Benjamin Britten began work on what would become The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in 1946 as a score for a documentary film, Instruments of the Orchestra, and it was presented in that medium that year in London. Soon symphony orchestras appropriated it for the concert hall, often adding spoken commentary. The composition is so artfully crafted that it has taken a firm place in the purely instrumental repertoire and is frequently performed without narration. 

The theme that serves as the basis of a series of brilliant and imaginative variations is a stirring dance tune from Abdelazar by Henry Purcell (1659–1695). It is first stated by the full orchestra and then is circulated among the woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion before returning to the full orchestra again. Having exposed the theme in the four sections of the orchestra, Britten goes on to put it through remarkably contrasting musical guises, all spotlighting in turn each member of the first three orchestral sections—woodwinds: piccolo, flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons; strings: violins, violas, cellos, basses, and harp; and brass: horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba. The percussion section gets a dazzling cadenza.  

After introducing the orchestra members individually, Britten reassembles them for a fugue, with each instrument entering in the order of the variations. Finally, Purcell’s D-minor tune makes a heroic return, and the composition ends in a blaze of D-major grandeur. —Orrin Howard