In August 2024 the Festival Ravel in the Pays Basque spotlights several works by George Benjamin. It will be the third festival in France to focus on the composer in the 23/24 season, following from the fourth edition of the Festival des Volques, Nîmes in December 2023 and the 42nd Festival Aspects des Musiques d’Aujourd’hui at the Conservatoire & Orchestre de Caen in March 2024.
On 23 August Ensemble intercontemporain present Benjamin and Crimp’s Into the Little Hill (2006), the first stage work created by the acclaimed operatic partnership, with soprano Jenny Daviet and mezzo Camille Merckx as soloists, with Pierre Bleuse conducting. The lyric tale in two parts retells the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin with searing intensity, underlining the political valences of the narrative. Benjamin’s instrumental writing is given special colour by bass flute, a pair of basset horns, mandolin, banjo and cimbalom.
It is preceded by At First Light (1982). The 20-minute piece is scored for 14 players, inspired by Turner’s painting Norham Castle, Sunrise, and cast in three movements. In the short opening one, superimposed fanfares burst into hazy, undefined textures. After a pause the extended second movement follows, itself subdivided into several contrasted sections, full of abrupt changes in mood and tension. The concluding movement arrives without a break, and progresses in a continuous, flowing line illuminated with ever more resonant harmonies.
On 24 August the Festival’s Artistic Director Bertrand Chamayou performs Benjamin’s Shadowlines. The 15-minute piece, premiered by Pierre-Laurent Aimard in 2003, is a set of six canons of remarkable drama and invention, with Benjamin’s manipulation of the basic material going far beyond the usual procedures of transposition and invention, with a title suggestive of the hidden processes at work. Chamayou returns to the work on 27 September at the Venice Biennale.
On 26 August Tabea Zimmerman and Ayaka Taniguchi perform Benjamin’s Viola, Viola (1997). The 9-minute work is a technical and compositional tour-de-force for the instrument, fiery, and energetic in character, and animated within by multi-layered contrapuntal writing. Zimmerman has performed the piece over 25 times over the last two decades, including at Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, BOZAR, the Maison de la Radio, the Aldeburgh Festival, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and the Boulez Saal.
On 7 September Benjamin’s Concerto for Orchestra (2021) receives its Swiss premiere at the Lucerne Festival, with the composer conducting the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra. The 17-minute piece debuted in 2021 at the BBC Proms with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, conducted by the composer. Benjamin has said that the piece attempts “to conjure a trace of the energy, humour, and spirit” of its dedicatee Oliver Knussen. Since the premiere, the piece has received some 20 performances internationally; its exponents have included as the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France, the London Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchester, and Orchestre National de Lille, with Benjamin at the helm of numerous performances.