At 10 years old, Sir George Benjamin (London 1960) had already decided to dedicate his life to opera. "My first love was Beethoven", recalls the composer, awarded in the latest edition of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards in the Music and Opera category. "Later my parents took me to see Disney's Fantasia, and my conversion to classical music began to bear fruit." At an age when children collect football cards, young Benjamin amassed a considerable amount of musical theater scores. Shortly after, he would meet Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory, not imagining that the famous French composer and ornithologist would compare him to Mozart. "I am very grateful for everything I learned in his classes, but such a statement was somewhat intimidating, as by then I was already taking music very seriously," he recounts.
"Over time, I have perfected the way of composing, but the innocence of my childhood still lives within me." It is not always easy. "There is a silence before the first rehearsal that can be deafening. That's why before delivering the final version of a score, I rewrite each note 50 times," he confessed upon learning of the jury's decision, which in its sixteenth edition highlighted the "extraordinary contribution" of the composer, conductor, and professor at King's College Henry Purcell in London, as well as "his impact on contemporary creation" in the fields of symphonic music, opera, and chamber music. This is not the first major tribute he has received in Spain. In 2006, the National Orchestra and Choir of Spain dedicated their Carta Blanca to him to showcase his unique and fascinating musical universe. "Here I feel at home", he told La Lectura during his visit to Bilbao to receive the award.
- At the concert on the eve of The Frontiers of Knowledge Award , we heard two of his works (the Spanish premiere of the Concerto for Orchestra and Dance Figures) along with pieces by Wagner (Tristan and Isolde) and Stravinsky (The Firebird). What do these scores have in common?
- I must clarify that I had nothing to do with the program's preparation, but I consider it a very wise choice. I was moved by the fact that the Madrid Symphony Orchestra performed two works that I consider fundamental from my catalog. Additionally, it had been a long time since I had heard a Wagner opera live, whose music I know in detail and yet always surprises you. Each note contains a world full of possibilities.
- Isn't your devotion to Wagner incompatible with your undisguised admiration for Debussy, whose music was a reaction to the German tradition and, more specifically, to the dramatic and dense style of the Bayreuth liturgies?
- Notice that in the summer of 1880, Debussy attended a performance in Vienna of Tristan and Isolde. We know that this experience disturbed him to such an extent that, despite the financial difficulties he faced in his years as a pianist, he traveled to Bayreuth to try to understand that fascinating music. His reaction to Wagner must be understood in the context of a generation of composers who were forced to escape from an overly powerful influence. Not everyone, of course, managed to find their way. And I would dare say that only Debussy succeeded in creating something truly original and different. To achieve this, he had to confront Wagner, in whose colossal shadow only surrender was possible, in the form of silence, or mockery, as a method of survival.
- When you started composing, the musical avant-gardes had degenerated into dogmas. Is there still any forbidden territory for musicians?
- I think not, and perhaps that is why many composers still feel somewhat disoriented. Whether we like it or not, the dogma that some movements and schools became simplifies the creative process a lot. They offer you rules and show you the path to follow. If you have nothing to hold on to, you are left to delve into yourself in the most absolute, and sometimes agonizing, solitude. In the 70s and 80s, musical "isms" began to smell a bit antiquated, which, for a young composer like I was back then, was an extra stimulus to fight against any imposition that could jeopardize your own style.
- A "fierce struggle against laziness," in your own words.
- The musical avant-gardes that emerged from the trauma of World War II had a reason to exist. It was a brave break with the past in the form of experimentation and the search for new languages that, over the decades, first turned into dogma, then into an institution, and finally into nonsense. Western music must continue to advance. And I believe that is what the new generations of young musicians are demonstrating, finding other ways and styles to approach the world today. Not that of their parents or grandparents.
- The concert halls, once half-empty for premieres, are now full again. Is this change also thanks to the audience?
- There is nothing more abstract than the notion one can have of the audience, as its nature and condition vary according to the places, and also the moments. It is not the same here as there, a Monday in August as a Friday in December. There is a very established passion for contemporary music, but there is still a sector very closed to change. Perhaps the most relevant phenomenon at the moment is the opera audience, a genre in full swing. There, I do perceive a voracious appetite for innovation. The symphonic world is much less receptive to innovation. I could mention a dozen orchestral works composed in the last 50 years that have not yet been incorporated into the repertoire. And at this rate, they may never be.
- There was a time when Britain reproached itself that, after Henry Purcell, its composers had taken so long to produce interesting music. Is it a mere coincidence that, for the second consecutive year, the Music and Opera category of the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards (which in 2023 went to Thomas Adès) recognizes the trajectory of an English composer?
- Britain has experienced a magnificent musical renaissance in the last hundred years, starting with Elgar, passing through Holst and Vaughan Williams, then Britten and Tippett, Maxwell Davies... and so on to my generation, with prominent names like my dear and admired Oliver Knussen [who passed away in 2018]. I do not think it is a coincidence, but a combination of factors, such as public subsidy policies, private sponsorship, or the quality of musical education. However, in the last decade and a half, this trend has reversed, as evidenced by the drastic cuts by the Arts Council and the lack of funding for the BBC orchestras. The old ghosts of British musical life have returned through populism, provincialism, and conservatism. That said, I still trust that it is a passing phase.
- Your musical vocation was unusually precocious. At the age of 10, you already knew that you wanted to compose operas. Yet, you waited until you were 45 to fulfill your dream. Weren't you afraid that you would miss the boat?
- Not at all. My love and dedication to the genre were not affected at all. On the contrary, I took advantage of that time to consolidate certain techniques and procedures. All the instrumental music I composed until the premiere in 2006 of my first opera [Into the Little Hill] had a dramatic substrate focused on the culmination of a large-scale work. The only thing beyond my control was the libretto, and I admit it was an agonizing search, at times even desperate.
For 25 years, you rejected over 80 writers, including Arthur Miller. Until someone introduced you to Martin Crimp and sparked the flame during a lunch at the Royal Festival Hall restaurant in London. What happened?- If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have composed a single opera. He gave me the inspiration I was looking for: a type of writing capable of telling stories in a simple and communicative way but with a strong connection to the present, with a link to the 21st century. When music and words go hand in hand, melody, rhythm, and harmony function like the perfectly assembled pieces of a clock. Everything flows, everything makes sense. You know that this comma should go here and this note there. It is a magical process that, in my case, begins with the ceremonious reception of an envelope by postal mail [on one occasion, the Royal Mail lost one of these drafts] that, in the four projects we have collaborated on, has changed my way of seeing the world.
- Why do you resort to fables, tales, and troubadour legends in your operas to speak about our present?
- Archetypes allow you to create a certain distance so that the audience directs all their attention to the essential elements of human tragedy, that is, the feelings that arise from the conflict with our own destiny. This mythical conception can be found in the first opera in history, Orfeo, in which a Thracian singer tries to rescue his beloved from hell. The problem with choosing fiercely contemporary themes is that the spectator can get distracted. Unconsciously, they look for their own reflection in the story: references, affinities, slogans. Then a crack opens in the stalls: defenders and detractors of a nonexistent cause. And there, attention is lost.
- Does this mean that opera may not be political?
- Of course. Think, for example, of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, which is a spiritual journey in which the characters try to find their light. Obviously, opera is a dramatic genre that deals with the problems and conflicts of human beings. And politics is part of that framework. But I do not believe that opera should provide answers or point fingers in any direction, but rather make us reflect on who we are and the role we play in this world.
- As the Henry Purcell Chair of Composition at King's College London, what is the most important lesson you impart to your students?
- Beyond certain techniques or rudiments, you really can't teach anyone to compose. What you can do is help them become the best version of themselves, to find their own voice, to listen better, and to work more efficiently. There are more mundane issues related to the functioning of an orchestra or certain compositional methods, but the great challenge is not external but within themselves. They must find out who they are and act accordingly. I meet many young musicians who don't know what to do. The problem is that they have a wide range of possibilities. When you have too much freedom, it's difficult to make decisions. That's why I encourage them to create their own rules of the game and to respect them.
- On one occasion, you acknowledged that after discovering Beethoven, you threw away the pop records of your youth, including the Beatles. Is there nothing about commercial music that interests you?
- My world is different, which doesn't mean I don't recognize talent around me, like the voices of Amy Winehouse, back in the day, or Rina Sawayama, more recently. But, to be completely honest, you will never find me at a punk concert [laughs].
- After studying with Messiaen, you started working in a piano bar in London. What were you doing there?
- I had to make a living somehow, but I only lasted a few months. It frustrated me that people didn't pay the slightest attention to me. Except for a very nice lady who asked me to play Bach's Piano Concerto No. 21. From then on, I was forbidden to play a classical piece again. So, I quit.
- The music of Ringed by the Flat Horizon, your calling card, emerged from a photograph of a storm taken in a desert in New Mexico. Do you remember the last time you received such a great inspiration?
- Spain, for example, has had a great influence on me. The music of Falla, the paintings of Goya, the architecture of Gaudí. While composing my second opera, Written on Skin, I acquired a facsimile of the Beatus of Liébana, a medieval manuscript with illustrations of the Apocalypse of St. John, whose original I hope to see someday at the National Library of Madrid. I also have a wonderful memory of my first visit to Malaga in the spring of 1971. There, I learned from the press about Stravinsky's death, and at 11 years old, I cried inconsolably on an unusually rainy afternoon. Later, I found out that in the early 17th century, one of my ancestors, a converted Jew, fled the Inquisition in Cantabria and settled in England. His name was Isaac Abendana, and he went on to study at Cambridge and then at Oxford. These are all powerful images that have shaped my way of composing.
- Seven out of the eight categories of the Fronteras del Conocimiento Awards are scientific. Is music a counterpoint to these disciplines, or do you believe it is possible to uphold the laws and principles that govern a musical score?
- There are many aspects of music that relate to chemistry, in terms of the reaction and transformation of sounds as if they were molecules, or to mathematics, regarding proportion, harmony, or the logic of tones and rhythms. The captivating beauty of Bach's polyphonies is the result of a masterful combination of melodic lines through counterpoint, requiring certain knowledge of symmetry principles or even the physics of sound in the places where these pieces were composed. But this should not lead us to confusion. Music alternates between craftsmanship and scientific rigor, between construction and the attempt at expression, between writing and execution. Similarly, we can also find poetry and music in certain formulas that explain, for example, the movement of planets.