The orchestra had worked with George Benjamin only once before, on a much earlier work of his, A Mind of Winter, paired with his beloved Schumann Symphony No. 2. Especially when rehearsing his own music, there was a rare intensity that emanated from the conductor/composer, as though every sound we produced was under microscopic observation. Meanwhile, his remarkable debut stage work, the chamber opera Into the Little Hill, was only six years old by the time we met again. Composer and author, the British playwright Martin Crimp, had retold the tale of the Pied Piper, giving us a story about the dangerous potency of music. In so doing, they had understatedly but radically expanded the operatic craft with an eerie orchestration, vertiginous vocal writing, and a reimagined treatment of the narrative.
But still, the huge leap to a full-scale, full-score tale of angels and barbarity, composed "with the MCO in mind" (note the wording from a composer who is as fastidious with his words as he is with the next note of his score) caught us and everyone else unawares. Converging in Aix-en-Provence for rehearsals, impressions from our previous encounter had been weaved into the orchestral fabric, to the uncanny extent that individual or group personalities within the orchestra seemed almost reflected in the music, brought out at the right moment to drive forward the story taking place onstage. The intensity that we, the musicians, had felt from George before, reasserted itself, distilled and ratcheted up, an intensity that swept through the production as a whole, carrying us through to the celebrated premiere.
Now, almost a decade later and in a changed world, the MCO gathers in Cologne with anticipation running high. Once again, we have been entrusted with a brand new composition by George, only now with a much clearer sense of the magnitude of what to expect. Excitingly, this is to be his first purely orchestral piece in almost two decades. And we knew, too, from the dedication that there is a deep personal dimension to this music, in which the composer bids farewell to his great friend and Weggefährte Oliver Knussen.
Perhaps what intrigued us most was the title, Concerto for Orchestra. George explains to us that it was not at all clear at the outset what this new piece would become; there was, for example, no direct inspiration from a text or another art form. In fact, the work had been substantially re-written during the enforced year-long delay from its originally planned premiere in 2020, a period that the composer ruefully admits was conducive to the half-life of composing. So it was not his aim to compose his own concerto for orchestra - though he has long admired this particular form, especially those by Elliott Carter, Lutosławski, and Tippett. Instead, the virtuosity of the instrumental writing and the nature of the music that eventually formed the piece itself, led him to adopt this title.
The premiere is scheduled for the BBC Proms in August 2021, but George has requested that we find some time to meet before in order to acquaint ourselves with the score. We are more than eager to oblige, and arrive at the Kölner Philharmonie with fingers and lips thoroughly warmed-up from a midday livebroadcast with Daniel Harding in neighbouring Bonn. The score gives an indication of the mood – “Playful and Volatile” – but the organ-like opening chords in the winds are stern, with high strings joining them in jagged unison. The kinetic energy and forward propulsion that characterises the piece quickly establishes itself and at bar 29, we arrive at the first solo marked in the score, for tuba.
Our tuba player is a virtuosic and sensitive player, but we stop to work on this and his other solo passages again and again. These are the most memorable moments when working with George, when we witness his fearsome tenacity in realising exactly what he has notated, counterbalanced by perfect manners and eloquence.
It can be an uncomfortable place to be for the musician in question, as your correspondent knows all too well. But this process allows George to find exactly the right words for what he wants: we try “humorous” and then “jovial” before eventually landing on “Falstaff-like.” Our tuba player nods in acknowledgment and we move on. Yet this element of humour – a mood in short supply in his operas –– is something that George keeps returning to as he probes, tweaks, cajoles and admonishes, all the while working towards revealing the essence of what he has composed.
Being able to discuss music with one of the greatest living composers is a rare privilege. Your correspondent recalls a typical scene, eavesdropping at a drab cafe in Barcelona airport, where one of Ligeti's most complex scores was being cheerfully delineated by George. At a more lively alfresco establishment in Cologne after our rehearsals, George is expansive and shares his thoughts on Beethoven's Leonore Overture and the limits of serialism as a compositional technique. From there, the conversation tentatively moves on to some of the less apparent references in the Concerto. A strong bond has developed between George and the MCO since that first summer together in Aix-en-Provence, and since friendship demands discretion, we must leave the subject of these allusions for another day.
A bonus from these rehearsals were George’s new arrangements of three consorts by Henry Purcell, also to be performed for the first time at the BBC Proms. The second of these, “Fantazia 7,” is particularly beautiful. George reminds us that it was this piece which he first transcribed thirty years ago as an exercise to help him 'break free' from the powerful influence French contemporary music had had on his earlier output. Now he has decided to return to the Fantazia, integrating it into our Proms programme after great deliberation. Joining Purcell are other benign influences on his work and life: Oliver Knussen, present both in his own music - The Way to Castle Yonder - and in the dedication to George’s Concerto for Orchestra; as well as his great friend Pierre Laurent Aimard, who will perform as the soloist in Ravel’s G Major Piano Concerto. We are honoured to be in such company, as we are by George's dedication of his Concerto for Orchestra to the MCO. We look forward to perform for you at the Proms, as part of the Musikfest Berlin, at the Elbphilharmonie, on the radio waves and in the Digital Concert Hall.
Rehearsal photography by Heike Fischer.
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Rehearsals of George Benjamin‘s "Concerto for Orchestra" were supported by Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von Neustart Kultur. "Concerto for Orchestra" was commissioned by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, and BBC Radio 3.
The Mahler Chamber Orchestra's appearance at the 2021 BBC Proms is
generously supported by the Karolina Blaberg Stiftung. Appearances at
Musikfest Berlin and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie are with the kind support
of Klangwert – Aventis Foundation Musical Ensemble Promotion, the Rudolf
Augstein Foundation and the Ilse and Dr. Horst Rusch Foundation.
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