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George Benjamin's Palimpsests at New World Symphony

Jan. 10, 2012

George Benjamin's <em>Palimpsests</em> at New World Symphony

In a program titled Haunted: Sounds of the Times, the New World Symphony performs George Benjamin's stunning orchestral pairing, Palimpsests I and II, alongside works by Claude Vivier, Magnus Lindberg, and György Ligeti. Composed between 1998 and 2002, the work was premiered by the London Symphony under Pierre Boulez, the work's dedicatee. Pablo Heras–Casado conducts this extraordinary program at the beautiful New World Center on Saturday, January 14.

A palimpsest is a parchment or manuscript on which several layers of notation are visible to varying degrees of clarity. The term can also refer to a landscape, architectural or organic, which shows apparent and diverse layers that have likely developed over time. Benjamin uses the concept of palimpsest as a guide for his compositional process, which he describes as "the play of perspectives as multiple musics superimpose and interlock."

Benjamin provides the following description of his Palimpsests I and II:

The first, brisk and pointed, is based almost exclusively on the lyrical polyphonic song, scored for clarinets, with which it begins. Ever present deep in the background, this song occasionally returns to the surface, each time on a greatly expanded scale...The second movement, despite its larger dimensions and darker tone-color, shares many characteristics with the first. It tends, however, to evolve along a smoother path, its lines spanning ever wider contours...Throughout I wanted to achieve an extreme clarity of sound, with each musical layer having its own distinctive shape, form and timbre.

In addition to Palimpsests, the program also includes Claude Vivier's Lonely Child, Magnus Lindberg's EXPO, and György Ligeti's Mysteries of the Macabre, a vocally acrobatic suite of three arias from the composer’s absurdist drama Le Grand Macabre, with soprano Barbara Hannigan.

For more information on the New World Symphony program, visit www.nws.edu.

For George Benjamin's composer profile, go to www.fabermusic.com

Learn more on the life of György Ligeti by visiting www.schott-music.com.

George Benjamin
Palimpsests (2001)
for orchestra
4(4pic, 4.pic).0.4(4cl in A, 3,4bcl).0.cbsn-3.4(1.ptp).btpt.tenor-bass tbn.btbn.1-3perc-pno(cel)-2hp-5vn.3va.8 db
21’

György Ligeti
Mysteries of the Macabre (1974/1977)
three arias from the opera Le Grand Macabre
for coloratura soprano or solo trumpet in C and orchestra
also available in version for chamber orchestra
German text by Michael Meschke and György Ligeti
freely adapted from Michel de Ghelderode's La Ballade du Grand Macabre
English translation by Geoffrey Skelton
pic.1.3(3.ca).2(2.bcl).2(2.cbsn)–4.2.cbtbn.cbtba–timp.2perc–cel.(cemb).pno.(elec.org).hp.mand–str
9’

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