Britten was born in the fishing port of Lowestoft in Suffolk, on the east coast of England on 22 November 1913, the feast day of Saint Cecilia. He was the youngest of four children of Robert Victor Britten (1877–1934) and his wife

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Lowestoft
When he was seven Britten was sent to a dame school, run by the Misses Astle. The younger sister, Ethel, gave

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Early professional life
In February 1935, at Bridge's instigation, Britten was invited to a job interview by the BBC's director of music Adrian Boult and his assistant Edward Clark. Britten was not enthusiastic about the prospect of working full-time in the

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Influences
Britten's early musical life was dominated by the classical masters; his mother's ambition was for him to become the "Fourth B"

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Britten, though a reluctant conductor and a nervous pianist, was greatly sought after in both capacities. The piano accompanist Gerald Moore wrote in his memoirs about playing at all the main music festivals except for Aldeburgh, because "as the presiding genius there is

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Britten, like Elgar and Walton before him, was signed up by a major British recording company, and performed a considerable proportion of his output on disc. For the Decca Record Company he made some monaural records in the 1940s and 1950s, followed, with the

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Despite his large number of works on Christian themes, Britten has sometimes been thought of as agnostic. Pears said that when they met in

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