Benjamin Britten was one of the most important cultural figures in England in the twentieth century. Internationally renowned as a composer, performer, and founder of the Aldeburgh Festival and English Opera Group, he had a career spanning nearly five decades, producing a series of works such as Peter Grimes and the War Requiem that caught the public imagination, and becoming a familiar figure to worldwide concert and TV and radio audiences through his conducting and song recitals with his partner, the tenor Peter Pears. Behind this public face, however, Britten was an intensively private...