Britten on Film

'The performances, by the BCMG and assorted choirs and soloists, are first rate'
BBC Music Magazine

'This generous 79-minute collection consists of the film music without the film, so if you've once seen some of the better known ones such as Night Mail or Coal Face your visual memory fills the gap. An excellent feature is the provision of Auden's texts as well as thorough documentary material from Philip Reed'
Gramophone

'Lashings of period-feel, especially in Simon Russell Beale's spruce delivery of the iconic Night Mail' Independent on Sunday

'The inventive ingenuity in every fragment Britten produced is extraordinary, while the practicality and economy involved in writing for these ensembles left a more permanent mark on his music too, particularly on the scoring of his three chamber operas.'
The Guardian

This disc brings together for the first time a comprehensive collection of all the surviving music that Benjamin Britten wrote during the 1930s for the General Post Office (GPO), Southern Railways and others.

The scores for this recording have been specially reconstructed from manuscript and other sources held at the Britten-Pears Library, by composers Joseph Phibbs and Lloyd Moore under the supervision of Colin Matthews, Executive Producer of NMC and Director of the Britten Estate - which has funded the recording. The CD features a new performing edition of The Way to the Sea along with premiere recordings of Coal Face, Men Behind the Meters, Negroes, Peace of Britain, The King's Stamp and Telegrams, plus the first recording of the complete music to Night Mail. It complements NMC's recording of Britten's early featurefilm score for Agatha Christie thriller Love From a Stranger.