Britten's Unquiet Pasts: Sound and Memory in Postwar Reconstruction (Music since 1900)

Examining the intersections between musical culture and a British project of reconstruction from the 1940s to the early 1960s, this study asks how gestures toward the past negotiated issues of recovery and renewal. In the wake of the Second World War, music became a privileged site for re-enchanting notions of history and community, but musical recourse to the past also raised issues of mourning and loss. How was sound figured as a historical object and as a locus of memory and magic? Wiebe addresses this question using a wide range of sources, from planning documents to journalism, public ceremonial and literature. Its central focus, however, is a set of works by Benjamin Britten that engaged both with the distant musical past and with key episodes of postwar reconstruction, including the Festival of Britain, the Coronation of Elizabeth II and the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral. This book examines the intersections between musical culture and a British project of reconstruction from the 1940s to the early 1960s, asking how gestures toward the past negotiated issues of recovery and renewal. In the wake of the Second World War, music became a privileged site for re-enchanting notions of history and community, but musical recourse to the past also raised issues of mourning and loss. How was sound figured as a historical object and as a locus of memory and magic? Wiebe addresses this question using a wide range of sources, from planning documents to journalism, public ceremonial and literature. Its central focus, however, is a set of works by Benjamin Britten that engaged both with the distant musical past and with key episodes of postwar reconstruction, including the Festival of Britain, the Coronation of Elizabeth II and the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral [Publisher description] "Examines the intersections between musical culture and a British project of reconstruction from the 1940s to the early 1960s, asking how gestures toward the past negotiated issues of recovery and renewal. In the wake of the Second World War, music became a privileged site for re-enchanting notions of history and community, but musical recourse to the past also raised issues of mourning and loss. How was sound figured as a historical object and as a locus of memory and magic? Wiebe addresses this question using a wide range of sources, from planning documents to journalism, public ceremonial and literature. Its central focus, however, is a set of works by Benjamin Britten that engaged both with the distant musical past and with key episodes of postwar reconstruction, including the Festival of Britain, the Coronation of Elizabeth II and the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral."--Page 4 de la couverture Heather Wiebe's book examines educational, occasional and religious works of Benjamin Britten that engage both with the distant past and with key episodes of postwar reconstruction, elucidating the role of music in mid-century British culture while exploring issues of memory, enchantment, and cultural citizenship Content: Introduction 1. Music and cultural renewal 2. 'Today on Earth the Angels Sing': carols in wartime 3. Realizing Purcell 4. Gloriana and the 'new Elizabethans' 5. Noye's Fludde and the rituals of lost faith 6. Ghosts in the ruins: the War Requiem at Coventry. Heather Wiebe. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.