First publication of Colin McPhee’s piano duo arrangement of Britten’s early string orchestra masterpiece. The preface, by Nicholas Clark (Librarian at the Britten–Pears Foundation) gives the background to Britten’s original 1937 score, a tribute to his first composition teacher, Frank Bridge, and its immediate international success in performances at the Salzburg Festival and a Radio Hilversum broadcast.

Britten first met the Canadian ethnomusicologist McPhee (1900–64) through his American ...