Editing Benjamin Britten (section)

== Recordings ==
Britten, like Elgar and Walton before him, was signed up by a major British recording company,{{Efn|Elgar was an exclusive [[His Master's Voice (British record label)|His Master's Voice]] artist;<ref>Philip, Robert, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3137978 "The recordings of Edward Elgar (1857–1934): Authenticity and Performance Practice"], ''[[Early Music (journal)|Early Music]]'', November 1984, pp. 481–489 {{Subscription}}.</ref> Walton, after a brief spell with Decca, made most of his recordings for [[Columbia Graphophone Company|Columbia]].<ref>[[Edward Greenfield|Greenfield, Edward]], "The Music of William Walton", ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', October 1994, p. 92</ref>}} and performed a considerable proportion of his output on disc. For the [[Decca Records|Decca Record Company]] he made some [[monaural]] records in the 1940s and 1950s, followed, with the enthusiastic support of the Decca producer [[John Culshaw]], by numerous [[stereophonic]] versions of his works.<ref name="decca">Stuart, Philip. [http://images.cch.kcl.ac.uk/charm/liv/pubs/DeccaComplete.pdf ''Decca Classical 1929–2009''], accessed 24 May 2013.</ref> Culshaw wrote, "The happiest hours I have spent in any studio were with Ben, for the basic reason that it did not seem that we were trying to make records or video tapes; we were just trying to make music."<ref>[[John Culshaw|Culshaw, John]], "Ben – A Tribute to Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)", ''Gramophone'', February 1977, p. 21</ref>{{Efn|[[Imogen Holst]] remembered Britten's recording sessions differently: "He used to find recording sessions more exhausting than anything else, and dreaded the days when he had to stop writing a new opera in order to record the one before last."<ref>[[Imogen Holst|Holst, Imogen]]. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/959791 "Working for Benjamin Britten"], ''[[The Musical Times]]'', March 1977, pp. 202–204 and 206 {{Subscription}}.</ref>}}

In May 1943 Britten made his debut in the Decca studios, accompanying [[Sophie Wyss]] in five of his arrangements of French folk songs. The following January he and Pears recorded together, in Britten's arrangements of British folk songs, and the following day, in duet with Curzon he recorded his ''Introduction and Rondo alla burlesca'' and ''Mazurka elegiaca''. In May 1944 he conducted the [[Boyd Neel]] string orchestra, [[Dennis Brain]] and Pears in the first recording of the ''Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings'', which has frequently been reissued, most recently on CD.<ref name=decca/>

Britten's first operatic recording was ''The Turn of the Screw'', made in January 1955 with the original English Opera Group forces. In 1957 he conducted ''The Prince of the Pagodas'' in an early stereo recording, supervised by Culshaw.<ref name=decca/> Decca's first major commercial success with Britten came the following year, with ''Peter Grimes'', which has, at 2013, never been out of the catalogues since its first release.<ref name=decca/> From 1958 Britten conducted Decca recordings of many of his operas and vocal and orchestral works, including the ''Nocturne'' (1959), the ''Spring Symphony'' (1960) and the ''War Requiem'' (1963).<ref name=decca/> The last sold in unexpectedly large numbers for a classical set, and thereafter Decca unstintingly made resources available to Culshaw and his successors for Britten recordings.{{Sfn|Culshaw|1981|p=339}} Sets followed of ''Albert Herring'' (1964), the ''Sinfonia da Requiem'' (1964), ''Curlew River'' (1965), ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (1966), ''The Burning Fiery Furnace'' (1967), ''Billy Budd'' (1967) and many of the other major works.<ref name=decca/> In 2013, to mark the anniversary of Britten's birth, Decca released a set of 65 CDs and one DVD, ''Benjamin Britten – Complete Works''.{{Efn|The set comprises all the composer's works with opus numbers and all works commercially recorded by 2013 (many fragments and juvenilia have not been published or recorded). The set includes Britten's folksong arrangements, but excludes his Purcell realisations.<ref name=complete/>}} Most of the recordings were from Decca's back catalogue, but in the interests of comprehensiveness a substantial number of tracks were licensed from 20 other companies including [[EMI Classics|EMI]], [[Virgin Classics]], [[Naxos Records|Naxos]], [[Warner Music Group|Warner]] and [[NMC Recordings|NMC]].<ref name="complete">[http://www.britten100.org/whats-going-on/news/decca-announces-first-britten-complete-works "Decca announces first Britten complete works"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130619014419/http://www.britten100.org/whats-going-on/news/decca-announces-first-britten-complete-works |date=19 June 2013}}, Britten100, Britten-Pears Foundation, 16 May 2013</ref>

As a pianist and conductor in other composers' music, Britten made many recordings for Decca. Among his studio collaborations with Pears are sets of Schubert's ''[[Winterreise]]'' and ''[[Die schöne Müllerin]]'', Schumann's ''[[Dichterliebe]]'', and songs by Haydn, Mozart, [[Frank Bridge|Bridge]], [[John Ireland (composer)|Ireland]], Holst, [[Michael Tippett|Tippett]] and [[Richard Rodney Bennett]].<ref name=decca/> Other soloists whom Britten accompanied on record were Ferrier, Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya. As a conductor he recorded a wide range of composers, from Purcell to Grainger. Among his best-known Decca recordings are Purcell's ''The Fairy-Queen'', Bach's ''[[Brandenburg Concertos]]'', [[Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt, BWV 151|Cantata 151]], [[Herr, deine Augen sehen nach dem Glauben, BWV 102|Cantata 102]] and ''[[St John Passion]]'', Elgar's ''The Dream of Gerontius'' and Mozart's last two symphonies.<ref name=decca/>