Elizabeth Sweeting

The Best and Happiest Days: A memoir of the early Aldeburgh Festivals by the first manager, and her correspondence with Benjamin Britten
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-0-9571672-3-0
Verlag: Bittern Press

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 491 g

An essential volume for anyone interested in Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears and the history of the Aldeburgh Festival.

Britten invited Elizabeth Sweeting (1914-1999) to be the General Manager of the Aldeburgh Festival after observing her organisational skills for the English Opera Group. She worked closely with Britten and Peter Pears, administering all aspects of the first eight Aldeburgh Festivals - from booking artists to tearing ticket stubs - beginning with the inaugural festival in 1948.

She was to become one of the most significant facilitators in the performing arts in the post-war era, and a pioneering figure in the new profession of arts administrator. Her tenure as Manager of the Oxford Playhouse in the 1960s and 1970s was followed by five years as Director of the Arts Council of South Australia. Her inspirational guide, Theatre Administration (1969), was a vital handbook for those following her.

Sweeting's honest and lively memoir of her Aldeburgh years, written in the mid-1980s and here published complete for the first time, offers an insider's account of what those early festivals were like - charting both their highs and their lows. Also included is most of the extant correspondence between Sweeting and Britten and Pears. Beginning in 1948, it extends from her time working at Aldeburgh through to her Oxford years and her period in Australia.

The editors provide a contextualising introduction and detailed annotations throughout.

Elizabeth Sweeting: The Best and Happiest Days is an essential volume for anyone interested in Britten, Pears and the Aldeburgh Festival.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Reed, Philip

Vickers, Justin

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction by Philip Reed & Justin Vickers

Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations

Part I: Let's Make a Festival!
1. To Birmingham by way of Beachy Head
2. Laying the Foundations: From Group to Festival

3. Aldeburgh - Setting the Local Stage
4. The Administrative Framework
5. Setting the Pattern, 1947-1948
6. Consolidation
7. Second Time Round - 1949
8. 1950 and the Run-up to the Festival of Britain 1951
9. The Festival of Britain 1951
10. The Danish Connection - 1952
11. The Year of the Floods - 1953
12. The Wind of Change - 1954
13. The End of the Beginning - 1955

Part II: Correspondence: Aldeburgh and After (1948-78)

Appendix: Happy Birthday, Sir Peter Pears! (1980) by Elizabeth Sweeting
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Vickers, Justin
Justin Vickers is Distinguished Professor of Music at Illinois State University. He is presently completing The Aldeburgh Festival: A History of the Britten and Pears Era, 1948-1986, and with Philip Reed he is editing Britten's Sketchbooks, a forthcoming collection of essays. Vickers co-edited Childhood and the Operatic Imaginary since 1900 with Joy H. Calico, and Elizabeth Maconchy in Context with Lucy Walker. He is also co-editor of Benjamin Britten in Context and Benjamin Britten Studies: Essays on An Inexplicit Art, both with Vicki P. Stroeher.

Reed, Philip
Philip Reed is an independent scholar whose many publications include co-editing six volumes of Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, 1913-1976; Benjamin Britten: Billy Budd (edited with Mervyn Cooke); The Travel Diaries of Peter Pears, 1936-78 and On Mahler and Britten, as well as contributions to studies of Britten's operas and War Requiem, and books on Poulenc and Elizabeth Maconchy.