Britten Thematic Catalogue
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Only one movement was sketched: it was edited and orchestrated for performance in the late 1980s and published under this title.
Britten and Goodman discussed the work in late 1941, as confirmed in a letter from Ralph Hawkes to Britten on 9 Dec 1941, and the composition draft was probably finished before Britten's departure from the United States in March 1942. Britten did express an interest in reviving it in a letter to Erwin Stein on 12 March 1943, but there is no evidence he did so.
Orchestra: 2 fl, 2 ob, bass cl, 2 bn - 4 hn, 2 tpt in C, 3 trbn - timp, perc (sd, susp cymb, glock) - harp - str
The composition sketch from which Colin Matthews realised the orchestration is in short score and the instrumentation here is based on sketched instrumentation on the short score.
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David Goodman (1909-1986), American jazz clarinettist.
Only one movement is complete, entitled 'Molto allegro'.
Two further movements were added by Colin Matthews to form 'Movements for a clarinet concerto', first performed on 22 May 2008. These movements extract material from two other Britten works contemporary with the concerto sketches: Mazurka elegiaca, op. 23, no. 2 (from Jun-Jul 1941) and the surviving fragments of the projected Sonata for orchestra (ca. 1941-1942).