Starter Packs

Complete your collection with these curated titles, grouped at a special discount.

Shop Now
Nimbus

Benjamin: Into the Little Hill, Flight & Dream of the Song

$20.99

Details

Composer
BENJAMIN, GEORGE
Artist
Plitmann, Bickley, Benjamin, Cox, Mehta, Nederlan
Format
CD
Label
Nimbus
Released
May 05, 2017
Catalog #
NI5964
UPC
710357596421

About

Written in his late teens: Flight, for solo flute, whose swooping crests and curlicues are fervently relished in Michael Cox's performance. Benjamin describes the piece as 'inspired by the sight of birds soaring and dipping over the peaks of the Swiss Alps'. Listening to the piece you'll hear a panoply of songs surfing the musical thermals in the alpine either: low, long-breathed cries and calls, filigree flocks of ornamentation in the atmospheric heights of the flute's register, a chorus of vapors conjured by a single instrument. Into The Little Hill is based on the Pied Piper story, allowing audiences an immediate entry point into the opera's dramaturgy. But Crimp's re-telling simultaneously updates the story, with its politicians, photographs, and limousines, and opens up further mythic dimensions to the narrative. The drama of Into the Little Hill is concisce, clear and simultaneously ambiguous, even chilling. Benjamin says, 'Martin's text is hard-edged, formal, and hyper-condensed'. The reason for its musical and dramatic success is Benjamin's unerring feeling for expressive characterisation. Each layer of Into the Little Hill's score is immediately identifiable, from the Crowd's baying cries of 'Kill them' rightat the start of the piece, to the rodentine scurrying of the rat's music, and the Mother's lamenting grief in the last scene. Dream of the Song is a mysteriously sensual and sensually strange song-cycle for countertenor, a halo of female voices that are similar in register, but so different in timbre and sound and expression, and orchestra. The counter-tenor sings poems, in English, by Jewish poets of 11th century Andalucia, themselves inspired by Arabic poetry of earlier centuries. There are images of ravishment and wonder here - moonlight, the celestial tent of the sky, a dream of a gazelle, a harp, a flute - but they are always undercut by other ideas. Above all, it's the gossamer rapier of Benjamin's music that cuts to the heart of these settings.

Tracklist 15 tracks

  1. 1 Part I: Kill them they bite (The Crowd) 00:52
    Track
    1
    Title
    Part I: Kill them they bite (The Crowd)
    Duration
    00:52
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Hila Plitmann, Susan Bickley
    Ensemble
    London Sinfonietta
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  2. 2 Part I: The Minister greets the crowd (The Minister and the Crowd) 02:40
    Track
    2
    Title
    Part I: The Minister greets the crowd (The Minister and the Crowd)
    Duration
    02:40
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Susan Bickley
    Ensemble
    London Sinfonietta
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  3. 3 Part I: Kill them they bite (The Crowd) 01:35
    Track
    3
    Title
    Part I: Kill them they bite (The Crowd)
    Duration
    01:35
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Hila Plitmann, Susan Bickley
    Ensemble
    London Sinfonietta
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  4. 4 Part I: Night comes but not sleep (The Minister and the Stranger) 07:59
    Track
    4
    Title
    Part I: Night comes but not sleep (The Minister and the Stranger)
    Duration
    07:59
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Susan Bickley, Hila Plitmann
    Ensemble
    London Sinfonietta
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  5. 5 Part I: Interlude: Why must the rats die, Mummy? (Mother and Child) 06:15
    Track
    5
    Title
    Part I: Interlude: Why must the rats die, Mummy? (Mother and Child)
    Duration
    06:15
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Susan Bickley, Hila Plitmann
    Ensemble
    London Sinfonietta
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  6. 6 Part II: Under a clear sky (Inside the Minister's Head) 03:43
    Track
    6
    Title
    Part II: Under a clear sky (Inside the Minister's Head)
    Duration
    03:43
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Hila Plitmann, Susan Bickley
    Ensemble
    London Sinfonietta
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  7. 7 Part II: His head lies on his desk (The Minister and the Stranger) 05:20
    Track
    7
    Title
    Part II: His head lies on his desk (The Minister and the Stranger)
    Duration
    05:20
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Susan Bickley, Hila Plitmann
    Ensemble
    London Sinfonietta
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  8. 8 Part II: Interlude: Each cradle rocks empty (Mothers and Children) 06:24
    Track
    8
    Title
    Part II: Interlude: Each cradle rocks empty (Mothers and Children)
    Duration
    06:24
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Susan Bickley, Hila Plitmann
    Ensemble
    London Sinfonietta
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  9. 9 Flight 09:51
    Track
    9
    Title
    Flight
    Duration
    09:51
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Michael Cox
  10. 10 I. The Pen 02:55
    Track
    10
    Title
    I. The Pen
    Duration
    02:55
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Bejun Mehta
    Ensemble
    Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  11. 11 II. The Multiple Troubles of Man 03:39
    Track
    11
    Title
    II. The Multiple Troubles of Man
    Duration
    03:39
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Bejun Mehta
    Ensemble
    Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  12. 12 III. Gazing Through the Night - Casida del Llanto (Casida of the Weeping) 05:03
    Track
    12
    Title
    III. Gazing Through the Night - Casida del Llanto (Casida of the Weeping)
    Duration
    05:03
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Bejun Mehta
    Ensemble
    female section Netherlands Chamber Choir, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  13. 13 IV. Gacela del Amor Maravilloso (Gacela of Marvellous Love) 02:25
    Track
    13
    Title
    IV. Gacela del Amor Maravilloso (Gacela of Marvellous Love)
    Duration
    02:25
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Ensemble
    female section Netherlands Chamber Choir, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  14. 14 V. The Gazelle 02:53
    Track
    14
    Title
    V. The Gazelle
    Duration
    02:53
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Bejun Mehta
    Ensemble
    Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
    Conductor
    George Benjamin
  15. 15 VI. My Heart Thinks as the Sun Comes Up - Casida del Herido por El Agua (Casida of the Wound by Water) 02:43
    Track
    15
    Title
    VI. My Heart Thinks as the Sun Comes Up - Casida del Herido por El Agua (Casida of the Wound by Water)
    Duration
    02:43
    Composer
    George Benjamin
    Performer
    Bejun Mehta
    Ensemble
    female section Netherlands Chamber Choir, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
    Conductor
    George Benjamin