Qualla: Aldeburgh Festival

Aldeburgh Festival: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The idea came on a Swiss tour. Benjamin Britten, his partner the tenor Peter Pears, and the librettist Eric Crozier were touring with Albert Herring and The Rape of Lucretia in August 1947 when Pears said, almost casually, "Why not make our own Festival? A modest Festival with a few concerts given by friends? Why not have an Aldeburgh Festival?" The first one ran from 5 to 13 June 1948 in the Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall, a few doors from Britten's house in Crabbe Street, and in the 15th-century parish church of St Peter and St Paul. It featured Britten's newly composed Saint Nicolas, the pianist Clifford Curzon, the Zorian Quartet, and a performance of Albert Herring. Eighty years on, it is still the most distinctive composer-curated festival in Britain.

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Aldeburgh Festival: A Composer and His Place

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chrissylad, Public domain. Britten had grown up on the Suffolk coast and lived in nearby Snape in the 1930s. The sea, the marshes, the wind off the North Sea, the particular long horizontal light of this coast: all of it pulled at him. When he returned from the United States in 1942 he settled in Aldeburgh...

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Image: Chrissylad | Public domain

Aldeburgh Festival: The Maltings on the Marshes

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 2.0. By the 1960s the small halls of Aldeburgh, Orford, Blythburgh and Framlingham could not accommodate the ambition. Then one of East Anglia's largest mid-19th-century malthouses became available at Snape, on the River Alde just outside Aldeburgh. Britten had once lived in Snape. He...

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Image: CC BY-SA 2.0

Aldeburgh Festival: Rebuilt in a Year

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Winfield, CC BY-SA 2.0. The 1969 Festival continued in other venues, losing only a single performance. Within a year the hall was rebuilt to its earlier specification, and the Queen returned in June 1970 to open the new building. The fire could have killed the festival. Instead it concentrated minds. Br...

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Image: John Winfield | CC BY-SA 2.0

Aldeburgh Festival: New Music, Old Music, Other Music

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Medcraft, CC BY-SA 3.0. By 1982 the festival's archivist Rosamund Strode had counted new work from over seventy-five composers, including fifteen world-premiere operas. Britten wrote new work for it himself: A Midsummer Night's Dream came in 1960, and on 16 June 1973 Pears sang the role of Aschenbach at...

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Image: James Medcraft | CC BY-SA 3.0

Aldeburgh Festival: What Remains, What Continues

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tiemestari, CC BY-SA 4.0. The festival's unique character comes partly from its rural Suffolk setting, with concerts in tiny medieval churches and the converted maltings overlooking the marshes, and partly from the persistence of Britten's original vision: eclectic, demanding, devoted to new music. Thomas...

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Image: Tiemestari | CC BY-SA 4.0