Benjamin Britten first recording of the "Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings", which has frequently been reissued, most recently on CD. Britten's first operatic recording was "The Turn of the Screw", made in January 1955 with the original English Opera Group forces. In 1957 he conducted "The Prince of the Pagodas" in an early stereo recording, supervised by Culshaw. Decca's first major commercial success with Britten came the following year, with "Peter Grimes", which has, at 2013, never been out of the catalogues since its first release. From 1958 Britten conducted Decca recordings of many of his operas and vocal and orchestral
Nelson (opera) (enabling the composer and Lambe, who was an accomplished pianist, to play duets), and the fleet slowed down between Cape St. Vincent and Cape Trafalgar to enable the composer to drink in the scene of Nelson's final moments. The opera had a partial performance, to piano accompaniment, at the Wigmore Hall in London in 1953, when the part of Nelson was sung by Peter Pears. Critics received this well, but the reviews of the full version a year later, staged at Sadler's Wells Theatre with the encouragement of Benjamin Britten, were mixed. This may have been because Britten's own "The