Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes, Op. 33a, is a concert suite extracted from his opera Peter Grimes, first performed in 1945. Britten selected four orchestral interludes from the opera and arranged them as a self-contained work for the concert hall: Dawn, Sunday Morning, Moonlight, and Storm. The music presents not only shifts of place and time in the opera, but also the sea’s presence as a force that shapes the drama.

The suite is one of Britten’s best-known orchestral works from the opera and is often performed on its own. Its four movements trace a clear arc: the first two are more atmospheric and reflective, Moonlight is hushed and inward, and Storm provides the dramatic culmination. Together they condense the opera’s coastal setting and psychological tension into a tightly focused orchestral sequence.