Maestro of Malice: He was an undoubted genius. So why was Benjamin Britten, born 100 years ago today, such an unpleasant human being? Benjamin Britten was modern British classical music's only genuine genius. While Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams have massive reputations, neither composed so instinctively nor with such originality as the man whose centenary falls today. Unlike them, Britten - the son of a dentist from Lowestoft - wrote dazzling music in his teens. By his mid-20s he had produced works, including his music for the legendary 1936 GPO documentary film Night Mail, that will stay in the concert repertoire for ever. He was feted internationally and heaped with honours: the Order of Merit, a Companion of Honour, and the first composer to be made a peer. Geniuses are often difficult but Benjamin Britten was more difficult than most. A very thin skin, an inclination to take himself extremely seriously and the hero-worship he endured from the clique around him combined to make him an aloof and often tense man Yet he died aged just 63, worn out and - according to his latest biographer, Paul Kildea, in a provocative and widely-disputed claim - riddled with syphilis. There was a dark, deeply peculiar side to Britten, highlighted in a new film, Nocturne, by the director Tony Palmer. Palmer shows how Britten's obsession with the horror of war coloured all the music he wrote in the last 30 years of his life. Geniuses are often difficult but Britten was more difficult than most. A very thin skin, an inclination to take himself extremely seriously and the hero-worship he endured from the clique around him combined to make him an aloof and often tense man. Britten reserved his main hatred for one of Britain's leading conductors, Sir Adrian Boult (right), whom he described as 'that worst of all conductors', 'anemic' (spelling was not Britten's strongest suit), 'an absolute disgrace', 'dull and ignorant' and 'suet-like' He also had the misfortune to be homosexual at a time when it was illegal. He found relations with almost everyone apart from pre-pubescent boys intensely difficult. He had pungent views on fellow musicians, saying, for example, that he was "absolutely incapable of enjoying Elgar." In the diary he kept as a young man, his aversion to some seems to verge on the pathological, and to show a mean-minded streak that would develop as he grew older. He savaged as "amateur, dull, imitative and clumsy" the work of Vaughan Williams, who taught him at the Royal College of Music and who never showed him anything but kindness. But he reserved his main hatred for one of Britain's leading conductors, Sir Adrian Boult, whom he described as "that worst of all conductors," "anemic" (spelling was not Britten's strongest suit), "an absolute disgrace," "dull and ignorant" and "suet-like." As Britten's fame grew in the 1940s and 1950s, he attracted a circle of friends who treated him like a medieval monarch. Some great men - and Britten unquestionably was one - would have brushed off such sycophancy, but as a natural autocrat, he soaked it up. His fame in post-war Britain was fanned by the success of Peter Grimes, the first British opera to command an international reputation since the era of Purcell nearly 300 years earlier. Controversy surrounded Britten's decision in 1939 to go to America with the man who became his life-long partner, Peter Pears (right), rather than stay and fight during World War II This followed the controversy that surrounded Britten's decision in 1939 to go to America with the man who became his life-long partner, Peter Pears, rather than stay and fight during World War II. In 1942 he returned home to register as a conscientious objector, yet the damage to his reputation would dog him, from certain quarters, for the rest of his life. The truth is that Britten was a bundle of contradictions (some would say hypocrisies). He often expressed Left-wing political sentiments, such as regarding military bases near his house at Aldeburgh, Suffolk, as evidence of the "American occupation," yet craved the company and favour of royalty and aristocracy. Mixing before the war in elevated Left-wing circles with friends such as the poet W. H. Auden, he was well aware of the fate awaiting leftists and homosexuals in Hitler's Europe. Yet in 1939 it never occurred to the 25-year-old Britten to fight for freedom, or for his own survival and that of those like him. What's more, it was not so much public criticism of his stance that brought him home to England but rather homesickness and a failure to build his career in the U.S. Britten found it almost impossible to take criticism. He could also be shockingly disloyal to those he felt had outlived their usefulness In 1942, he appeared before a tribunal to claim status as a conscientious objector. He explained: "Since I believe that there is in every man the spirit of God, I cannot destroy. I can help my fellow human beings best by continuing the work I am most qualified to do by the nature of my gifts and training, ie the creation or propagation of music. Unlike fellow composer Michael Tippett, who took a principled stand and went to prison rather than contribute to a war he regarded as fundamentally wrong, Britten undertook public service. This included a visit to the Belsen concentration camp with the legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin in the spring of 1945 to perform for the liberated inmates. What he saw there shocked him deeply and apparently made him feel discomfort for the rest of his life at having left to others the battle against Hitler. But buoyed by the success of Peter Grimes, Britten set about creating his own musical establishment, in contrast to the one that ruled in London and that clung to values and ideas he regarded as outdated and tired. In 1947, he and Pears founded the Aldeburgh Festival in the fishing town where they had set up home - partly as a showcase for their own music-making, and partly to ensure performances of the music they loved. With the help of local benefactors, the festival soon established itself, despite being infected with in-fighting and bitchiness. For his part, Britten found it almost impossible to take criticism. He could also be shockingly disloyal to those he felt had outlived their usefulness. One early casualty was Eric Crozier, who had produced Peter Grimes and was a co-founder of the festival. Crozier was outraged when a book on Britten appeared in 1966 - written by Britten's assistant, Imogen Holst, daughter of the composer of The Planets - that made no mention of him at all. In his anger, he wrote a memoir about his experiences with Britten that referred to the composer's capricious dropping of friends and collaborators. One such had been Montagu Slater, who had written the libretto for Peter Grimes. Britten callously described him to Crozier as "one of my corpses," adding: "You'll be one, too, one day." The highest profile casualty, though, was the Earl of Harewood, the opera-loving cousin of the Queen who was Aldeburgh Festival president. When, in 1965, Harewood's marriage to Marion Stein broke up because of his adultery, Britten, who was devoted to Marion (she subsequently married the disgraced Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe), wrote to him tartly: "We must face facts, and that it doesn't seem possible, at any rate for the time being, for you to come to our Aldeburgh Festivals." In musical circles, it was well-known that Britten had had a number of close friendships with young boys - though they unanimously reported that nothing sexual happened He advised Harewood to quit as president. Similarly, Stephen Reiss, who ran the festival for 16 years, was warned before working with Britten that he "devoured people and spewed out what was left and no use to him." Reiss was, indeed, frozen out when he dared to disagree with Britten about an over-ambitious concert hall expansion plan and observed: "He could be dreadfully cruel, and he knew exactly how to make it hurt." Britten was particularly touchy when anyone attempted to joke about homosexuality. In musical circles, it was well-known that he'd had a number of close friendships with young boys - though they unanimously reported that nothing sexual happened. He did, though, come close at least once, in 1954, with a boy singer who would later become a leading actor, David Hemmings. At the time, they were in Venice for a performance of Britten's opera The Turn Of The Screw, in which Hemmings had a lead role. The conductor Raymond Leppard said the relationship became "nearly catastrophic ... Ben (Britten) became quite distracted. Peter (Pears) told me that he had to take Ben away by train or it would have escalated into a major scandal. Hemmings, however, testified that nothing had happened. Did he kiss me, yes he did ... I slept in his bed when I was frightened, and still I felt no sexual threat whatsoever. However, the composers Sir William Walton and Constant Lambert - partly out of jealousy but partly out of distaste at Britten's court in Aldeburgh - made no secret of their opinion of his odd private life. They gave rude alternative titles to his work, for example the "Twilight Of The Sods" and "The Bugger's Opera." The distinguished conductor Sir Charles Mackerras said: "I always felt slightly uncomfortable in Ben and Peter's presence, because you couldn't quite say what you thought." Conducting the first performance of Britten's opera Noye's Fludde, Mackerras quipped how the cast had even more boys (one of whom was a young Michael Crawford, the future star of Phantom Of The Opera and Some Mothers Do Have "Em) than any previous Britten work. Mackerras made this comment to the opera's director, John Cranko, who was also homosexual and who told Britten. Mackerras subsequently received "a horrible letter from Peter [Pears]," saying this remark had "ruined the pleasure of Noye's Fludde." The conductor found himself summoned by Britten, who gave him a dressing-down. "Because I like to be with boys, and because I appreciate young people, am I therefore a lecher?" he asked. Someone who saw the composer before he spoke to Mackerras said, "The anger that came out, it was quite phenomenal." Britten said of Mackerras's remark: "It's as if I was stealing money out of the till." Mackerras was allowed to complete the season, and he and the composer had polite relations during the performances. However, he was banished from Aldeburgh for years afterwards. When, in 1955, Britten fired Elizabeth Sweeting, the manager of the festival, at least she received a letter. "Usually," she reported, "it was a woundingly-silent cold shoulder." But her dismissal was typical of Britten - a "mixture of guilt and consequent cowardice." None of this toxic behaviour detracts from Britten's musical genius - any more than Wagner's loathsome anti-semitism and womanising do from his. Still, it was a genius wrapped in a poisonous self-obsession that inflicted anger and shock on many of those around him.