George Benjamin returns to the Philharmonie de Paris on 23 October to conduct his Concerto for Orchestra and the French premiere of Julian Anderson’s Eden. The programme – ‘Carte blanche à George Benjamin’– celebrates forty years of his friendship with Ensemble intercontemporain (who premiered his Antara in 1987). The group will be expanded by musicians from the Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris and Ensemble NEXT for the concert, which also features music by Dieter Ammann and Unsuk Chin.
The Concerto is varied and dynamic across an unbroken 17-minute span, with skittish lines playing against still, suspended ones. Its various instrumental protagonists play multiple roles – both dramatic and sonoric – including a volatile solo tuba, elaborate horn duos, bubbling clarinets and two pairs of rumbling timpani. Most prominent of all are the impassioned first violins, who almost have the last word during the work’s tranquil conclusion.
Its virtuosity is also a tribute to the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, who premiered the work at the BBC Proms in 2021, and with whom Benjamin has developed an especially close working relationship both on the concert platform and in the opera house. Benjamin has said that the piece attempts “to conjure a trace of the energy, humour, and spirit” of its dedicatee Oliver Knussen, though it occasionally moves into more turbulent terrain. Its various exponents have included the London Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchester, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestre National de Lille, and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; conductors to take it up have included Daniel Harding, Nicholas Collon, and Susanna Mälkki.
Anderson’s Eden is a 7-minute homage to the Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brâncuși. Its title is not taken from his work but rather reflects the simplicity of line and formal clarity of the sculptor’s work, which Anderson identifies with the prelapsarian mood evoked in the piece: “a glimpse of a lost innocence to which to aspire”. Brâncuși’s The Kiss, showing two lovers entwined in ecstatic union, is reflected in the hockets Anderson writes, as well the clear and transparent surfaces that characterise the work.
Eden is based on non-tempered harmonics and employs detuned woodwinds, trumpets, harp, and keyboard. The special colour and brightness of these tunings is introduced in melodies for solo viola and cello that open the work, played without vibrato like Renaissance viols. It premiered with Martyn Brabbins and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the Cheltenham Music Festival in 2005. Since it has become one of Anderson’s most performed orchestral works, taken up by conductors including Sakari Oramo, Franz Welser-Möst (with the Cleveland Orchestra), George Benjamin (with the Concertgebouw), and Edward Gardner (with the Bergen Philharmonic).