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Tom Service presents a portrait of the idiosyncratic French composer Henri Dutilleux on the 100th anniversary of his birth and assesses his position in contemporary French music. He talks to soprano Renée Fleming, for whom Dutilleux composed his last major work 'Le temps l'horloge', the conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, and Dutilleux experts Roger Nichols and Caroline Potter.

Dutilleux was a composer who stood between Messiaen and Boulez, but became a unique voice in French musical culture. He is often seen as following directly from the tradition of Debussy and Ravel and also drew influences from literary and artistic sources, like Baudelaire, Van Gogh and the painter Constant Dutilleux who was his great grandfather.

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American soprano Renée Fleming speaks to Tom ahead of her Artist Spotlight weekend at the Barbican in February.  She talks about the 21st century singer and how the music industry now demands of singers a shift in emphasis from purely musical skills to broader dramatic and linguistic skills.  Renée Fleming’s own career has crossed from purely classical and operatic genres to Broadway, jazz and Indie-Pop, and she talks to Tom about how these wider musical experiences can equip the 21st century singer in an ever-demanding musical life. 

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Tom Service also talks to the composer and conductor Peter Wiegold and author Ghislaine Kenyon about their new book, 'Benjamin Britten: The Composer and the Community', and then discusses the ways in which composers can work within their communities with the Britten expert, Paul Kildea, and the Chief Executive of Streetwise Opera, Matt Peacock. 

The book takes Britten’s 1964 lecture, ‘On Receiving the First Aspen Award’ as a starting point, in which the composer provokes a debate about the place of composers in their societies.  The many contributions in the book from eminent composers, performers and producers, reflect on Britten’s ideas and illustrate how they have formed the practice of community music in Britain today.

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