Editing Peter Pears (section)

==Voice==
Pears's voice was both unmistakable and controversial. Some music-lovers found his characteristic timbre uncongenial.<ref name=dnb/> The critic [[Alan Blyth]] described it thus:  
{{quote|Clear, reedy and almost instrumental in quality, it was capable of great expressive variety and flexibility, if no wide range of colour. Its inward, reflective timbre, tinged with poetry, was artfully exploited by Britten, from the role of Peter Grimes to that of Aschenbach, but the voice could also be commanding, almost heroic, as was shown in the more vehement sections of Captain Vere's role or in the part of the Madwoman in ''Curlew River''.<ref name=grove/>|}}
David Cairns broadly concurred, writing:
{{quote|His voice … was not beautiful in itself; its reedy timbre was so idiosyncratic that for some people it came between them and the music. Even his countless admirers might have agreed that, objectively considered, it lacked warmth and variety of colour. But so great was his skill and so subtle and imaginative his musical sensitivity and mastery of inflection that it conveyed, together with his air of patrician authority, an extraordinary richness of atmosphere and feeling.<ref name=cairns/>|}}