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George Benjamin and Jonathan Harvey See US Premieres of Works in Cleveland and New York

Sep. 02, 2008

This month The Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Franz Welser-Möst presents the US premiere of George Benjamin's Duet for piano and orchestra, with Pierre-Laurent Aimard joining the orchestra as piano soloist. Benjamin had this to say on the piece's origins:

I have attempted to cross the divide between the soloist and the orchestra by finding compatible areas between them, specifically by dividing the piano into a few distinct registers with timbral equivalents in the orchestra. At the same time the piano remains an alien figure in the orchestral landscape and often treads an independent path through instrumental textures that can seem intentionally oblivious of it. The orchestra employed is somewhat reduced, above all by the absence of violins. A certain prominence is given to the piano's nearest relatives in tuned percussion and, especially, the harp.

Commissioned by Switzerland's Luzern Festival and premiered on August 30, Duet sees three performances by Pierre-Laurent Aimard and The Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Maestro Welser-Möst on September 25, 26 and 27.

Another composer from the distinguished Faber music roster sees a US premiere this month as Joel Sachs and the New Juilliard Ensemble perform Jonathan Harvey's Sprechgesang on September 27. Harvey elaborates on the piece:

When does music draw close to the phraseology, structure and melody of speech? For me, as for certain writers and anthropologists, speech is intimately connected with one's mother. The unique period of helpless dependency that the human animal spends with the mother after (even before) birth is infused with speech, or speech‐like noises. The voice of the mother is the original, profound, emotional and comforting sound. It sometimes becomes song. At the half‐way point of Sprechgesang there is a reference to Wagner, to a moment when Parsifal hears the long‐forgotten voice of his dead mother call the name, his own name, that he had forgotten ‐ an action of the shamanistic Kundry. From this awakening, this healing, comes the birth of song from the meaningless chatter of endless human discourse.

Commissioned by the ensembles Musikfabrik, Asko and Klangforum Wien, and originally premiered in 2007, Sprechgesang sees its US premiere by the New Juilliard Ensemble on their season opening concert on September 27 at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater in New York.

For more on the music of George Benjamin and Jonathan Harvey, visit www.fabermusic.com.

George Benjamin
Duet (2008)
for piano and orchestra
2(2.pic)2.3(3.bcl)2(2.cbsn)-2231-timp.3perc-hp.cel.str(0.0.8.8.6)
14'

Jonathan Harvey
Sprechgesang (2007)
for oboe, English horn and chamber ensemble
1(pic)1.0.1(small tgl)-1.1.ttbn.0.0-perc-pno-2vn.va.vc.db
10'

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