Quotes & Sayings About Britten

Caring what others think about us is normal. The desire to belong is basic to human nature. But in order to feel like you truly belong, you must accept yourself for who you are. This is critical to Fearless Living. — Rhonda Britten

When your commitment is to be loving regardless of the circumstances, there is no room for harsh words. You assert yourself not from a desire to control but from a desire to stand for who you are. — Rhonda Britten

Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house-the color of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and the mortar of the house. — Benjamin Britten

Each precious moment of your life in which you are frozen with fear is a moment when you are not being all you can be. In the end, that hurts more than anything. Succeeding or failing does not determine if we are surviving or living. Rather it is in our ability to reach beyond our present self-imposed definition of who we are, and to risk becoming more, that we are able to feel fully alive. — Rhonda Britten

Fear is an affirmation of your growth. — Rhonda Britten

Seeing people as innocent is the greatest gift you can give another human being: the gift of acceptance. — Rhonda Britten

The first is based in fear, the second in fearlessness. — Rhonda Britten

Purpose directs passion and passion ignites purpose. — Rhonda Britten

Few of us boggle - though we should - at the fact that Louis Armstrong sang and played trumpet with similar panache, or that Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Britten were equally adept as composers, conductors and pianists. — Terry Teachout

I am an arrogant and impatient listener, but in the case of a few composers, a very few, when I hear a work I do not like, I am convinced that it is my own fault. Verdi is one of those composers. — Benjamin Britten

Let go of what you think life should be so you can experience the life you have. — Rhonda Britten

Where you begin doesn't matter. Your willingness to start is what counts. — Rhonda Britten

I'm not sure any narrative model has been more important for me than Benjamin Britten's chamber operas. — Garth Greenwell

If you value yourself, you understand that you are a gift to anyone you meet. — Rhonda Britten

The words you say to yourself create your self image. — Rhonda Britten

These two are not two Love has made them one Amo Ergo Sum! And by its mystery Each is no less but more. — Benjamin Britten

Investing and connecting are the key factors in turning any intention into reality. — Rhonda Britten

In order to make any permanent changes, you have to be willing. Willing to see things differently. Willing to experience new ideas. Willing to listen to the people who cheered you on rather than ones who echoed your fears. — Rhonda Britten

The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping. — Benjamin Britten

Your body's reaction to fear is the same whether you are faced with a physical threat or an emotional one. — Rhonda Britten

Listen to others as if they are telling you the truth, ask questions when you aren't clear, and allow others the room to have different feelings than you. No more assigning hidden motives, prejudging and cutting people off before separating fact from fiction. — Rhonda Britten

My tastes went all over the place, from Strauss to Mahler. I was never a big Wagner or Tchaikovsky fan. Benjamin Britten, Tallis, all the early English Medieval music, Prokofiev, some Russian composers, mostly the people that were the colorists, the French. — James Horner

I want you,
As soon as you realize how bad this is for you,
You'd better disappear from here.
But until that day, I'm taking you.
You're mine! — Britten Thorne

Complaining advertizes your fears. — Rhonda Britten

Our ability to receive is a necessary component if we desire to own our power, claim our worth and live fearlessly. — Rhonda Britten

Forgiveness ... is a willingness to get over what you think should have happened and an acceptance of the reality of what actually happened. — Rhonda Britten

First, my frame of reference for the Britten opera shifted. I'd always thought of Britten's approach in Death in Venice as another exploration of the plight of the individual whose aspirations are at odds with those of the surrounding community: his last opera returning to the themes of Peter Grimes. As I read and listened and thought, however, Billy Budd came to seem a more appropriate foil for Death in Venice. — Philip Kitcher

Excuses excuse us from fulfilling our potential. — Rhonda Britten

Be loving and the love in your life will increase. — Rhonda Britten

I've been kind of listening to the composer Britten and his rendition of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' The opening track is a choral section where all the weird fairies, who are played by kids in the production, sing. It's a crazy opening melody and chord sequence - really amazing. — Dev Hynes

Invest in everything, attach to nothing. — Rhonda Britten

When I was doing 'Beau Travail,' I listened a lot to Benjamin Britten. — Claire Denis

Living in intention through acceptance, responsibility, pro-active choice, and the willingness to be ordinary, will move fear aside and allow intuition to surface. All of those skills teach us to be inner focused and aware of who we are becoming. That is powerful. That changes lives. — Rhonda Britten

When you heed the calling of your heart, you are following your purpose. Having purpose in your life gives you the courage to do the things you are meant to do. When you are purpose driven, you have learned to listen to your intutition and never let no get in your way. — Rhonda Britten

Katherine Anne [Porter] treated them like favored nephews; she even cooked meals for them. Unfortunately, however, beneath Christopher's deference and flattery, there was a steadily growing aggression. By her implicit claim to be the equal of Katherine Mansfield and even Virginia Woolf, Katherine Anne had stirred up Christopher's basic literary snobbery. How dare she, he began to mutter to himself, this vain old frump, this dressed-up cook in her arty finery, how dare she presume like this! And he imagined a grotesque scene in which he had to introduce her and somehow explain her to Virginia, Morgan [Forster] and the others . . . [t]hus Katherine Anne became the first of an oddly assorted collection of people who, for various reasons, made up their minds that they would never see Christopher again. The others: Charlie Chaplin, Benjamin Britten, Cole Porter, Lincoln Kirstein. — Christopher Isherwood

Accepting what others see as your strengths is crucial to your continued growth. Compliments are a gift. They are an opportunity for you and another person to connect in a powerful, positive way. How did you handle the last compliment directed at you? Did you accept it? — Rhonda Britten

Forgiveness is not a one-time-only event. It is a process. — Rhonda Britten

Yet if we are to live fully, we must love as though we've never been hurt, dream as though our hopes have never been dashed, and take steps toward the future as though life has never given us pain. — Rhonda Britten

You don't have to earn or deserve love. You are love. Loving is never about how others treat you. It is always about how you are treating yourself. — Rhonda Britten

Sometime during the 1990s, when I was teaching philosophy at UCSD, my friend, colleague, and music teacher, Carol Plantamura, discussed the possibility of teaching a course together looking at ways in which various literary works (plays, stories, novels) had been treated as operas, and how different themes emerged in the opera and in its original. One of the pairings we planned to use was Mann's great novella and Britten's opera. Unfortunately, the course was never taught, but the idea remained with me. — Philip Kitcher

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony. — Benjamin Britten

My mother sent me to dance and drama classes when I was young, and then I got a stage role in 'Set To Partners' when I was 12, followed by Benjamin Britten's 'Let's Make An Opera.' — Shirley Eaton

We are afraid of failure, of ridicule, of being rejected. We are afraid we're not good enough. — Rhonda Britten

I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music. — Benjamin Britten

When people ask me if musical theatre should be taught in music colleges, I reply that there is no need. All anyone needs to study is the second act of La Boheme because it is the most tightly constructed piece of musical theatre that there is. It is practically director-proof: you can't stage it badly because it just works too well. If you can write La Boheme, you can write anything. I would also recommend studying Britten's Peter Grimes. — Andrew Lloyd Webber

Britten's opera tends to see things in simpler terms. It portrays an Aschenbach who wants a richer form of sexual fulfillment, and who is hemmed in by the social conventions to which he subscribes. But Visconti's use of the Mahler Adagietto is perfect for what I take to be Aschenbach's sexual desire. — Philip Kitcher

Each moment is a moment of choice and your commitments keep you true to yourself, choice by choice. — Rhonda Britten

I was 16 when I got a scholarship to study classical composition at a conservatory. By that time I had already listened to Scottish folksong with my mother, sung in church choirs, and had sung solo with Benjamin Britten conducting. — Jack Bruce

Being willing makes you able. — Rhonda Britten

People who think of themselves as being entirely self-sufficient are, in fact, selfish. They nearly always proclaim their opinions as the only ones that count, their feelings as the only ones that matter, their ideas as the only ones worth thinking. — Samuel Britten

Music does not excite until it is performed. — Benjamin Britten

Risk is one of the keys that move you from fear to freedom. — Rhonda Britten

One day I'll be able to relax a bit, and try and become a good composer. — Benjamin Britten

I felt I should also contrast Visconti's treatment of the novella - usually damned by Mann fans (who typically respect Britten's more "faithful" adaptation). The Visconti film does many quite wonderful things, although there are good reasons for the condemnation. — Philip Kitcher

The model of a composer. — Benjamin Britten