Britten Thematic Catalogue

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BTC772 TWO INSECT PIECES

For oboe and piano
Period of composition: 5 - 21 Apr 1935
First performance: 2 May 1935 >>
Type of performance: Concert performance
Location: Dorking Halls (Leith Hill Musical Festival)
Performance details:

Sylvia Spencer ob, Millicent Silver pf

'Grasshopper' movement only. Both movements were first performed together at a memorial concert to Sylvia Spencer on 7 March 1979, with Janet Craxton on oboe and Margot Wright on piano (Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester).

Genre: Chamber
Duration: 5'
Dedication: 'For Sylvia Spencer'

Sylvia Spencer (1909-1978), English oboist.

Notes

As well as these two pieces, Britten sketched three other pieces for oboe and piano (of which only two fragments appear to survive) and seems to have intended scoring the accompaniments of all five to form a suite for oboe and string orchestra. See Letters from a Life: Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten, Vol 1: 1923-1939, ed. Mitchell and Reed (London: Faber, 1998), p. 369.

Movements

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