Photos of Benjamin Britten in the 1960s

Clive Strutt's photographic career started in the late 1950s, when he wielded a heavy 5x4 press camera as a trainee photographer with a provincial English newspaper The East Anglian Daily Times. He started his own freelance news agency in the early 1960s, working within the newspaper and television media and undertaking general photographic commissions. Some of his work is held in The National Portrait Gallery, and he has been published world-wide. Many well-known personalities became his subjects. His work for composer Benjamin Britten and singer Peter Pears in the early days of the Aldeburgh Festival fuelled his passion for classical music. Jazz was another interest, and his atmospheric action photographs depicted on this web site of Dave Brubeck, Buddy Rich, Count Basie and Oscar Peterson are classics of their kind. Clive Strutt, trading as Clive Strutt Video Productions, also uses his extensive photographic skills to produce commissioned and independent video films on specialised subjects. He travels widely adding to his photo library of European and Worldwide destinations and specialist boating and yachting material. The selected photographs on this site are available for publication, or are for sale as hard copy prints. (Subject to terms and conditions).

You can view the archive by clicking on any of the photographs below.

Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears at home

During the 1960s, photographer Clive Strutt formed a close working relationship with one of England's most significant modern composers, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), who would become Lord Britten of Aldeburgh, and his life-long companion, singer Peter Pears (1910-1986), later Sir Peter Pears. Clive Strutt's portfolio includes some uniquely informal photographs of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears taken at their Red House home in Aldeburgh. The pictures reflect his special relaxed friendship with his subjects. 'Benjamin Britten was basically a shy man; he didn't relish having his photograph taken,' says Clive Strutt. 'I respected this and never used my camera, like so many photographers do, as a photographic machine-gun.'

Benjamin Britten at work

The 1960s were the most musically productive and exhilarating time for Britten. Clive Strutt's photographs of the productions of Burning Fiery Furnace, and Prodigal Son, both performed in Orford Church, and Idomeneo in Blythburgh Church, capture the essence of Britten's love of Suffolk, the county of his birth. In 1948. the partnership of Britten, Pears and Imogen Holst (daughter of Gustav), plus Britten's 'inner circle' created the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and The Arts, based in and around his home town. Using local venues for some notable operatic productions, the Aldeburgh Festival grew rapidly into an international music festival, attracting world-class musicians and building on the formation of the English Opera Group in 1947.

Snape Maltings and Aldeburgh Music

Realising the need for a permanent home for the Festival, a disused maltings building beside the marshy river Alde at Snape, only four miles from Britten's home, became the far-sighted venue for what would become the internationally famed Maltings Concert Hall. Clive Strutt feels privileged to have been part of the glorious Britten 1960s decade, recording events that include the building of the Snape Maltings, its destruction by fire, and its subsequent rebuilding and its grand re-opening by H.M. Queen Elizabeth. This renowned venue for productions under the auspices of Aldeburgh Music is home to many musical events in addition to the annual Aldeburgh Festival for Music and Arts. The Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme is based here, with year-round study courses for future top class musicians.

Jazz at the Maltings

Snape Maltings Concert Hall was the venue in the sixties for a BBC television series Jazz at the Maltings, when Clive Strutt captured atmospheric stills of jazz greats such as Dave Brubeck, Buddy Rich, Count Basie and Oscar Peterson. The Maltings building was used as a recording studio for both music and television productions.

Snape Maltings Then and Now

When it was built in the mid-19th century, Snape Maltings was one of the largest barley maltings in East Anglia. After it became uneconomic to run as a maltings, part of the complex, the malt house, was leased to the Aldeburgh Festival in 1965. Architects Arup Associates designed the conversion of the malt-house into a concert hall. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth performed the official opening in 1967. Disaster struck two years later, immediately following the opening night concert of the 1969 Aldeburgh Festival, when television lighting caused the roof to catch fire. The building was gutted leaving only the exterior walls standing. Benjamin Britten declared 'This is going to rise again like Phoenix from the ashes'. It was rebuilt in double quick time for the following year's Festival. Snape Maltings is still evolving with a multi-million pound development planned for the remainder of the redundant buildings.

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