Benjamin Britten

Britten's Two Portraits for strings - the composer himself called them 'Sketches' - were composed in August and September 1930 during the summer holidays preceding the sixteen-year-old composer's first term at the RoyalCollege of Music in London.Both are musical depictions of character the first portraying Britten's school friend David Layton and the second introducing a solo Viola (Britten's own string instrument) a self-portraitof the composer. According to Britten's diary he planned to compose a third portrait again for strings that was to depict another school friend Peter Floyd but this movement was not written. However David Layton was to beportrayed again though very differently in Britten's later quartet suite Alla Quartetto Serioso (1933) itself revised and re-titled in 1936 as Three Divertimenti.The Pencil manuscript score in theBritten-Pears Library at Aldeburgh although hastily written is very detailed ad dynamics and phrasing are carefully notated throughout. However in several places in the first 'Portrait' the notes themselves are either difficultto decipher or due to the highly chromatic nature of the music difficult to interpret - in some cases Britten has clearly made notational 'spelling' mistakes which have been silently corrected in this editon. A list ofthose places where the reading of the manuscript is doubtful may be obtained from the Britten-Pears Library Aldeburgh.As with virtually all orchestral music from his youth Britten did not hear either 'Portrait'performed. The first performance of Two Portraits was given by the Northern Sinfonia conducted by Martyn Brabbins broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on 5th December 1995 as part of a series entitled 'Britten's Apprenticeship'.The first concert performance of Portrait No.1 was given by the Britten Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andreas Mitisek at the Konzerthaus Schubert-Saal Vienna on 10th February 1996. The first concert performance of