CONTEXT 175 : MARCH 2023 15 EAST ANGLIA COAST CHRISTOPHER HILTON Preserving the intangible at the Red House Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears stated explicitly that they did not want their home, the Red House in Aldeburgh, to be a museum after their deaths. What did they mean? The Red House, the historic home of the composer Benjamin Britten and his partner the tenor Peter Pears, is in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, about a mile inland from the town’s shingle beach. Britten and Pears, their relationship already nearly 20 years old at this time, moved here in 1957, and spent the rest of their lives here: Britten died in 1976 and Pears 10 years later. It is now run as a heritage site by Britten Pears Arts, a charity descended from those that the two men founded. When they died, the arrangements set up by their wills saw the house used as a base for their charity, and as accommodation for staff, performers and members of their circle. Unusually, there was no clear-out after the two men died: the house is still full of domestic possessions that survived because they were still being used. This means that we can present the house in ways that are a little different from the normal heritage house: almost as an immersive experience, as if the two men still live here and had just popped out to the shops, as one visitor commented recently. Paradoxically, they stated explicitly that they did not want the house to be a museum after their deaths. We justify our apparent departure from those wishes by balancing those against the need to inspire participants: if their work in music is to be carried on as they grow more distant, people need to know who they were and why their objectives still matter; and allowing them to visit the house as a heritage attraction is a key first step in this. We also need to think about what it was that they were actually saying – when they said they did not want a museum, what did they mean? What they had in mind, we think, was the oldfashioned caricature of a museum: a place where things are presented in cases and labelled, where All photos by Philip Vile, copyright Britten Pears Arts The Archive building at the Red House is home to Britten and Pears’ music manuscripts, papers, rare books and art collection.
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