Search results for ""Author George Benjamin""

Since its premiere in 2006, George Benjamin’s 2006 chamber opera Into the Little Hill has received critically acclaimed performances across the world. A lyric tale in two parts for soprano, contralto and ensemble of 15 players (coloured by bass flute, two bassset horns, mandolin, banjo and cimbalom), this strange retelling of the Pied Piper story was Benjamin’s first collaboration with Martin Crimp. ‘…it was the eerie beauty and uncanny originality of the music that made the dominant impression on me. The scoring is remarkable – for a sort of ‘alienated’ folk band … There are passages of ethereal delicacy, silken slowness, but these are contrasted with sudden fierceness, as in Benjamin’s recent orchestral Palimpsests. Bass timbres are beguiling, the tutti sound is at once bizarre and delectable: I wanted more of it.' The Sunday Times (Paul Driver), 3 December 2006

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Full score Following the enormous success of George Benjamin’s first opera Into the Little Hill (2006), there has been huge anticipation in the musical world at the prospect of his first full-length work in this genre. After a period of intense work and isolation for Benjamin, his much-awaited new opera, Written on Skin, was premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival on 7 July 2012. A long standing ovation was the first of many marks of recognition and praise for this extraordinary work which has been hailed by critics as ‘[one of] the best operas of the 21st century so far,’ ‘the birth of a masterpiece.’ The opera is scored for 60 players, lasts 95 minutes and has a cast of five. An opera tour will be conducted throughout Europe during 2013.

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Dedicated to the memory of Oliver Knussen, George Benjamin’s 2021 Concerto for Orchestra premiered at the BBC proms by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Benjamin said that the piece attempts “to conjure a trace of the energy, humour, and spirit” of Knussen. It is varied and dynamic across its unbroken 17-minute span – skittish lines play against still, suspended ones – and full of star turns for its various instrumental protagonists. Available here as a full score. Parts available to hire from September 2022. “A terrific 17-minute tour de force, clearly inspired by the virtuosity of the Mahler CO players, but far from being merely a glittering showcase.” The Times (Richard Morrison), August 2021 "As with everything Benjamin writes, the concerto gleams, all the sonic ingredients individuated, clarity and intricate detail turning every player into a soloist. In this composer’s music it’s as if every bar, every idea, is an essence of the whole: an atom, more like the smallest in a set of Russian dolls." The Observer (Fiona Maddocks), September 2021

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Premiered in 2018, the 90-minute opera Lessons in Love and Violence delves into the dark and turbulent events of Edward II’s life and death. George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s third collaboration, it unfolds as a taut slow-burning arch of seven tableaux. This work boasts particularly rich string textures, and is coloured by basset horn and cimbalom together with a pair of harps, celesta, and percussion (including talking drums and tombak). Several of the opera’s powerful interludes are dominated by braying, sardonic brass – with tuba substituted by the more menacing contrabass trombone. There is also much spectacular ensemble writing: in Scene Three’s play within a play, several strands of independent music collide, and the result is perhaps one of the most complex musical structures Benjamin has ever tackled. The music’s relationship to the drama is often unstable and seemingly very spontaneous, but beneath it all one senses a rigorous architecture, unflinchingly guiding the listener deeper and deeper into the opera’s disquieting emotional world. This full score is a perfect accompaniment to the previously published vocal score and text.

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Picture a day like this is the fourth collaboration between George Benjamin and Martin Crimp, whose acclaimed partnership produced Written on Skin, Lessons in Love and Violence, and Into the Little Hill. The 60-minute opera is cast in seven scenes and scored for five voices (S-S-MS-Ct-Bar) and twenty-two instrumentalists. It premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2023, with the composer conducting. Picture a day like this tells the story of a Woman (mezzo-soprano) who has lost her child; if she can meet one truly happy person before nightfall, they will return to life. In her search she meets a pair of lovers, a Composer and their assistant, an Artisan, Collector, and the mysterious Zabelle. Benjamin’s music meets Crimp’s text to create a bittersweet fable on grief and renewal. This product comprises the vocal score.

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Scored for the same ensemble as Benjamin’s Palimpsests (with the addition of a cor anglais), this ingenious transcription of one of the jewels of Baroque organ music succeeds in capturing the spirit and the unusual flavour the original. Inspired by De Grigny’s idiosyncratic registrations, Benjamin frequently `illuminates’ the work’s central melody with parallel harmonics which constantly change in both depth and colour. `It took something already pungently ornate and highly coloured and made it even more so, evoking the richly coloured stops of a French Baroque organ without ever stooping to imitation.’ The Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 27 July 2004

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Libretto Following the enormous success of George Benjamin’s first opera Into the Little Hill (2006), there has been huge anticipation in the musical world at the prospect of his first full-length work in this genre. After a period of intense work and isolation for Benjamin, his much-awaited new opera, Written on Skin, was premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival on 7 July 2012. A long standing ovation was the first of many marks of recognition and praise for this extraordinary work which has been hailed by critics as ‘[one of] the best operas of the 21st century so far,’ ‘the birth of a masterpiece.’ An opera tour will be conducted throughout Europe during 2013.

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Shortlisted for Deluxe Edition of the Year at the Presto Music Awards 2023 Picture a day like this is the fourth operatic collaboration between George Benjamin and Martin Crimp, whose acclaimed partnership produced Written on Skin, Lessons in Love and Violence, and Into the Little Hill. This limited edition of the full score is one of only one hundred and fifty, presented in a cloth-bound hard cover. It is signed by George Benjamin and Martin Crimp and includes facsimile reproductions of pages from the manuscript, sketches by Benjamin and Crimp, and a photograph of Benjamin, Crimp and directors Daniel Jeanneteau and Marie-Christine Soma in rehearsal at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. In this bittersweet fable of grief and renewal. Benjamin and Crimp tell the story of a Woman who has lost her child: if, before nightfall, she meets one truly happy person and cuts a button from their sleeve, her child will live again. In her search she meets a pair of lovers, a Composer and their Assistant, an Artisan, Collector, and, in a beautiful garden, the mysterious Zabelle. ‘Benjamin proves with this taut, sharp miniature that he is the finest opera composer of today…a work of depth of feeling, humanistic artistry and expressive rigor…a drama that is miraculously condensed.’ Süddeutsche Zeitung (Reinhard J. Brembeck) 9 July 2023

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