The American Overture gained its present title when it was finally published in the 1980s. Britten wrote it on commission from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which was then led by the superb British conductor Eugene Goossens. The manuscript of this work was headed with the title, "An Occasional Overture." It apparently was left behind when Britten returned to England in 1943, and he appears to have forgotten about it.

When it resurfaced late in Britten's life and he was told of it, he denied any memory of having written such a work, but when showed his own manuscript he admitted that it was "probably" genuinely his. (There isn't really any doubt that it is genuine.) In the meantime, he had written for the BBC another work under the same title, so the earlier work was retitled when published An American Overture to avoid confusion. There is some indication that it was initially assigned the opus number "27, " but it is really without opus. Britten assigned "27" to the lovely choral work A Hymn to Saint Cecilia.

The American Overture possesses an unusually stately quality, and a haunting melodism. It is not a work in which Britten appears to have made any effort to make a "statement, " but it is by no means perfunctory of unfeeling. An interesting aspect of it is that Britten relies on the "open" intervals of the fourth and fifth in a rather Coplandesque way to make an "American" impression in the music, after all. Very much worth hearing.

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