Robin Holloway has commented that there exists a ‘two-sidedness’ in Britten's ‘primeval’ harmonic language:

One possible key to this essential stylistic dichotomy may be summarized as the simultaneous co-existence of progress and regress in his musical aesthetic. These apparently conflicting states were bound together by Britten throughout his creative life by an artistic quest for Beauty. This may be viewed as a highly personal interpretation of an essentially Platonic position: Plato's pre-Christian philosophy revolved around the concept of god-like invisible archetypes (‘Forms’) standing outside creation yet partially revealed through the contemplation of it. Thus, classically, in the association of Platonic epistemology with Greek homoeroticism the ‘Form’ of Beauty could be most perfectly perceived by encountering it through the beauty of a young boy. For one to whom the beauty of childhood meant so much, the appropriation of this philosophy would be virtually intuitive. Britten's most overt public revelation of the personal significance of this theme is explored in his final opera, Death in Venice.