from Appendices
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2017
26 January 2010
The conductor Sir Charles Mackerras ch (1925–2010) was closely associated with Britten's music in the 1950s.
[Extract]
At the time I was working with Britten [during the 1956–9 Aldeburgh Festivals] he had not yet met Shostakovich personally but he made no secret of the fact that he considered him an extremely dramatic composer and that he admired Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth more than the local composers like Vaughan Williams.
As far as Tchaikovsky is concerned, Ben always said that he had composed The Prince of the Pagodas with a score of The Sleeping Beauty by his side. I always had the impression that Ben's tastes in music were definitely anti-Germanic (look at his low opinion of Brahms and Richard Strauss) and that he was more inspired by the passionate nature of Tchaikovsky's music, apart from the fortuitous bond of homosexuality. That he was inspired also by Italian composers such as Verdi is very evident in the big ensembles in Peter Grimes.
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