Visit to Snape Maltings and The Red House, Aldeburgh, 3rd March 2023

A capacity coach full of almost 60 members, set off on the morning of 3rd March for a visit to Snape Maltings and The Red House, the home of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, at Aldeburgh.

The programme looked full of interest and variety on paper and our expectations were exceeded throughout the day.

On arrival at Snape we went for coffee in the restaurant with its superb outlook over the marshes, river valley and distant coastline. We received a briefing on the programme for the day and set off for our first visit to tour the concert hall. This has risen from its original incarnation as a maltings, built in 1885, to become the world class, acoustically perfect facility that it is today. We were treated to two presentations;  one on the history of the maltings and its redevelopment and one on the range of activities which it houses today.

 The historical backdrop is that barley has been grown and harvested in this area since Anglo Saxon times and there is also a long tradition of brick making;  hence the development of the Maltings with much of its original brickwork still in place. Barley was brought in, firstly by barge along the river and then, with the advent of the railways, by wagons on the tracks, albeit drawn by Suffolk punches.

 The now derelict buildings were purchased by Britten in 1955 with the first Aldeburgh Festival being held there in 1967, It provided a permanent facility for the festival, founded in 1948, which took place in a range of smaller local venues. Following a disastrous fire,  a year after the opening of the concert hall, rebuilding took place and the Festival has run, only interrupted by Covid, every year since. The hall hosts a range of musical genres and attracts world class performers for an additional 60/70 concerts a year.

There then followed a talk from the head of Performance and Public engagement. We heard about the outreach programmes with local schools, culminating in an annual concert with school age musicians. At the pinnacle of artistic development is the Young Artists programme which gives musicians a career development opportunity to work with internationally acclaimed artistes, in their own specialisms, for two weeks of masterclasses and performing opportunities.

We were given an insight into the festival planning process and had a glimpse at the delights in store for this year’s Festival, with 2024 planning well advanced.
A lively question and answer session completed this part of the tour and we then moved on to the smaller Britten Studio for a concert of Beethoven and Haydn string Quartets performed by the Leonkoro string quartet. This is one of the ensembles benefitting from the Young Artists programme, just coming to the end of a 2 week stay. Their exquisite playing, enjoyed by the capacity audience, was enhanced by the wonderful acoustic in the hall and we all went into lunch entranced by the experience.

The afternoon was an opportunity for small groups of our party to view the Red House, Britten’s and Pears’ home. This proved to be a fascinating combination of domestic setting,  study, library and workplace, intimate performing space and art gallery. The space is now accessible to visitors with artefacts from the performing lives of its previous occupants under the care and guidance of an engaging curator.

With freedom to browse the exhibits in the house we then moved on to the Archive where we had another fascinating and erudite talk from the archivist. He explained Britten’s attention to preserving even the smallest and perhaps seemingly insignificant document for future generations.

We must thank Michael Steward for a miraculous feat of organisation and managing the logistics of a varied day’s programme with great aplomb. Michael’s efforts were complemented by the excellent presentations from staff at both venues together with a very tasty lunch.

It is a day which will long linger in the memory of all the participants. How fortunate we are to have such a world class facility for the arts in our region.

Thanks to Fan Tubbs and James Arthur for the photos below.