Britten's 'Prodigal Son'

Synopsis

Back in Bach’s day, there were churchmen aghast at the thought that composers were trying to sneak flashy opera music into Sunday services. Church music was meant to be simple, austere, and, well, not “operatic.”

So what would they have made of the three “church parables” — mini-operas, really, composed in the 20th century by the great English composer Benjamin Britten?

The third of these, The Prodigal Son, debuted on today’s date in 1968 at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Orford, England. All three impart Christian values and were meant for church performance — scored for a handful of soloists, modest choir, and a small ensemble that would fit in front of and on either side of a church altar where church music was normally performed.

But operas they are, and Britten himself let the “o” word slip when he commented in a 1967 interview that he was “doing another church opera to go with the other two, Curlew River and The Burning Fiery Furnace, to make a kind of trilogy.’”

Britten took these mini-operas seriously, and dedicated The Prodigal Son to his new friend, the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who in turn would dedicate his 14th Symphony to Britten.

Music Played in Today's Program

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): “The Prodigal Son”; Peter Pears, tenor; John Shirley-Quirk, baritone; Robert Tear, tenor; Bryan Drake, baritone; English Opera Group Orchestra; Benjamin Britten, conductor; Decca 425713

On This Day

Births

• 1904 - German-born American musical composer Frederick Loewe, in Berlin

• 1913 - Soviet composer Tikhon Khrennikov, in Elets (Julian date: May 28)

• 1960 - English composer Mark Anthony Turnage, in Grays, Essex

Deaths

• 1899 - French composer Ernest Chausson, 44, after a bicycle accident near Limay

• 1918 - Italian opera composer and librettist Arrigo Boito, 76, in Milan

• 1934 - British composer Frederick Delius, 72, in Grez-sur-Loing, France

• 1964 - American composer Louis Gruenberg, 75, in Los Angeles

Premieres

• 1732 - Handel: opera Acis and Galetea (in an English/Italian version), in London at the King’s Theater in the Haymarket, at the request of Princess Anne (Gregorian date: June 21)

• 1865 - Wagner: opera Tristan and Isolde, in Munich at the Hoftheater, conducted by Hans von Bülow

• 1921 - Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments (in memory of Claude Debussy), in London at Queen's Hall, with Serge Kousevitzky conducting. Three days earlier, on June 7, 1921, Stravinsky had attended the British premiere of the concert version of his ballet score The Rite of Spring, also at Queen’s Hall, with Eugene Goossens conducting.

• 1939 - Bliss: Piano Concerto (with Solomon the soloist) and Vaughan Williams: Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, at Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic, with Sir Adrian Boult conducting. These works (Along with Bax’s Seventh Symphony, which premiered the previous day) were all commissioned by the British Council as part of the British Exhibition at 1939 World’s Fair.

• 1941 - Poulenc: first public performance of Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani, in Paris

• 1968 - Britten: church opera The Prodigal Son, in Orford Church, near Aldeburgh.