Benjamin - Dream of the Song; Lindberg: Era

The Guardian 80

Mehta/Netherlands Chamber Choir/
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/
Benjamin/Robertson/Harding/Tan Dun
(RCO Live)

Horizon, the Royal Concertgebouw’s series devoted to contemporary music, has become a very useful chronicle of what that great orchestra commissions and premieres. The latest instalment includes four pieces introduced in Amsterdam between 2013 and last year. For British listeners the main interest will be George Benjamin’s Dream of the Song, the orchestral song cycle on Andalucian texts from the 11th and 20th centuries that was first performed by the RCO last September, conducted by the composer.

When the piece arrived in London two months ago, the counter-tenor soloist was Iestyn Davies; in this recording it’s Bejun Mehta, who values the text more than Davies did, and is alive to the sense of every syllable. The whole performance projects Benjamin’s sound world and its luxurious interplay between instruments and voices far more vividly than it ever came across at the Barbican; it’s easily the most striking score in this collection.