Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- List of Illustrations
- 1 My mind beats on
- 2 A thirst, a leaping, wild unrest, a deep desire
- 3 Should I give up the fruitless struggle with the word?
- 4 So be it
- 5 What lies in wait for me here?
- 6 My head is heavy, my eyelids ache
- 7 I must go elsewhere, I must find a clearer sky, a fresher air
- 8 How much better to live, not words but beauty, to exist in it, and of it
- 9 The power of beauty sets me free
- 10 Yet I am driven on
- 11 O voluptuous days, O the joy I suffer
- 12 So the moments pass
- 13 And now, Phaedrus, I will go
- No epilogue, I pray you, for your play needs no excuse
- Acknowledgements
- Index
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
8 - How much better to live, not words but beauty, to exist in it, and of it
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 June 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- List of Illustrations
- 1 My mind beats on
- 2 A thirst, a leaping, wild unrest, a deep desire
- 3 Should I give up the fruitless struggle with the word?
- 4 So be it
- 5 What lies in wait for me here?
- 6 My head is heavy, my eyelids ache
- 7 I must go elsewhere, I must find a clearer sky, a fresher air
- 8 How much better to live, not words but beauty, to exist in it, and of it
- 9 The power of beauty sets me free
- 10 Yet I am driven on
- 11 O voluptuous days, O the joy I suffer
- 12 So the moments pass
- 13 And now, Phaedrus, I will go
- No epilogue, I pray you, for your play needs no excuse
- Acknowledgements
- Index
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
Summary
The 1967 Aldeburgh Festival was Steuart's first as a performer. As well as working on the music staff for the performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Snape Maltings, he found himself playing for a concert at the Jubilee Hall devised by Britten and Pears, ‘Two Musical Families’, which featured music from the seventeenth century by William and Henry Lawes, but also, and more significantly, music by Steuart's own family. He accompanied Margaret Cable in some songs by his grandfather Herbert Bedford, then played a piece by his brother David. Next on the programme was another song by David, which Peter Bedford sang, accompanied by Steuart and David. Finally, Britten played several songs by Liza Lehmann (Steuart's grandmother) accompanying April Cantelo, Margaret Cable, Peter Pears and Peter Bedford.
Pears wrote the programme note:
Liza Lehmann, the daughter of artistic and musical parents, made her debut as a soprano at the Monday Popular Concerts in 1885, at the age of twenty-three. It was a huge success and she rapidly became one of the most sought-after singers in England. Joachim and Clara Schumann had been her friends, and the latter, in her eighties, had accompanied her in Robert's ‘Nussbaum’ and ‘Frühlingsnacht’. In 1894, on her marriage to Herbert Bedford, she retired from the concert stage and took to composing. A whole series of most successful cycles appeared, all written with great expertise and charm. The first cycle was In a Persian Garden (1894) to Fitzgerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, and from 1909 she toured England and America, accompanying a quartet of the best singers of the day, with enormous success. Just before her death in 1918 she finished a characteristic and charming biography, full of memories of the period. Here is one from the Art Nouveau days: ‘I suppose I was intended to be flattered when a young lady of our acquaintance one day rushed up to me after a performance [of In a Persian Garden], saying, “Oh thank you! Thank you! Do let me thank you! The local colour is too wonderful. I have so enjoyed it – I simply felt as if I was at Liberty’s!”’
Herbert Bedford had had some musical training at the Guildhall School of Music, though his family had insisted on his working in the City. He was an expert miniature portraitist, and very successful.
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- Knowing Britten , pp. 104 - 111Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021