On the 'plane, on my way to a very enjoyable and all too brief holiday in Germany, I read in The Times's obits (which I don't normally peruse because I tend to avoid the Murdoch Press but this time I was on a BA flight so it was free) the melancholy news that one of Benjamin Britten's boys had died. He was only 96.
A very handsome young German lad, whom Britten had originally met in Florence during the halcyon early days of the Nazi regime in Germany, Wolff Scherchen (who would later change his name to the more English-sounding John Woolford) described their first encounter.
They first met at the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Florence in March 1934, when Wulff was 13. He was with his father, a well-known conductor, while the 20-year-old Britten was in Italy to hear a performance of his Phantasy Quartet. Scherchen’s recollection was that it poured with rain and Britten shared his raincoat. “He opened it out, stuck his right arm into the right sleeve and got me to put my left arm into the left sleeve. The mac was big enough to accommodate us both.”
Whatever else one can say about Britten, he didn't waste time.
No comments:
Post a Comment