Explore East Anglia
Well-heeled ALDEBURGH, just along the coast from Orford, is best known for its annual arts festival, the brainchild of composer Benjamin Britten (1913–76), who is buried in the village churchyard alongside the tenor Peter Pears, his lover and musical collaborator. They lived by the seafront in Crag House on Crabbe Street – named after the poet, George Crabbe, who provided Britten with his greatest inspiration – before moving to a large house a few miles away.
Outside of June, Aldeburgh is a relaxed and low-key coastal resort, with a small fishing fleet selling its daily catch from wooden shacks along the pebbled shore. Aldeburgh’s slightly old-fashioned/local shop appearance is fiercely defended by its citizens, who caused an almighty rumpus – Barbours at dawn – when Maggi Hambling’s 13ft-high Scallop sculpture appeared on the beach in 2003. Hambling described the sculpture as a conversation with the sea and a suitable memorial to Britten; many disgruntled locals compared it to a mantelpiece ornament gone wrong.
Aldeburgh’s wide High Street and its narrow side streets run close to the beach, but this was not always the case – hence their quixotic appearance. The sea swallowed much of what was once an extensive medieval town long ago and today Aldeburgh’s oldest remaining building, the sixteenth-century, red-brick, flint and timber Moot Hall, which began its days in the centre of town, now finds itself on the seashore. Several footpaths radiate out from Aldeburgh, with the most obvious trail leading north along the coast to Thorpeness, and others going southwest to the winding estuary of the River Alde.
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Benjamin Britten and the Aldeburgh Festival
Benjamin Britten and the Aldeburgh Festival
Born in Lowestoft in 1913, Benjamin Britten was closely associated with Suffolk for most of his life. The main break was during World War II when, as a conscientious objector, Britten exiled himself to the USA. Ironically enough, it was here that Britten first read the work of the nineteenth-century Suffolk poet, George Crabbe, whose The Borough, a grisly portrait of the life of the fishermen of Aldeburgh, was the basis of the libretto of Britten’s best-known opera, Peter Grimes, which was premiered in London in 1945 to great acclaim. In 1948, Britten launched the Aldeburgh Festival as a showpiece for his own works and those of his contemporaries. He lived in the village for the next ten years, during which time he completed much of his finest work as a conductor and pianist. For the rest of his life he composed many works specifically for the festival, including his masterpiece for children, Noye’s Fludde, and the last of his fifteen operas, Death in Venice.
By the mid-1960s, the festival had outgrown the parish churches in which it began, and moved into a collection of disused malthouses, five miles west of Aldeburgh on the River Alde, just south of the small village of Snape. The complex, the Snape Maltings were subsequently converted into one of the finest concert venues in the country and, in addition to the concert hall, there are now recording studios, galleries, a tearoom, and a pub, the Plough & Sail.
The Aldeburgh Festival takes place every June for two and a half weeks. Core performances are still held at the Maltings, but a string of other local venues are pressed into service as well. Throughout the rest of the year, the Maltings hosts a wide-ranging programme of musical and theatrical events, including the three-day Britten Festival in October. For more information, contact Aldeburgh Music, which operates two box offices, one at Snape Maltings, the other on Aldeburgh High Street in premises it shares with the tourist office. Tickets for the Aldeburgh Festival usually go on sale to the public towards the end of March, and sell out fast for the big-name recitals.
