The Company of Heaven is a composition for soloists, speakers, choir, timpani, organ, and string orchestra by Benjamin Britten. The title refers to angels, the topic of the work, reflected in texts from the Bible and by poets. The music serves as incidental music for a mostly spoken radio feature which was first heard as a broadcast of the BBC in 1937.
Höllensturz by Eugène Delacroix, 1861 (fresco, Saint-Sulpice, Paris), corresponding to the texts about angels which are spoken and sung.
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).
Britten in 1968, by Hans Wild
Britten's birthplace in Lowestoft, which was the Britten family home for more than twenty years
Frank Bridge, Britten's teacher (photographed in 1921)
Early influences, clockwise from top left: Mahler, Ireland, Shostakovich, Stravinsky