Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, volume 4 (1952--7) and volume 5 (1958--63)

该提案要求支持本杰明·布里顿授权版的第4卷和第5卷的编辑工作，这些迄今为止大部分未发表的大量信件是从目前保存在萨福克郡奥尔德堡的布里顿-皮尔斯图书馆的约84,000件物品中挑选出来的。《一生的书信：本杰明·布里顿的书信和日记选集》的前两卷在唐纳德·米切尔和菲利普·里德的编辑下于1991年由费伯出版社出版，涵盖了作曲家1923- 1945年形成期的生活和作品。现在的申请人Mervyn Cooke成为第三卷的联合编辑，由Faber and Faber和加州大学出版社于2004年出版，涵盖了1946年至1951年。第4卷（1952- 7）和第5卷（1958- 63）将主要由库克和里德编辑，米切尔将继续担任整个系列的监督编辑。这两册（共约1600页）预计在2007/08学年结束前完成，如目前的配对假期申请成功。人们希望完整版的书信（总共有七卷）能够在2013年这位作曲家的百年庆典前完成。第4卷和第5卷将像该系列的前三卷一样，使用注释的媒介来提供有关布里顿生活和作品的新事实信息，这些信息来自主要的档案来源，因此既可以作为自传（即布里顿的生活和艺术以他自己的话叙述），也可以作为客观的传记，其中充分考虑了关于作曲家的广泛文献，无论是短暂的还是学术的。该项目的一个重要目标是以平衡的方式反映布里顿职业生涯的所有主要方面，而不仅仅是考虑他最著名的作曲活动：因此，他的许多其他专业活动（表演、指挥、录音、巡演、音乐节和歌剧公司管理）和私人关系（与他的伴侣彼得·皮尔斯、与他的剧作家和其他创作伙伴、朋友、家人和年轻伙伴）得到了全面而彻底的处理，这些通信都是在当时流行的相关文化、艺术和经济背景下进行的。我们将全面讨论布里顿在这一时期的个人创作，包括歌剧《格洛丽亚娜》（1953年）、《旋转的Screw》（1954年）、诺伊的《Fludde》（1957年）和《A Midsummer Night’s Dream》（1960年）、芭蕾舞剧《塔塔王子》（1954- 6年）、《战争安魂曲》（1962年）和《大提琴交响曲》（1963年），以及声乐作品《Canticle II》（1952年）、《Winter Words》（1953年）、《Canticle III》（1954年）、《Songs from Chinese Songs》（1957年）和《Nocturne》（1958年）。注释将包括对这些作品的重要新闻评论和其他关键评估的摘要。目前正在进行主要文本选择的通讯员包括欧内斯特·安塞梅特、莱斯利和大卫·贝德福德、伦诺克斯·伯克利、詹姆斯·布雷兹、亨利男孩、芭芭拉·布里顿（作曲家的妹妹）、巴兹尔·科尔曼和巴兹尔·道格拉斯（英国歌剧集团）、约翰·克兰科、埃里克·克罗泽、诺曼·德尔马、罗纳德和罗杰·邓肯、e.m.福斯特、安东尼·吉什福德（Boosey & Hawkes）、哈尔伍德伯爵、乔纳森·哈维、特雷弗·哈维（BBC）、伊莫金·霍尔斯特、牧师沃尔特·赫西、汉斯·凯勒、伊丽莎白·梅尔（布里顿在美国的养母）、耶胡迪·梅纽因、彼得·皮尔斯、约翰·派珀和我的范维·派珀、威廉·普洛默、玛丽·波特、保罗·萨切尔、爱德华·萨克维尔-韦斯特、汉弗莱·塞尔、德斯蒙德·肖·泰勒、伊迪丝·西特维尔、欧文·斯坦（Boosey & Hawkes）、迈克尔·蒂皮特、妮内特·德瓦卢瓦和大卫·韦伯斯特（皇家歌剧院）、埃里克·沃尔特·怀特以及指挥家本杰明·詹德的父母。

The proposal requests support for editorial work on volumes 4 and 5 of the authorized edition of Benjamin Britten's voluminous and hitherto largely unpublished correspondence, selected from some 84,000 items now preserved at The Britten--Pears Library in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. The first two volumes of Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten were published by Faber and Faber in 1991 under the editorship of Donald Mitchell and Philip Reed, and covered the composer's life and works in the formative period 1923--45. The present applicant Mervyn Cooke became co-editor for volume 3, published by Faber and Faber and the University of California Press in 2004, which covered the years 1946--51. Volume 4 (1952--7) and volume 5 (1958--63) will be principally edited by Cooke and Reed, with Mitchell remaining as supervising editor for the series as a whole. These two volumes (totalling some 1600 pages) are scheduled for completion by the end of the academic year 2007/08, provided the present application for matching leave is successful. It is hoped that the complete edition of the correspondence (which will run to a total of seven volumes) will be finished in ample time for the composer's centenary celebrations in 2013.Volumes 4 and 5 will use, as did the first three volumes of the series, the medium of annotation to provide new factual information on Britten's life and works derived from primary archival sources, and will therefore serve both as an autobiography (i.e. Britten's life and art as recounted in his own words) and an objective biography in which full account is taken of the extensive literature on the composer, both ephemeral and scholarly. An important aim of the project is to reflect all major aspects of Britten's career in a balanced manner by not merely considering the composing activity for which he is best known: thus his many other professional activities (performing, conducting, recording, touring, festival and opera-company administration) and private relationships (with his partner Peter Pears, with his librettists and other creative associates, friends, family and young companions) receive full and thorough treatment, and the correspondence is set in the relevant cultural, artistic and economic contexts prevailing at the time.Full discussion will be provided of the gestation of Britten's individual compositions in the periods covered, which include the operas Gloriana (1953), The Turn of the Screw (1954), Noye's Fludde (1957) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (1954--6), the War Requiem (1962) and Cello Symphony (1963), and the vocal works Canticle II (1952), Winter Words (1953), Canticle III (1954), Songs from the Chinese (1957) and Nocturne (1958). The annotations will include a digest of significant press reviews and other critical assessments of these works.Correspondents from whose letters the primary textual selection is currently being made include Ernest Ansermet, Lesley and David Bedford, Lennox Berkeley, James Blades, Henry Boys, Barbara Britten (the composer's sister), Basil Coleman and Basil Douglas (English Opera Group), John Cranko, Eric Crozier, Norman Del Mar, Ronald and Roger Duncan, E. M. Forster, Anthony Gishford (Boosey & Hawkes), The Earl of Harewood, Jonathan Harvey, Trevor Harvey (BBC), Imogen Holst, The Revd Walter Hussey, Hans Keller, Elizabeth Mayer (Britten's adoptive mother figure in the USA), Yehudi Menuhin, Peter Pears, John and Myfanwy Piper, William Plomer, Mary Potter, Paul Sacher, Edward Sackville-West, Humphrey Searle, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Edith Sitwell, Erwin Stein (Boosey & Hawkes), Michael Tippett, Ninette De Valois and David Webster (Royal Opera House), Eric Walter White, and the parents of conductor Benjamin Zander.