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Objects of contemplation and artifice of design: Sonic structures in the music of George Benjamin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Extract

The icicle clearly delineated by the opening gesture of the upper strings in George Benjamin's A Mind of Winter is an original notational conceit, achieved by staggering the entries of the first and second violins so that a kind of stalactite is readily discernible on the page. It is the spacing of this cluster of minor seconds inside a defined timbral field and the precision with which the composer accords these, the smallest intervals within chromatic space, a rigorous series of durations, their hard edges rendered diffuse by almost inconsequential glissandi, that allows what might become academicism in the hands of a lesser craftsman to take on such a vibrant sonority. That this symbol of the coldest season is preceded by a percussionist's practically imperceptible roll with soft sticks on a suspended cymbal shows a composer deliberately relying on onomatopoeic devices to conjure up a soundscape percolated by such wintry gusts, themselves ushered in by a brief but telling period of silence that ‘fills’ the first, empty bar.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001

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References

1 Eliot, significantly, was strongly influenced by the sonic structures of Hopkins's writing.

2 See Tinctoris on Dunstable, a passage oft-quoted, but not in connexion with contemporary music.

3 T. Murail, documentation to CD recording Accord 204672, p.14.

4 Iturbide, M.R., ‘Unfolding the natural sound object through electroacoustic composition’, Journal of New Music Research, 24 (1995), p.386 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6 Letter to the author dated 5 January 1999.

7 ibid.

8 For a discussion of Reich's video opera, Hindenburg, the first European performance of which was given as part of the ‘Musica Viva’ Series at the Muffathalle, Munich, Germany on 19 September 1998 with Ensemble Modern in the presence of the composer, see Lack, G., ‘Steve Reich's Hindenburg’, in Tempo 207 (12, 1998)Google Scholar.

9 Coined, at least, by Bradshaw, Susan and Bennett, Richard Rodney in their Boulez on Music Today (London: Faber, 1971)Google Scholar, an at times incomprehensible translation of Penser de la Musique aujourd'hui (Paris: 1963)Google Scholar, originally published simultaneously as Musik Heine - 1 (Mainz: B. Schotts Söhne, 1963, second edition, 1975)Google Scholar.

10 Letter, op.cit.

11 ‘[seine Musik] treibt auf den Wellen irregulärer Rhythmen, die ganze innere Pulsieren verdecken.’ Benjamin, George, ‘Der Meister der Meister’, in Musik Texte 45, 07 1992, p.31 Google Scholar. Original contribution in Le Monde de la Musique, 156, 06 1992, pp.5960 Google Scholar.

12 Letter, op.cit.

13 ibid.

14 London: Faber 1982 &1991.

15 A term used in psychoacoustics to describe the ability to perceive the regions of resonance known as formants as well as the phenomenon of their apparent appearance and reappearance.

16 Murail, Tristan, CD documentation, op.cit., p14.Google Scholar

17 ‘Obwohl man den Einfluβ des seriellen Systems auf bestimmte Werke in der Mitte seiner Laufbahn wahrnimmt, hat er ihn nicht geliebt. Die ausschlieβliche Konzentration auf die Abstraktion, die Gerhirntätigkeit, war seinem Wesen fremd, und der Klang, der daraus resultierte, war oft die Antithese zu seinem Streben. Der Glanz des Klangs hatte ihn, wie Weihrauch, gefangengenommen.’ Benjamin, George, op.cit., p3.Google Scholar