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George Benjamin Leads The Cleveland Orchestra in a Performance of Dieter Ammann's glut

Feb. 16, 2024

On February 15-17, The Cleveland Orchestra, under the baton of George Benjamin, performed Dieter Ammann's glut alongside Benjamin'sDream of the Song, Oliver Knussen's The Way to Castle Yonder, and Ravel's Ma mère l’Oye at Mandel Concert Hall. Writer Thomas May highlights the connection between the conductor and Ammann's glut, noting:

"The Swiss Dieter Ammann is another composer from Benjamin’s generation whom he admires for his inspired use of detail and approach to the craft of composing. In the summer of 2019, Benjamin was invited to work with the students at the Lucerne Festival Academy in Central Switzerland, which Pierre Boulez founded more than two decades ago as a center to train young musicians in the performance of 20th- and 21st-century music. At Lucerne, Benjamin befriended Ammann, a leading figure at the Academy who helps run its composer mentoring program alongside artistic director Wolfgang Rihm. Benjamin collaborated closely with the Academy Orchestra to prepare a performance of glut, which he has conducted several times since. He characterizes glut as “a hugely confident, explosive orchestral showpiece, a terrific way to start the evening.” 

With its multiple layers of meaning, the title glut hints at the hyperactive, hyperconcentrated surfeit of musical detail contained within its 15-minute duration. The word means glow, fervor, or blaze in German, while in English it conveys connotations of abundance or excess (as in “gluttony”). A paradox of glut is the sense of visceral immediacy that Ammann’s meticulous compositional process produces. He describes the impression of “an exceptionally high concentration” of musical events as the combination of both “vertical” details that are heard simultaneously, at any given moment, and, on the horizontal axis, “the great variety of textures that unfold successively in the course of the piece.” 

Like an action painting by Jackson Pollock, glut’s dynamic cascade of sonic images can awaken an untold variety of associations unique to each listener, though Ammann’s piece is not program music. Or if there is a program, it’s a meta-narrative that addresses and celebrates the creative process itself: In glut, ideas seem to pour out in a white-hot lava flow, but however spontaneous they might appear, they are shaped, as Benjamin puts it, “with enormous care, in exquisite detail, mixed with tremendous bravura.” 

Listen to Dieter Ammann's unbalanced stability (2012-13):

unbalanced stability/Dieter Ammann/Carolin Widmann, violin/Musikkollegium Winterthur/Thomas Zehetmair, conductor

To learn more about Dieter Ammann, visit barenreiter.com.

Dieter Ammann
glut (2014)
for orchestra
3(3.pic).3.3(3.bcl), 3(3.cbn)-4.3.3.1-4perc-pno-hp-str(14.12.10.8.6)
18'

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