Aldeburgh Music

Compiled by Ariane Bankes and Jonathan Reekie
Published by Boydell & Brewer in association with Aldeburgh Music

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The New Aldeburgh Anthology takes its inspiration from Ronald Blythe’s classic Aldeburgh Anthology of 1972, which summoned the spirit of Aldeburgh and the Suffolk coast in words and images that resonate still, and has proved enduringly popular. This new volume brings the story up to date.

Britten and Pears’ Aldeburgh Festival lies at the heart of the enterprise. Their legacy is re-examined by musicians such as Ian Bostridge, Steven Isserlis and Roger Vignoles, and music writers James Fenton, Paul Kildea and Rupert Christiansen.

Aldeburgh and the east coast of Suffolk is about so much more than music, however: the poets Andrew Motion, Blake Morrison, Kevin Crossley-Holland and Lavinia Greenlaw and other writers have all been inspired by its bright yet haunting atmosphere, Maggi Hambling and Alison Wilding are sculptors who have left their mark on the landscape, while artists as varied as Sidney Nolan and John Piper, Arthur Boyd and Louise Wilson have all derived rich inspiration from it.

George Ewart Evans, W.G. Sebald and Richard Mabey are among those who respond to the power of the landscape, others to the spell of the sea, and the life that has evolved around both is evoked in words and images, some of them startling in their intensity.

Amongst the many contributions, the new Anthology contains some of the classic articles from the original, including writings by WH Auden, George Crabbe, Eric Crozier, Imogen Holst, Norman Scarfe and of course Ronald Blythe himself.

‘A magisterial companion to the festival and its setting … More than 375 splendid pages confirm how much the annual festival of arts and music owes to the landscape and the sea and to the history of local creativity.’ – Eastern Daily Press

‘A fascinating dip-in read and a source book for those wishing to trace the cultural history of the festival.’ – RA (Royal Academy of Arts Magazine)

Click here for Classical Music magazine's review