Asked what she thinks of William Alwyn, Anne Surfling explains that though she did not know him ‘I think he was a man who desperately wanted to be famous. He felt inferior because of his background. He wanted to make a name for himself, perhaps because his name was Smith.’ It was after Alwyn’s death in 1985 that Mary approached the Britten-Pears Foundation for help in sorting out the mass of papers and manuscripts he had left. Surfling, an archivist working for the Britten-Pears Library at the Red House, Aldeburgh, was seconded to the task for what was originally intended to be five weeks. She stayed for years, a time for which she spares no sentiment. Her first recollection is of sorting through ‘the terrible tobacco-smelling boxes’ at Lark Rise.

Driving from Norwich to Aldeburgh, I wondered if everybody that is asked to the Red House is filled with this blend of anticipation and anxiety that such an invitation brings. Even before the car door is opened, the quietness of the location is striking. A man is driving a grass-mower across the lawn, and somehow one is grateful for the sound. Inside the library, surrounded by books that belonged to Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, there is the feeling that I have arrived at the feet of a demigod and at a summit from which all air has been expunged, where a sense of wonder is soundlessly induced. The welcome from Dr Nick Clarke and from Surfling is real, and a mug of tea strikes a casual note. It seems natural and polite to begin by talking about Britten, and I almost immediately regret that in explaining how Britten’s death had devastated me I have shown too much heart on the sleeve. Within this Holy Grail, Alwyn is no more than a ghost, incidental to anything that matters. To mention his name is a ludicrous intrusion, but it has to be done, and when I say it it transmutes into an apology. Something about this place has put Alwyn into context, imposing a perspective in which everything muddies against the towering presence of Britten. I suspect that many visitors who come here in search of truths about lesser figures in British music are overpowered by the settled stillness, the atmosphere thickened with academic reputation.