dolora Zajick ; a production of Rossini's Il Turco in Italia starring Nino Machaidze, Simone Alberghini, Paolo Gavanelli and Thomas Allen ,, and a production of Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw starring Patricia Racette, William Burden and Ann Murray, conducted by Conlon.

The company's 2011 – 2012 season included a revival of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, conducted by Plácido Domingo and starring Nino Machaidze and Vittorio Grigolo ; Britten's Albert Herring conducted by Conlon and starring Alek Shrader in the title role, with Janis Kelly and Christine Brewer sharing the role of Lady Billows.

He has recorded Flute ( Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream ) with Sir Colin Davis for Philips Classics ; Belmonte ( Die Entführung aus dem Serail ) with William Christie for Erato ; Tom Rakewell ( The Rake's Progress ) under John Eliot Gardiner for Deutsche Grammophon ( Grammy Award ); and Captain Vere ( Billy Budd ) ( Grammy Award ) with Daniel Harding.

Benjamin Britten's War Requiem is also an important example of the repertoire for more than one conductor.

He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as " Come, heavy sleep " ( the basis for Benjamin Britten's Nocturnal ), " Come again ", " Flow my tears ", " I saw my Lady weepe " and " In darkness let me dwell ", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has been a source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitarists during the twentieth century.

James was definitely out of his element when it came to music, but Benjamin Britten's operatic version of " The Turn of the Screw " ( 1954 ) has become one of the composer's most popular works.

She has narrated various classical music recordings ( notably Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Britten's Canticles-The Heart of the Matter ), and has appeared in numerous BBC Radio broadcasts as well as commercials.

Ever popular with music teachers and young children, it is often found on a CD in combination with Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

His father, Stuart Knussen, was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra, and also participated in a number of premieres of Benjamin Britten's music.

But afterwards, when we started shooting, using Britten's music, those exercises became like a dance.

While Bussell was still at school, the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan had noticed her talent, and in 1988 he gave her the leading role in his ballet The Prince of the Pagodas to Benjamin Britten's music, which led to her moving to The Royal Ballet.

John Pritchard was a champion of a wide range of new music, conducting the premieres of Britten's Gloriana and Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage and King Priam, all at Covent Garden, and the British première of Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers at Glyndebourne.

Britten's music enhances the drama of Crozier's text using striking contrasts in instrumentation, vocal style, and musical textures.

While there, he was briefly the music director of Weisgall's Hilltop Musical Company, which Weisgall founded as a sort of answer to Benjamin Britten's festival at Aldeburgh-a venue for local composers ( particularly Weisgall himself ) to present new work.

Typically of Britten, the music mixes tonality and dissonance, with Britten's recurrent use of a twelve-tone figure being perhaps a nod to the approach of Arnold Schoenberg.

Some composers actually specify that choirs should be separated, such as in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem.

His creations include such masterpieces as Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto, Dmitri Shostakovich's two cello concertos, Benjamin Britten's Cello-Symphony ( which emphasizes, as its title suggests, the equal importance of soloist and orchestra ), Henri Dutilleux ' Tout un monde lointain, Witold Lutosławski's cello concerto, Dmitri Kabalevsky's two cello concertos, Aram Khachaturian's Concerto-Rhapsody, Arvo Pärt's Pro et Contra, Alfred Schnittke, André Jolivet and Krzysztof Penderecki second cello concertos, Sofia Gubaidulina's Canticles of the Sun, Luciano Berio's Ritorno degli Snovidenia, Leonard Bernstein's Three Meditations, James MacMillan's cello concerto and Olivier Messiaen's Concert à quatre ( a quadruple concerto for cello, piano, oboe, flute and orchestra ).

His recordings include the lute songs of Dowland, operas by Handel, Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, songs and semioperas by Purcell ( such as The Fairy Queen ), traditional English folk songs, works by Thomas Tallis, and the Bach alto repertoire.

The first festival was held from the 5 June 1948 to the 13 June 1948 and used the Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall, a few doors away from Britten's house in Crabbe Street, as its main venue, with performances in other venues such as Aldeburgh's fifteenth-century church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Richard Adeney performed in notable recordings, such as Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, which was recorded under Britten's baton, or in his St Matthew Passion conducted by David Willcocks.

: Why did the date of Benjamin Britten's death – December 4, 1976 – touch such a chord in me?

She returned frequently as a guest artist at the Met, appearing in such roles as Alice Ford, Countess Almaviva, Donna Anna, Ellen Orford in Britten's Peter Grimes, Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Rosalinde, Salome, and Violetta.

The CLS has won various awards, such as the Royal Philharmonic Society's Large Ensemble Award, the ' Best Opera Recording ' Grammy for its recording of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, and the Arts, Business and Sustainability Award from the national organisation Arts & Business, in recognition of the achievements of its partnership with principal sponsor MMC.

Past selections have included Benjamin Britten's " Young Persons ' Guide to the Orchestra ," " Star Wars ," and many other such pieces.