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The composer Benjamin Britten was a central figure of 20th century music; and the national composer that Britain had been searching for since the death of Henry Purcell in 1695. He never shook his Communist and pacifist sympathies \u2013\u2013 even as he rose to the highest levels of elite British cultural production. A fervent pacifist, antinationalist, and homosexual \u2013\u2013 with a deep, complex, and troubling love of children \u2013\u2013 Britten, through the strength of his music and through the nation\u2019s desire to have a musical hero of its own, became an utterly unlikely national celebrity. \nContent warning: this episode contains discussions of sexual attraction to children.\nVisit our website at badgayspod.com for an episode archive, T-shirts, and a link to our Patreon.\n----more----\nSOURCES:\n\nBridcut, John. Britten\u2019s Children. Main edition. London: Faber and Faber, 2006.\nBritten, Benjamin. Peter Grimes. London: BBC, 1969. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MyBUetbE38&t=1705s.\nConlon, James. \u201cMessage, Meaning and Code in the Operas of Benjamin Britten." Hudson Review LXVI, no. 3 (Autumn 2013). https://hudsonreview.com/2013/10/message-meaning-and-code-in-the-operas-of-benjamin-britten/.\nKildea, Paul. Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century. Allen Lane, 2013.\nRyan, Hugh. When Brooklyn Was Queer: A History. New York: St. Martin\u2019s Press, 2019.\n\xa0\n\n\nOur intro music is\xa0Arpeggia Colorix\xa0by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons\xa0Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music is by DJ\xa0Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.