John Smyth replies to me:

>>...if you didn't know Britten were gay, how would the music tell you?
>
>Not to be jejohne, but haven't you changed the meaning of the original
>question: "How could Britten's sexuality influence his oeuvre musically?"
>We were talking influence here, not permeation.

What I'm trying to say is it's apparently a one-way function.  Obviously,
some of what you are (although not necessarily or always your sexual
orientation) influences what you write.  However, it's generally pretty
hard to take music and work backwards.  In discussions like this, we
usually wind up with something like, "Because I already know from other
sources he's a homosexual (Russian nationalist, Communist, Amway salesman,
Republican - fill in whatever you like), I see that the music has been
influenced in this way."

The problem is that the music is no longer sufficient.  In other words,
there is usually no way on earth one can tell this so-called influence
from the music itself.  The argument becomes a tautology.  I'm hedging
with words like "usually" because, as you point out, there *are* composers
who use a personal set of musical symbols:  Beethoven, Wagner, Bruckner,
Mahler, Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams and so on.  As I've said, other than
choice of libretto and performer, I don't see this in Britten, but I admit
I haven't listened to the music with anything like the necessary attention.

Steve Schwartz