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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.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001
References
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2 See Tinctoris on Dunstable, a passage oft-quoted, but not in connexion with contemporary music.
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