1. Early life

2. Career

3. Personal life

4. Legacy

5. References

Peter Burra (1909 – 27 April 1937)^[1] was a British writer and critic, the author of "The Novels of E. M. Forster".

Early life

Peter Burra and his twin sister Nella Burra were close friend with Peter Pears; Burra and Pears went to school together at Lancing College and then Oxford University. Helen "Nella" Pomfret Burra (1909-1999) was a singer and actress who worked with the Group Theatre productions. She married actor and director John Percival Moody (1906-1993).^[2] At Lancing College, both Pears, piano, and Burra, violin, were members of the Lancing Chamber Music Society.^[2]

Career

From February 1930 to June 1931, Peter Burra edited the literary magazine Farrago, published by Simon Nowell Smith. They were 6 numbers in total and the cover designs and plates were by Edward Burra, Albert Rutherston, Oliver Holt and Laurence Whistler. In issue 5 there is also an headpiece by Rex Whistler. The magazine published early poems by Evelyn Waugh and Cecil Day-Lewis, plus contributions by A.J.A. Symons, John Sparrow, Max Beerbohm and Lord David Cecil.^[3]

Burra was an essayist; in 1934, in "The Novels of E.M. Forster", he was the first to highlight E. M. Forster's highly musical technique of employing textual leitmotifs, which he referred to as "rhythm".^[4] He would go on and write the introduction to Everyman edition of A Passage to India (1942), released after his death.^[5] E.M.Forster said of him that he was "the best critic of his generation".^[7]

Also in 1934, Burra wrote Van Gogh, published by Duckworth, and in 1936, again with Duckworth, he published Wordsworth, Great Lives.^[6][7] These two biographies established his reputation as a writer.^[8]

Burra was a special correspondent for The Times, and it was while in Barcelona to cover the ISCM Music Festival that he met Benjamin Britten for the first time; in a letter dated 1 May 1936, Burra tells Pears he has also met Britten's close friend Lennox Berkeley. In 1936 Pears was living in Burra's cottage in Bucklebury Common.^[2]

Burra was a book reviewer for The Spectator.^[9]

In November 1936, Burra reviewed "The Agamemnon of Aeschylus" produced by Rupert Doone with music of Britten; the review appeared in the Group Theatre Paper.^[10]

Personal life

Peter Burra was friends with both Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten at different times. Pears lived with him at Bucklebury Common^[11] and Britten, while referring to him, used the word "Dear", which was "Britten's blanket term for his intimate friends"; he used the same word in regard to Peter Pears and Lennox Berkeley.^[12]

Burra was killed on 27 April 1937, when a light aircraft flown by a friend crashed near Bucklebury Common, Berkshire.^[2] It was to have been Peter's first flying lesson. After visiting Spain, and a few days before the bombing of Guernica, he was hoping to help provide air-cover to Republicans.

It was while sorting Burra's personal effects that the relationship between Pears and Britten started.^[13]

Legacy

Benjamin Britten wrote an unpublished song, "Not Even Summer Yet", for Peter Pears dedicated to Peter Burra. Pears sang it for the first time accompanied by Gordon Thorne during a concert to the memory of Burra. The song was later revived by tenor Neil Mackle accompanied at the piano by Iain Burnside, at Wigmore Hall, London, on November 22, 1983.^[13]

Lennox Berkeley and Benjamin Britten dedicated the orchestral suite, Mont Juic (1937) "In memory of Peter Burra".^[13]

References

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