Benjamin Britten on Camera (tv) • 00:16:50 • Humphrey Burton: wanted to do 50th birthday programme (A Birthday Profile). Britten: "oh please don't, it makes me sound like an obituary. Can't you wait until I'm 80?". Programme more ambitious than just documentary about life – tried to be an overview of his work. Wheldon: "put together by his admirers. Those who think that in him have a great figure living among us." Footage: preparing for Aldeburgh Festival, relaxing together [with Pears] walking the dogs. Tippett: "out of all the musicians I have met, he is the one in whom music, and from whom music flows, always. Out of his mind, out of his body." First soundtrack to excerpt is "pizzicato piece composed when Britten was only 10". Britten not wanting to acknowledge the presence of the camera. "If it was André Previn, he'd like to talk to the camera. With Britten, it's just come on and do it. The important thing is the music." Clarity: not a fussy conductor, very straightforward. Ending with extract from new War Requiem. Documentary went out on the night that President Kennedy was assassinated; seemed fitting.
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[0] => "21289"*00:16:50|Humphrey Burton: wanted to do 50th birthday programme (A Birthday Profile). Britten: "oh please don't, it makes me sound like an obituary. Can't you wait until I'm 80?". Programme more ambitious than just documentary about life – tried to be an overview of his work. Wheldon: "put together by his admirers. Those who think that in him have a great figure living among us." Footage: preparing for Aldeburgh Festival, relaxing together [with Pears] walking the dogs. Tippett: "out of all the musicians I have met, he is the one in whom music, and from whom music flows, always. Out of his mind, out of his body." First soundtrack to excerpt is "pizzicato piece composed when Britten was only 10". Britten not wanting to acknowledge the presence of the camera. "If it was André Previn, he'd like to talk to the camera. With Britten, it's just come on and do it. The important thing is the music." Clarity: not a fussy conductor, very straightforward. Ending with extract from new War Requiem. Documentary went out on the night that President Kennedy was assassinated; seemed fitting.
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[0] => Huw Wheldon*presenter**Michael Tippett*composer and friend**Hans Keller*critic**Gennady Rozhdestvensky*conductor
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