Benjamin Britten met W. H. Auden in 1935 when both were working for the General Post Office Film Unit, which produced documentary films about modern-day life. Auden wrote verse for the films, and Britten composed soundtracks. Auden was 29 and quickly absorbed Britten, 22, into his circle of leftist, pacifist, and predominantly homosexual young writers. Initially dazzled and intimidated by Auden’s talent and persona, Britten eventually chafed against Auden’s air of superiority and ongoing attempts to influence Britten’s work, politics, and personal life. After courting Britten himself, Auden continued to entreat Britten to live and compose beyond his comfort zones.
Britten scholar Paul Kildea traces the irreparable break in the men’s friendship to their collaboration on the opera, Paul Bunyan. Auden had convinced Britten to move to the US, which Britten did with his friend and eventual life partner, Peter Pears. Auden and Britten saw the folktale of Paul Bunyan as a way to reinterpret the history of the United States: a giant clears the wilderness of the New World and transforms its citizens from loggers into clerks, Hollywood executives, artists, and farmers. As Bunyan sings: “America is what you choose to make it.”
Although the piece is now recognized for its musical innovation and linguistic dexterity, the premiere production in 1941 was given negative—even scornful—reviews (by critics who seemed at least a little displeased with two Brits reinterpreting the American story), and Britten prohibited any revivals as long as he lived. But in the end, Bunyan did more damage to the two men’s relationship than to their reputations. According to Auden scholar Katherine Bucknill, “Auden felt responsible for having brought Britten to the United States in the first place, and blamed himself for pushing Britten to work too quickly. Britten blamed Auden too. Auden begged for forgiveness, and didn’t get it. It broke Auden’s heart.”
Britten returned to Europe, using the passage to set Auden’s poem “Hymn to St Cecilia” to music. As Britten’s partner Peter Pears recalled years later, “Ben was on a different track [by then], and he was no longer prepared to be dominated—bullied—by Wystan…. Perhaps he may have been said to have said goodbye to working with Wystan with his marvelous setting of the Hymn to St. Cecilia.” Auden and Britten would never work together again.
—Adrien-Alice Hansel