What is Peter Pears?
{{unsourced|date=January 2012}} '''Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE}} ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|p|ɪər|z}} {{respell|PEERZ|'}}; 22 June 1910{{spaced ndash}}3 April 1986), was an [[English people|English]] [[tenor]] and life-long partner of the [[composer]] [[Benjamin Britten]]. ==Education== Pears was at school at [[Lancing College]]. He then studied music at [[Keble College, Oxford]]. He was organist at Hertford College, Oxford but left Oxford without taking his [[Academic degree|degree]]. He later studied [[singing]] for two terms at the [[Royal College of Music]]. ==Music== He met Britten in 1934, when he was a member of the [[BBC Singers]]. Pears and Britten gave their first [[recital]] together in 1937 at [[Balliol College, Oxford]]. In 1939 they went to America together because of [[World War II]]. However, in 1942 they decided to return to their own country. Back in England they performed Britten's [[song cycle]] ''Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo'' together at the [[Wigmore Hall]] in [[London]] (Britten was an excellent [[piano|pianist]]), and then recorded them for [[EMI]], their first recording together. Peter Pears was a great inspiration for Britten’s vocal writing. Many of Britten's [[opera]]s have a main tenor role which was written for Pears to sing. Britten also wrote over 100 [[song]]s with piano [[accompaniment (music)|accompaniment]]. Britten also wrote works for tenor and orchestra. These include ''Les Illuminations'', ''Nocturne'', the ''Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings'' and the Canticles. In Britten’s operas he sang ''[[Peter Grimes]]'' and ''[[Albert Herring]]'' (title roles), ''[[The Beggar's Opera]]'' (Macheath), ''[[Owen Wingrave]]'' (Sir Philip Wingrave), ''[[Billy Budd (opera)|Billy Budd]]'' (Captain Vere), ''[[The Turn of the Screw (opera)|The Turn of the Screw]]'' (Quint), ''[[Death in Venice (opera)|Death in Venice]]'' (Aschenbach) and the three Church Parables. Pears helped to write the words for ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera)|A Mid