Benjamin - Into The Little Hill
World Premiere Recording
Anu Komsi & Hilary Summers, Dietrich Henschel (baritone)
Ensemble Modern, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin & Rundfunkchor Berlin, Frank Ollu, Oliver Knussen, Kent Nagano
This CD gives an excellent overview of the new Benjamin, in superb sound and performances.
Benjamin - Into The Little Hill
World Premiere Recording
Anu Komsi & Hilary Summers, Dietrich Henschel (baritone)
Ensemble Modern, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin & Rundfunkchor Berlin, Frank Ollu, Oliver Knussen, Kent Nagano
Purchase product
This CD gives an excellent overview of the new Benjamin, in superb sound and performances.
About
George Benjamin long held the desire to write an opera but the right project never quite presented itself to him. Until the advent of Into the Little Hill, that is, which resulted from his meeting with playwright Martin Crimp. Since its premiere, given by Anu Komsi, Hilary Summers, Ensemble Modern and Franck Ollu at the Festival d’Automne in Paris last November, it has garnered acclaim from all quarters.
‘In my critical career, I’ve witnessed the birth of several fine new operas – notably those by Adams, Adès and Turnage – that have jolted me out of my underlying pessimism about the genre’s long-term future. But in all that time I have never heard or seen anything so startlingly or brilliantly original as Into the Little Hill. “Masterpiece” is not a word to fling about, but I’m tempted. Into the Little Hill specifies itself as “a lyrical tale”; “dramatic cantata” might also serve. Its duration is about 40 minutes. George Benjamin’s score is a miracle. Fifteen are used to create a hyperintense sound world. Not a note is wasted or superfluous – Benjamin’s ear is unerringly precise, and the sonorities he conjures up by combining conventional instruments with basset-horn, flugelhorn and cimbalom are quite ravishing. But this isn’t an orchestral showpiece. The vocal lines are the driving force, and although the writing is often angular and abrupt, it is also richly expressive and alluring… You may not like it – the effect is more unsettling than charming – but if you have any serious interest in opera, you simply must hear it.’ Daily Telegraph (Rupert Christiansen), 18 June 2007
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
October 2008
This CD gives an excellent overview of the new Benjamin, in superb sound and performances.
2010
George Benjamin's 36-minute 'lyric tale' Into theLittle Hill taps into the rich vein of English music theatre stemming from Benjamin Britten's church parables, Alexander Goehr's Triptych and Harrison Birtwistle's smaller-scale dramas, such as The Io Passion. Martin Crimp's concise text, made even more concise by Benjamin's omissions (shown in the admirably detailed booklet) shapes a version of the Pied Piper story to highlight contemporary anxieties about fragile political and social structures.
But fragile is exactly what Benjamin's music is not. The drama's rituals are far from reassuring, and the music's eerie colours (cornets, bassethorns, cimbalom) are the stuff of rat-infested nightmare. As always with Benjamin at his best, sonic refinement and formal lucidity lay the foundations for a uniquely involving musical experience, and having the story enacted and narrated by just two singers fits the sinister expressionism of the musical style to perfection.
Instead of expansive melodic lyricism the tale demands a vocal idiom that shifts disconcertingly between fearful reticence and shrill ferocity.
The recorded sound is not in itself especially vivid, but with Anu Komsi, Hilary Summers and the 15-strong Ensemble Modern all responding to Franck Ollu's direction with razor-sharp alacrity, this unsettling piece exerts a vice-like grip.
The scene for Into the Little Hill is set by Benjamin's daringly economical portrait of Shakespeare's Caliban (Sometime Voices) and the haunting sequence of orchestral miniatures comprising Dance Figures. Both these performances are also from live concerts, and both get to the heart of Benjamin's finely balanced and powerfully sculpted sound images. This is an outstanding release.
November 2008
George Benjamin's 36-minute "lyric tale" Into the Little Hill taps into the rich vein of English music theatre… The drama's rituals are far from reassuring, and the music's eerie colours (cornets, basset-horns, cimbalom) are the stuff of rat-infested nightmare. ...with Anu Komsi, Hilary Summers and the 15-strong Ensemble Modern all responding to Franck Ollu's direction with razor sharp alacrity, this unsettling piece exerts a vice-like grip. The scene for Into the Little Hill is set by Benjamin's daringly economical portrait of Shakespeare's Caliban (Sometime Voices) and the haunting sequence of orchestral miniatures comprising Dance Figures. Both these performances... get to the heart of Benjamin's finely balanced and powerfully sculpted sound images. This is an outstanding release.
22nd August 2008
[Little Hill] is an exquisite piece, full of beguiling sounds, and retains all that magic in this recording, with the original pair of soloists, Anu Komsi and Hilary Summers...all in all, this is a remarkable disc.
