“Donald Mitchell, who has died aged 92, was the critic and musicologist most closely associated with the work of Benjamin Britten,” reads an unsigned obituary in Monday’s (10/23) Daily Telegraph (London, U.K.; subscription required). “He was the last surviving executor of Britten’s will, one of the original trustees of the Britten-Pears Foundation and a founding member of Faber Music, the publisher set up with the composer’s backing…. In 1979 he acquired Chapel House, the composer’s former hideaway at Horham in Suffolk…. He also became in effect Britten’s posthumous promoter, championing his work both in Britain and overseas…. Pictures from a Life, co-written with John Evans, appeared in 1978, offering a pictorial account of Britten’s work. More significantly, his work on three of the six volumes of Britten’s letters, the Letters from a Life series, have in some respects proved to be more useful than a standard biography. He also produced a biography of [Britten’s companion, singer] Peter Pears [and several books about Gustav Mahler]…. As early as 1952 Mitchell collaborated with Hans Keller to edit Benjamin Britten: a Commentary on his Works from a Group of Specialists…. He [championed] the composer on the radio and in publications.”
Posted October 24, 2017
