INTRODUCTION

Berkeley wrote occasional articles and reviews for newspapers and periodicals, invariably expressed with style and discrimination. This selection starts with Berkeley anxious to share his enthusiasm for Britten's music. Britten had heard early works of Berkeley in London five years before they met. One can understand Britten admiring the objective neo-baroque movements of Berkeley's Suite for oboe and cello, steeped in Bach and so different from the provincial English folksong school. The two composers met in April 1936 when they were both represented in the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival at Barcelona on the eve of the Spanish Civil War. They immediately became close friends and worked together on the orchestral Mont Juic Suite. It was premiered in a BBC broadcast on 8 January 1938. From then onwards Berkeley followed every work of Britten's with the greatest interest, and in 1943 wrote the first article included here, about his String Quartet no. 1. Britten figures prominently in Berkeley's 1949 lectures given in France, which provide a panoramic and judicious survey of British composers at that time; he continued with an article on Britten's Spring Symphony; but I have not included his chapter on the light music written in 1952. As with Boulanger, Berkeley paid tribute to Britten on many occasions – they were the two constants in his professional musical life.