¹ This has appeared more recently as a chapter in The Britten Companion (edited by Palmer, Christopher, London, 1984)Google Scholar, with the title of the overture spelled correctly but without any of the further information outlined here. By the time I had sorted out the new discoveries, the book had irretrievably gone to press.

² Mr. Ketukaenchan's long essay, ‘The Oriental Influence on Benjamin Britten’, University of York, 03, 1984Google Scholar, which formed part of the work submitted for his degree, is an important contribution to our knowledge of this dimension of Britten's music. Some of the points I touch on in this article were first brought to my attention in his essay. Others surfaced at a later stage. His admirable study should be read in the light of the new information I set out in this article.

³ The sleeve notes for these historic recordings were written by Cyril Clarke, but he made no mention of the overture's link with Britten's Young Person's Guide. The sleeves carry the inscription: ‘Recorded during actual performances at the Winter Gardens Theatre in association with Mr. Derrick de Marney for and on behalf of the Indonesian Government’ Mr. Coast tells me that these recordings were made under the stage of the theatre—hence their relatively indifferent quality—and the recording supervised by Julian Herbage. A technically more proficient (studio) recording was made by the ensemble when they travelled on to the U.S.A. for a coast-to-coast tour. This was issued by American Columbia as ML 4618 and once again ‘Kapi Radja’ was the first item. The sleeve notes, like their London counterparts, make no mention of the Britten connection, but provide a Britten association of their own; they were written by Colin McPhee.

⁴ How long had Britten had these particular discs? There is a date, 23 August 1955, rubber stamped on to the paper sleeve of MO 104. (Britten and Pears left for their world tour in November.) The rubber stamp may have originated with the shop where the records were bought, or elsewhere. There is no date of purchase or acquisition on the Argo discs of the Pliatan ensemble, but we know for certain that the recording was made in 1952 in London in the circumstances I describe in n. 3 above. What seems to me to be a pretty reasonable and safe assumption is that the records (both the 78s—if the rubber stamped date of August 1955 can be taken at its face value—and the LPs) were in Britten's hands before he actually visited Bali in 1956, a gathering together, perhaps of the materials he felt he needed to have to hand before embarking on the composition of the ballet. An important chronological point arises here. Everyone has written—I no less than anyone else—as if the Pagodas score, with its Balinese dimension, were an immediate consequence of Britten's stay on the island. But the truth is that the project had been on the stocks since 1954. It was delayed by one of the composer's recurrent bouts of ill-health, and it was not until after his return from his world tour, in March 1956, that he began to plan the music for the ballet He remarked, it seems, that he had done ‘a lot of homework’ by way of preparation, and it may well have been that acquiring the gramophone records was part of that process—a typical instance in that case, of Britten's passion for authenticity (a topic I have touched on in The Britten Companion, pp. 33–35 and 201–204Google Scholar). If this outline of the chronology is correct—and there is further research to be done before we can be confident that we have it absolutely right—then the experience of Bali was not so much the moment of ignition (though of course the impact of the trip was profound) but, rather, the living confirmation of what Britten already had in mind (See also Percival, John, Theatre in my Blood, A biography of John Cranko, London, 1983, pp. 113–117.Google Scholar) Much research also remains to be done on the sources and origins of the scenario of the Pagodas (see The Britten Companion, n. 20, pp. 205–206Google Scholar). One wonders if the sources which inspired Ravel's Ma Mère l'Oye, one of the movements of which is itself a miniature Pagodas number and indebted to a fairy story by Mme d'Aulnoy, ‘Serpentin vert’ (Milan, , 1783)Google Scholar, may have played a part in influencing the choreographer and the composer. This was certainly music with which Britten was thoroughly familiar and which he much admired.

⁵ The only link I can find between the Prince's travel diary and the Pliatan group is his mention (op.cit, p. 84) of ‘Kakul’, the leader of a Balinese troupe, in the Prince's words, who a few years earlier, had made a world trip. This must be the same Kakul, ‘a famous teacher and dancer’, who often appears in Mr. Coast's book and who was indeed a member of the Pliatan ensemble on their trip to the U.K. and U.S.A. But it does not seem as if Kakul in 1956 said anything about ‘Kapi Radja’ to his distinguished European visitors. Otherwise, surely, it would have gone straight into the Prince's daily diary?

⁶ Dr Sorrell has reminded me that Pliatan is ‘Near Ubud’, in fact within walking distance. He writes: ‘… you're in it before realising you have left Ubud’. None the less, it remains the case that there was no notation of ‘Kapi Radja’ deriving from the actual visit to Bali, even if Britten, knowingly or unknowingly, heard the gamelan which had created the overture. In a sense, the very proximity of Pliatan to Ubud adds to the mystery of the missing link.

⁷ There is naturally the possibility that Britten might have learned of the Young Person's Guide association when the composition of the ballet was done; but once again, I find it difficult to believe—since the story has a peculiar charm—that we would not have heard about it.