Hyperion Records

Benjamin Britten’s Elegy is a comparatively recent discovery. Not performed until the 1984 Aldeburgh Festival (by Nobuko Imai), it was written the day after he left Gresham’s School at the age of sixteen. He had only been there for two years and had disliked the experience. However, once he had actually taken leave of his friends and masters, he said ‘I didn’t think I should be sorry to leave’, but found that he missed them all the same. This Elegy, which he probably wrote to play himself, expresses his feelings at that time.

from notes by Paul Spicer © 1994