Benjamin Britten coast close to Britten's homeland, awakened in him such longings for England that he knew he must return. He also knew that he must write an opera based on Crabbe's poem about the fisherman Peter Grimes. Before Britten left the US, Koussevitzky, always generous in encouraging new talent, offered him a $1,000 commission to write the opera. Britten and Pears returned to England in April 1942. During the long transatlantic sea crossing Britten completed the choral works "A Ceremony of Carols" and "Hymn to St Cecilia". The latter was his last large-scale collaboration with Auden. Britten had grown away from
Gormenghast (opera) were "convincing both as drama and as compositions." In his review of the 2004 revival, Dieter Lintz described Schmidt's score, especially for the singers, as predominantly tonal and "quite ear-friendly" with elements of Baroque music, Benjamin Britten, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. He also noted how overwhelming sound waves combined with "a rich, driving, yet finely differentiated beat" often washed over the auditorium and concluded that the work was such an unusual combination of elements that it constituted a new and unique musical art form. Gormenghast (opera) Gormenghast is an opera in three acts composed by Irmin Schmidt to an English-language