Critics have praised George Benjamin’s 11 February concert conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra in his Palimpsests, part of his three-season tenure as LPO Composer-in-Residence. The concert at the Royal Festival Hall also featured Ravel’s Mother Goose, Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy and Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments.
Benjamin cleverly played on contrasts: heat and cool, indulgence and restraint, intellect and emotion…[his] clarity was just the thing to make Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy compelling rather than cloying, allowing us to appreciate its jewel-like orchestration…[Palimpsests] conjures an intriguing sound world…A muted, gentle song on three clarinets opens the first Palimpsest, almost immediately interrupted by a sharp brass blast that sent a ruffle of surprise around the hall…Every instrumental colour and line came through precisely — even the quietest of violin solos, deliberately almost inaudible, like a near-invisible spiderweb thread catching the sunlight…it felt as if we were witnessing an ancient drama play out.
The Times (Rebecca Franks) 12 February 2026
Shimmering colours, translucent textures and illuminating shafts of light were the order of the day…bringing [Benjamin’s] trademark rigour and precision to a meticulously programmed concert…A palimpsest is a manuscript on which one or more later texts have been inscribed on top of an original piece of writing. It’s an idea that could be applied to a great deal of Benjamin’s own work as a composer…Benjamin was authoritative here, crafting the music’s tectonic shifts while bringing out its startling peculiarities and rare beauty.
The Guardian (Clive Paget) 12 February 2026
A 21-minute work cast in two parts, Palimpsests gives rise to a striated structure of beguiling, fiendish complexity, as the simple song that opens the work becomes almost immediately imperceptible. “My aim”, Benjamin notes, “was to achieve something akin to dusk or dawn in the desert, or at high altitude in winter, when the sun is very low and the light almost horizontal, and crystal clear.”
It was premiered with the London Symphony Orchestra and Pierre Boulez in 2002 as part of the LSO’s By George! Festival. It has since received over 50 performances internationally, with exponents including the Berlin Philharmonic, Concertgebouw, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, SWR Sinfonieorchester, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and Philharmonia. The composer recorded Palimpsests with Ensemble Modern in 2023, marking 30 years of collaboration with the ensemble, released on their own label; conductor and orchestra also created the world premiere recording of the work in 2004. In 2015 Benjamin recorded the piece with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, capturing a Musica viva concert.
On 1 March a new production of George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s Written on Skin, directed by Tatjana Gürbaca, premieres at Oper Frankfurt, where it is in rep until 5 April. The production – the eleventh the work has received since its 2012 debut at the Aix-en-Provence Festival – stars Bo Skovhus as the Protector, Iurii Iushkevich as the Boy, and soprano Elizabeth Reiteras as Agnès. It is conducted by Erik Nielsen with set design and lighting from Klaus Grünberg and costumes by Silke Willrett.
Benjamin and Crimp’s first collaboration Into the Little Hill – premiered at the Festival d’Automne in 2006 – makes its South Korean debut in concert at the Tongyeong International Music Festival on 28 March with Ensemble Modern and Toby Thatcher, with Fleur Barron and Jennifer France as soloists, as part of a focus on the composer. Benjamin and Crimp’s gritty, 40-minute retelling of the Pied Piper story also makes its Japanese debut in spring 2026, performed by Ensemble intercontemporain at Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan, conducted by Pierre Bleuse, on 4 April.