Britten’s studio to be preserved

LONDON — The tiny brick studio where composer Benjamin Britten wrote such works as “Death in Venice,” “Phaedra” and the Third String Quartet has been declared a listed building, giving it protection from alteration or demolition.

Britten fled to Chapel House in Horham, eastern England, in 1971 when his previous home at nearby Aldeburgh attracted too many visitors and interrupted his work. Soon after having the studio built, he resumed composing.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said Britten “is without a doubt the greatest English classical composer of the last century.”

“Britten’s music studio, with its view across his beloved Suffolk countryside, is no architectural gem, but its importance as a piece of our cultural heritage cannot be denied,” she said.

Britten moved to Chapel House five years before his death and had the small studio built.