Peter Grimes or ambiguous the various characters are. Pears was certainly the intended Peter Grimes, and it is likely that Britten wrote the role of Ellen Orford for Joan Cross. The work has been called "a powerful allegory of homosexual oppression", and one of "the true operatic masterpieces of the 20th century", but the composer's own contemporary (1948) summation of the work was simpler: a subject very close to my heart — the struggle of the individual against the masses. The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual. Though as the writing of the libretto progressed, certain versions showed Grimes'
Henry Grimes concert that Grimes played on the air from WKCR-FM's studios at Columbia University in New York within weeks of his return to New York. In 2004 he recorded as leader with David Murray and Hamid Drake; and in 2005 with guitarist Marc Ribot, who also wrote an introduction to Grimes' first book, "Signs Along the Road", published in March 2007 by buddy's knife jazzedition in Cologne, Germany, a collection of Grimes' poetry in which he presents his selection of entries from thousands of pages of his writings during the long years he was not playing music. Also in 2007, Grimes