Studying Britten: The Current Landscape of Published Britten Scholarship

With Britten's centenary celebrations comes the publication of a plethora of new research resources, now available to the Britten scholar. These include not only print, audio, and audiovisual publications, but also recent online initiatives, notably the Britten Thematic Catalogue, published this year. The past ten years have witnessed a significant advance in Britten scholarship, with many offering entirely new perspectives on Britten's life and work. They offer a candor previously unknown to Britten publications, often discussing the more delicate side of the composer's nature and its impact on his work, notably demonstrated by the loss-of-innocence theme that dominates many of the operas. This article seeks to examine the current state of published Britten scholarship as displayed in the ever-growing number of multiformat research resources produced in the past ten years. It investigates key publications leading to the present which have altered the general discourse on Britten, notably New Perspectives (Lucy Walker), Britten's Children (John Bridcut), and the Britten Thematic Catalogue, which now provides scholars with unique access to the full extent of Britten's output, including the composer's juvenile efforts.