Prologue: Positioning Britten / Vicki P. Stroeher and Justin Vicker
PART 1. THE BRITTEN CIRCLE(S)
Early Mentors: The Bridges, the Auden Set, and the Mayers of Long Island / Arnold Whittall
Peter Pears / Justin Vickers
The Open Secret / Nicholas Clark
Britten's Circle / Lucy Walker
The Making of Britten: Imogen Holst, Rosamund Strode, and Colin Matthews / Christopher M. Scheer
Britten's Publishers as Advance and Rear Guard / Philip Reed
PART 2. BRITISH MUSICAL LIFE
Composing in England / Eric Saylor
Britten and Film / Mervyn Cooke
Britten and the Radio / Alison Garnham
Recording a Musical Experience: Britten's Works on Record and Television / Danielle Ward-Griffin
Music Critics and the Press / Vicki P. Stroeher and Philip Reed
Britten and English Opera: Myths and a (Chequered) History / Mervyn Cooke
Festival Culture in the British Isles / Justin Vickers
Concert Life in Britain / Philip Reed
Benjamin Britten and Folk Song / Julian Onderdonk
Educating the Nation: Britten's Music for Young People / Kate Guthrie
PART 3. BRITTEN AND OTHER COMPOSERS
The Compositional Context: Creating a Voice / Christopher Mark
Responding to a British Musical Past / Michael Burden
Britten and the English Musical Renaissance / Alain Frogley
Responding to the Continent / Arved Ashby
An English Tradition? / Christopher Mark
'An Exciting Time with All the Russians': Anglo-Soviet Musical Contacts / Cameron Pyke
The Avant-Garde / Philip Rupprecht
PART 4. WORDSMITHS, DESIGNERS, AND PERFORMERS
W. H. Auden / Vicki P. Stroeher
Eric Crozier / Justin Vickers
Two Librettists: Montagu Slater and Ronald Duncan / Ian Patterson
The Wise, Queer Heart of Englishness: E. M. Forster / Hanna Rochlitz
William Plomer's Poetics of Exile at Home / Kevin Salfen
'Don't Colour Them, the Music Will Do That': Myfanwy Piper and Britten's Marriage of Words and Music / Frances Spalding
Designing and Dancing Britten / Lucy Walker and Kevin Salfen
Pears as Illuminator, Interpreter, and Inspiration / Justin Vickers
Britten's Singers / Roger Vignoles
Britten's Performers: Those Most 'Instrumental' / Thomas Schuttenhelm
PART 5. BRITISH SOCIOCULTURAL, RELIGIOUS, AND POLITICAL LIFE
English and British National Identity in the Arts / Irene Morra
The Place Within: Britten's Landscapes / Charlotte de Mille
Monarchy, Royalty, and Arts Patronage / Matthias Range
Literary Leanings / Nicholas Clark
Faith, Spirituality, and the Church / Margaret Lane
The Politics of the Closet / J. P. E. Harper-Scott
Communism, Socialism, and Pacifism in British Politics: From the 1930s to the Second World War / Joanna Bullivant
Epilogue: Britten's Legacy / Arnold Whittall.
