Composer George Benjamin Inaugurates ‘Project San Francisco’

By Eman Isadiar

Guest conductor David Robertson led the San Francisco Symphony in music by British composer George Benjamin, the first resident artist of the orchestra’s new “Project San Francisco” program. The season’s latest concert also included works by Debussy and Mendelssohn.

British Composer George Benjamin is featured as San Francisco Symphony’s resident artist in “Project San Francisco” (photo by Betty Freeman)

George Benjamin comes to us by way of Paris, where he studied as a precocious teenager at the Conservatoire with one of the brightest musical luminaries of the last century, Olivier Messiaen.

Now 50, Benjamin is noted equally for his painstaking and meticulous writing style, and—not surprisingly—for the fewness of the works he has produced since being a favored student of Messiaen in the ‘70s.

The program opened with Benjamin’s 1985 work titled Jubilation for orchestra and a chorus of about 100 children’s voices, sung here by the Allegro chorus of Berkeley’s Crowden School. The imposing size of the orchestra and Benjamin’s rich tonal palette in Jubilation would win over even the most averse of patrons to contemporary music.

Guest conductor David Robertson led the San Francisco Symphony in Jubliation and Dance Figures by George Benjamin (photo courtesy of San Francisco Symphony).

Leading such a large ensemble, some of whose youthful singers also doubled as clave players, required attention to a dizzying level of detail. The challenge was a perfect match for St. Louis Symphony music director David Robertson, who appears frequently as a guest conductor of the San Francisco Symphony.

Then followed Debussy’s Three Etudes for the piano, orchestrated by Swiss composer Michael Jarrell.

The études by Debussy were conceived as technical exercises, which, similar to the études of Chopin, serve not only to enhance the pianist’s skill, but are also each a gem of great musical brilliance. These pieces are doubly precious as they also represent Debussy’s very last works for the piano near the end of his battle with cancer.

The first étude features quickly repeated notes, while the second focuses on bringing out individual melodic lines in a thick harmonic setting. The last etude deals with the difficulties of playing parallel block chords moving in rapid succession.

Jarrell’s orchestration closely follows Debussy’s own orchestral model, and retains much of the musical value of the études. Surprisingly, even the educational component intended by Debussy seems to be present, but transferred from keyboard to strings.

Next on the program were Benjamin’s Dance Figures—a collection of nine short pieces adapted from the original piano version to an orchestral accompaniment for dance, or as a stand-alone symphonic concert piece. With a creative voice uniquely his own, Benjamin’s Figures range from intrigue to exuberance; from introspection to excitement.

A distinctly French thread ran through the first half of the program, with music by a composer whose formative years were shaped at the Paris Conservatoire, the orchestral reincarnation of piano works by the founder of French impressionism, and a conductor with a distinguished set of artistic tenures in both Lyon and Paris.

By contrast, the second half of the program brought Scottish-inspired music by a Jewish-born composer from Hamburg.

Felix Mendelssohn allegedly felt the first stirrings of what was later to become the Scottish Symphony while visiting Scotland as a budding 20-year old musician. However, he completed the work 13 years later at the height of his creative genius.

Typical of composers of the romantic period, Mendelssohn’s four-movement work follows the classical symphonic form as brought into practice by Haydn and perfected by Mozart and Beethoven. Yet the longing melodies of the second movement and the heroic motifs of the fourth bear the unmistakable mark of Mendelssohn’s unique musical gift.

The Scottish Symphony—a workhorse of the standard repertoire—provided a well-balanced ending to an evening whose goal was clearly to introduce the San Francisco public to the music of George Benjamin.

As part of the symphony’s “Project San Francisco,” Benjamin will make multiple appearances as conductor and pianist in his own music as well as that of other composers through January 17. George Benjamin will be followed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma as the second resident artist of “Project San Francisco”, with concerts through January 26.

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Eman Isadiar teaches piano at the Peninsula Conservatory and writes about music in the San Francisco Bay Area.