Benjamin Britten of the "War Requiem", "Peter Grimes" and other works in four continents. In the US the centennial events were described as "coast to coast," with a Britten festival at Carnegie Hall, and performances at the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and Los Angeles Opera. Notes References Sources Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera "Peter
Benjamin Britten it had coloured everything he had written since. Colin Matthews comments that the next two works Britten composed after his return, the song-cycle "The Holy Sonnets of John Donne" and the Second String Quartet, contrast strongly with earlier, lighter-hearted works such as "Les Illuminations". Britten recovered his "joie de vivre" for "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" (1945), written for an educational film, "Instruments of the Orchestra", directed by Muir Mathieson and featuring the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent. It became, and remained, his most often played and popular work. Britten's next opera, "The Rape of Lucretia",