Where was the crowd?

Last night we attended a touching tribute to Britten and Pears at Snape Maltings. Accompanied by London’s Fourth Choir, Zeb Soames and Petroc Trelawney read out some of the letters Aldeburgh’s musical duo had written to each other over the decades together. It was an awesome performance, that fittingly concluded with Dido’s lament ‘when I am laid in earth.’

Britten and Pears were a gay couple who somehow managed to avoid prosecution, despite living in the public eye. It was not until 1967 that homosexuality was legalised in the UK and many, including my late uncle Dennis, served custodial sentences as punishment for being gay. The choir too was an LGBT group, which while appropriate did not mean they were anything but brilliant singers.

All that was missing was the packed house this concert deserved. Were regular attenders put off by the programme? Surely not, as Purcell, Copland and Monteverdi are usually popular composers. Perhaps they were not interested in Britten and Pears? No, this can’t be the reason either, as without then Snape Maltings would probably have been demolished in the late 1960s and not developed into one of the world’s finest concert halls. I’m left wondering .

I hope Britten Pears Arts continue to stage concerts like this that provoke thought as well as entertain. I also hope that audiences come to appreciate performances that push boundaries and that future concert sell out, rather than leaving nearly half the seats empty.

We’re back at Snape this afternoon, this time to a full house and Seckou Keita and Suntou Susso for a performance that will be different again.