Not Only Opera

Quite a programme: George Benjamin and Ensemble Modern at the Roundhouse

George Benjamin and Ensemble Modern
Wigmore Hall at the Roundhouse
Stalls A28, £5 (under-35s)
6 March 2019
Wigmore page

Programme
Boulez: Initiale
Messiaen: 7 haïkaï for piano and orchestra
Ustvolskaya: Composition No. 2 'Dies irae' for 8 double basses, percussion and piano
Ligeti: Ramifications for 12 solo strings
Benjamin: Palimpsests for orchestra

Benjamin brought out the big boys in this terrific programme, a companion to yesterday’s that makes the previous seem a bit of an unloved wallflower, Into the Little Hill excepted. But regardless the context today’s was a concert of fantastic music, all a treat to hear especially under Benjamin’s measured, potent baton.

Like yesterday I did have some auditory remorse, although this time self-inflicted through somehow managing to get tickets on the front row: in other words, up close and personal with the stage wall in my face and trumpets, violins, double-basses and massive percussive blocks of wood just above my head. While it was entirely thrilling I did wonder what the effect would have been to have been able to hear the musicians on the other side of the platform.

And so my hopes of testing how Ensemble Modern would sound in the mercurial acoustic of the Roundhouse, Charybdis of many an opera, were largely dashed – with the exception of the Ustvolskaya, where the swaddling boom accompanying each bash of the block was a definite plus. What a terrific piece, incensed, demented, steeled, aching, a piece that made my heart pound against my chest and the pulse in my neck bulge. It is, I would suggest, maybe a bit too long, and here was obviously a touch under-rehearsed with those usually unerring making the odd mistake. But an absolute treat.

The same can be said for the whole programme. Boulez’s Initiale was superbly played by Ensemble Modern’s brass and is an utter delight of buoyant virility, its fizz of celebration entirely disburdened of pomp. The Messiaen makes an inspired juxtaposition in its softer, more winsome, fragilely antic character, again completely aced in interpretation by Benjamin and the ensemble, pianist Ueli Wiget a phenomenon in his precision and energy.

Ligeti’s Ramifications swarms and warps, the individual voices distinct but hive-like, where a brief disturbance in one spreads like wild fire to take hold of the all before it dissipates in the curdling swirls that will birth the next disruption. Closing the programme Benjamin’s Palimpsests is cooler than what has gone before but no less impressive, sounds fused with his customary alchemy into mirage-like layers that lap mysteriously against each other until a sudden change of perspective shows them not to be layers but deep pools or halls of mirrors where the light flashes on and on eternally. In all, quite a programme.