Searching for a Button, Searching for Life: George Benjamin’s Picture a Day Like This

by Maureen Buja

English composer George Benjamin (b. 1960) started working with British playwright Martin Crimp (b.1956) in 2006, resulting in four operas: Into the Little Hill (2006), Written on Skin (2012), Lessons in Love and Violence (2018), and Picture a Day Like This (2023).

George Benjamin (Photo by Matthew Lloyd)

Martin Crimp

The first is a chamber opera based on the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Written on the Skin is set in 13th -century Provence and tells the legend told by the troubadour Guillaume de Cabestanh, where an unfaithful wife is served a dinner of the heart of her lover. When she’s told what she’s eaten, she turns the tables on her murderous husband by declaring that nothing can now remove the taste of her lover’s heart from her. As her husband rushes at her to kill her, she jumps off the balcony to her death.

Miniature of Guillem de Cabestany / Guillaume de Cabestanh, 13th century (Gallica: BnF ms. 12473: btv1b60007960, folio 89v)

Lessons in Love and Violence is about the relationship between King Edward II (1284–1327) and Piers Gaveston (1284–1312). Gaveston impressed Edward I, who assigned him to the household of his son, Edward of Caernafon. Edward I kept separating the two because Edward of Caernafon was so extreme in his partiality to Piers. What is unclear is the relationship, variously described with them being friends, lovers, or sworn brothers.

Edward II receiving the English Crown, 1350 (British Library, Royal MS 20 A ii, folio 10)

For the 2023 Aix-en-Provence Festival, the new text was for another chamber opera with 5 singers and a 22-member orchestra. The setting is a kind of never-when and fairy-tale like; the characters occupy separate worlds and operate on a kind of ‘dream-like logic’.

Marianne Crebassa in Picture a Day Like This at the Aix-en-Provence festival, 2023 (Photograph by Jean-Louis Fernandez)

A woman’s child dies, and, wrapping the boy in silk, she prepares the body for cremation. People in black arrive to take the body and one tells her: ‘Find one happy person in this world and cut one button from their sleeve – do it before night and your child will live’. She gives the mother (called simply Woman in the opera) a paper list that tells her where to look.

Picture a Day Like This: Scene 1, The Woman and the Death Attendants, 2023 (Festival-d’Aix-En-Provence) (photo by Jean-Louis-Fernandez)

George Benjamin: Picture a Day Like This – Scene 1: The Page (Marianne Crebass, Woman)

It’s Quest Opera, but with a dark and sombre center. The Woman goes off, and first finds 2 lovers, clothes discarded to the side. She asks for a button, as they’re clearly happy in themselves. They agree but then get into an argument about past and current lovers, and jealousy and happiness flee. So does the mother when one of the lovers looks to her to add to his list.

Next, she finds an Artisan. He’s retired and sitting happily in the sun. He confirms he’s happy, but when she asks for a button, he refuses. He was a button maker, and all the buttons on his suit were made with his hands. What he wants is the knife that she should use to cut off the button. What he also wants is chlorpromazine, used to treat psychiatric disorders. As he rolls up his sleeves, she sees all the cuts on his skin from all the times he’s tried to commit suicide. The woman leaves as the nurse leads the unhappy man away.

The Woman (Marianne Crebassa) and the Artisan (John Brancy)

The Composer and her assistant arrive next. The Composer is so busy that happiness has no part in her life.

In the middle, in an Aria, the woman reflects on the hopeless people she’s just met: ‘fools – vain fools – the insane’ when what she wanted was miracles. If dead flowers can come to life, why not her son? She throws away the paper list she was given.

The Collector enters. He says he’s on her list and shows her his collection of paintings: Warhol’s Gold Marilyn, Manet’s last vase of flowers, a book of hours, a Matisse….

Warhol: Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962
(New York: Museum of Modern Art)

He refers to his rooms of artworks as his rooms of miracles. He invites her to take anything that will make her happy…but she must love him. And, he doesn’t have any buttons. She continues her search, paper list back in her hand.

Her last meeting is with Zabelle, a woman seemingly like herself. In a beautiful garden, Zabelle appears when the Woman reads her description on the paper list. She has 2 children playing on the swings; her husband lies half-asleep in the rose garden…can the mother share in this happy and beautiful life? Zabelle says to look again at the garden: shadows are falling, men are at the gate to occupy the park and destroy things, she’s dropped the baby boy, and he seems cold…it’s all an illusion. There is no happiness. Zabelle says that just because her name is on a list doesn’t mean she’s happy because she, in fact doesn’t exist. As she disappears, she twists a button off her sleeve and holds it out, but an invisible barrier separates the two characters.

Picture a Day Like This: Scene 7, The Woman and the Death Attendants, 2023 (Festival-d’Aix-En-Provence) (photo by Jean-Louis-Fernandez)

At the end, the Woman finds herself back where she started, the death attendants are still in the room. They tell her the quest was in vain because

The page is torn from the vast book of the dead –
punched through by grief –
sewn with a human thread –
no one can alter it.
Now do you understand?

The woman smiles at them and bids them to look at ‘the bright button in my hand’.

It’s an intriguing and puzzling story – how things appear on the surface do not survive closer scrutiny. New characters bring different definitions of happiness and different pictures of their hope and despair – lovers are unfaithful, the artisan was broken, the composer was self-obsessed, the collector was lonely, and even the beautiful Zabelle is happy only when it’s not dark. The Woman goes through an impossible journey but still emerges victorious at the end. It was about her own happiness, not others.

The composer said the sequential scenes made it feel like he was writing a new opera for each scene – but, on the other hand, he welcomed the challenge. Another part of the challenge the composer and writer set each other is to find something new and different for each work: fairy tales to stories of the troubadours to royal scandals, and now a dream quest – they couldn’t be more different in the subject if they tried!

The opera closes ambiguously. In the final scene, Zabelle describes the change from the day’s beauty to the night’s horrors, the Woman confronts the women who gave her the impossible quest and shows them her button. Does she get her son back? It’s not clear.

George Benjamin: Picture a Day Like This – Scene VII: III. Picture a Day Like This (Anna Prohaska, Zabelle; Marianne Crebass, Woman)

George Benjamin: Picture a Day Like This
Nimbus Records: NI 8116
Release date: 6 September 2024

Official Website

   

 by Janet Horvath, Interlude

Musicians and music lovers enjoy musical puns. Who doesn’t need a laugh these days? I thought why not expand on some of the puns colleagues have shared with me, of course omitting the ubiquitous viola jokes! (Special thanks to prolific writer and cellist David Johnstone.)

I was going to tell an Alban Berg joke but I have to go to the loo, Lou!

I have a Wagner joke but it would take 110 musicians and more than four days to tell…

I have a Debussy joke, but it’s hard to follow. More of an impression really…

There is a Hungarian joke to tell over a pint of beer, but Bartók can’t happen at the moment due to the pandemic. They’re all closed.

I considered telling a joke about an orchestral suite of Handel but thought it might not go off with a bang especially if it was all wet.

I figured out why Bach had so many children. He didn’t have a stop on his organ!

I have a Haydn joke but I can’t tell you now. It’s a Surprise.

When I began a class about the development of the famous piece Bolero my students told me it was too difficult to un-Ravel.

OK. Who left the Ring in the bath?

I’d tell you a Tchaikovsky joke but it’s rather Pathétique.

There’s a humorous story about Messiaen, but in the end, I don’t have Time.

Do you know the joke about Schubert? But it’s un…

I related an opera joke to my friend Bill but could William Tell?

My Philip Glass joke; My Philip Glass joke; My Philip Glass; My Philip Glass joke…

I have a Reger joke. Ha-ha. Tricked you. There’s obviously no such thing!

I could tell a John Cage joke, but I don’t have 4 minutes and 33 seconds and it’s too loud here.

Did you hear about the composer who committed suicide? He didn’t even leave a note.

I have a joke about American music but it’s too late now. Ives gotta go to bed.

There are children in the room so I won’t tell an off-color Baroque joke. I don’t think they can Handel it.

Joan Towered over me as she referred to my very petite stature.

I was going to tell the joke about The Trout, but my wife said, “shoo, Bert!”

Want to hear the joke about the staccato in Mozart? Never mind it’s too short.

Did you hear the one about Arnold Schoenberg? When he walked into a bar he asked for a gin without the tonic.

What a Florence Price to pay for that evening. Amy felt totally de-Beeched by the atmosphere.

Did you know Mozart was a child prodigy? He was A sharp minor.

I wanted to tell you the joke about Carmen but I’m too Bizet at the moment.

I was going to tell you about the trout who practiced her scales in Schubert’s quintet. It was tough to listen to…over and over…“Da capo al fin.”

I don’t understand why you’re complaining about these jokes. You can’t Telemann anything these days.

For anyone who didn’t “get” some of these here is a key, and with deepest regrets to:

Alban Berg and his opera Lulu

Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) or The Ring consists of four operas all very long: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung.

Claude Debussy was considered an impressionist composer.

Béla Bartók was one of the giants of 20th century music from Hungary.

Béla Bartók

Two of George Frideric Handel’s works includes his Music for the Royal Fireworks and Water Music

Carl Nielsen was a Danish composer, conductor, and violinist.

Carl Nielsen

J.S. Bach had two wives and an astounding 20 children.

Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 in G major is nicknamed “Surprise.”

One of Maurice Ravel’s most well-known pieces is his Bolero.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 in B Minor Op. 74 is entitled the Pathétique.

Olivier Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time, written for clarinet, violin, cello and piano was written in 1941 when the composer was a prisoner-of-war in Germany.

Franz Schubert’s Symphony No 8 in B Minor was left unfinished and has only 2 movements.

William Tell is an Opera by Gioachino Rossini. The overture is one of the most famous overtures in the repertoire and is frequently performed in concert.

Many accuse Philip Glass’ music of being repetitive. It’s tough for that reason to play, but I love listening to it! Mesmerizing.

Max Reger, a German composer, pianist, organist conductor and pedagogue. His music was serious, especially his many works for organ.

Max Reger

John Cage was thrust into the public eye by his work 4’ 33” a piece which the performer remains silent on stage for that length of time.

American composer Charles Ives.

American composer Joan Tower.

Joan Tower

Franz Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A Major D 677 is named The Trout due to a song he uses in the fourth movement, which is a set of variations on his famous song, “Die Forelle” (The Trout.) Stunning.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Arguably Georges Bizet’s best-known work is his opera Carmen.

Arnold Schoenberg was the first to introduce the 12-tone system of composition and rarely was there a “key” or a tonic note.

Florence Price, an American composer, pianist, organist, and teacher, was the first African-
American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer.

Florence Price

The Boston Symphony premiered American composer and pianist Amy Beach’s Symphony in 1896—the first symphony composed and published by an American woman.

German baroque composer George Philipp Telemann, a self-taught musician, played several
instruments and was a prolific composer.

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) “I Tell My Piano the Things I Used to Tell You”

by Georg Predota, Interlude

As we commemorate the passing of Frédéric Chopin on 17 October 1849, we are once again reminded that he was one of the greatest pianists the world has ever known. But what is more, Chopin also left the finest body of music for his instrument. “In my music,” he once remarked, “one can divine the restlessness of the artist.”

Chopin’s romantic intensity was amply reflected in his music, which combined a gift for melody, an adventurous harmonic sense, an intuitive understanding of formal design, and a brilliant piano technique. He started his career as a pianist but abandoned concert life early on to explore the expressive and technical characteristics of the instrument. Chopin, more so than any other composer of his day, went on a journey of infinite discovery. 

Formative Years

Frédéric Chopin in 1849

The biography of Chopin’s early years is pretty well established, as he was born in Żelazowa Wola and grew up in Warsaw. He clearly was a child prodigy and started giving public concerts at the age of 7. Remarkably, around this time, he also started to compose by focusing on polonaises, variation sets, and rondos. The Chopin scholar Jim Samson writes, “these works show the influence of the brilliant style of post-Classical pianism associated with composers such as Hummel, Weber, Moscheles, and Kalkbrenner.” 

The young composer managed in a very short time to assimilate many of the standard gestures and figuration, and he already created pieces of considerable accomplishments. It has often been suggested that Chopin’s unique sound world emerged fully formed from the start, yet much of his idiomatic figurations are closely modelled on common devices used by pianist-composers. The young Chopin was clearly preparing himself for a career on the concert platforms and salons of Europe’s cultural capitals. 

Warsaw

Manor house in Żelazowa Wola, Chopin’s birthplace

The young pianist-composer also looked toward the traditional music of the Mazovian plains of central Poland, encoding the rhythmic and modal patterns and the characteristic melodic intonations in his early mazurkas. Although he had some personal contacts with Polish folk music, Chopin mediated the genre through salon dance pieces and the world of the traditional folk ensemble. As Samson writes, “At a very early stage, Chopin made this genre his own, and even the earliest efforts project the unmistakable character of the mature mazurka.” 

To complete his years of apprenticeship, Chopin started a process of radically reworking the forms, procedures, and materials drawn from the Viennese Classical composers. We find his first Piano Sonata Op. 4 and the Piano Trio Op. 8. However, the two major works of the last Warsaw periods are the piano concertos, the first extended compositions that established a place in the repertory.

A critic commented on Op. 11 as follows, “On the whole, the work was brilliant and well written but without any particular originality or depth except for the main theme and middle second of the Rondo, which display a unique charm in their peculiar combination of melancholy and light-hearted passages.” 

Paris

Henryk Siemiradzki: Chopin concert

By the time Chopin arrived in Paris in the autumn of 1831, the primary genres of his oeuvre, the mazurka, nocturne, etude, and waltz, were already in place. The mazurka, in particular, now took on some added meaning. Chopin claimed the genre for art music, “investing the salon dance piece with the complexity and sophistication that immediately transcended its peasant origins.”

It becomes a stylised folk idiom, and as Jim Samson writes, “it is fitting that his nationalism should have expressed thus, through the renovation of a simple dance piece rather than through the more usual channels of opera and programmatic reference.”  

Chopin’s engagement with an expressive aesthetic emerged most prominently in the piano nocturne. In fact, it was the genre that launched Chopin’s entire musical career in the fashionable salons of the city. This glimpse into the highly expressive world of Chopin’s music was greatly facilitated by the development of the sustaining pedal, “enabling those wide-spread arpeggiations supporting an ornamental melody which we recognise today as the archetype of the style.”

As such, Chopin was able to draw uniquely delicate and seductive sonorities, extraordinary bel canton elaboration of melody, and rich harmonic subtlety from the instrument. Chopin set the standard with his Op. 9, but already in the Op. 15, it becomes clear that the title “nocturne” could be attached to music of highly varied formal and generic schemes. 

Chopin composed his set of 12 Etudes Op. 10 in Warsaw, Vienna, and his early Paris years. This major achievement turned mundane and boring finger exercises into a veritable art form. Chopin changed the entire meaning of what an etude should actually be. Of course, each one explores a different pianist problem area like arpeggios, scales, crossing fingers and hands, and all kinds of finger busters, but these pianistical problems are encased within musical shapes and ideas that transcended the previous meaning.

The significance of the Chopin Op. 10 is twofold. Chopin clearly transcended the brilliant style and directly confronted virtuosity while showcasing and encapsulating his unique musical style. Chopin achieved a balance between technical and artistic aims, or as Robert Schumann put it, “imagination and technique share dominion side by side.” 

Consolidation

Chopin’s Polonaise autograph score

Chopin’s piano music acquired its characteristic sound through the mazurkas, nocturnes, and etudes. As his personal style matured, Chopin sought to place his conception of melody, figuration, and harmony into more extended forms. We find the result in the 2 Polonaises Op. 26, the first Scherzo, Op. 20, and the first Ballade, Op. 23. For each of these three genres, Chopin followed up with three additional opuses. We also must mention the 24 Preludes of Op. 28, the first set of pieces by that name, which are presented as a cycle of self-contained pieces, each of which can stand alone.

Chopin’s handwriting on his Nocturnes, Op. 62

While Chopin had consolidated some of the genres established during the Vienna and early Paris years in his pre-Nohant years, his relationship with George Sand gave the music a new tranquillity. Working primarily in Nohant during the summer, Chopin composed more deliberately and with a sense of growing self-doubt. Scholars suggest that the early 1840s “have often been described as a turning point in his creative evolution, marked by a renewed interest in counterpoint, by a more sparing and structurally focused ornamentation and by a strengthening command of structure.” 

Eloquent Simplicity

Chopin’s last piano displayed at the Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw

Chopin had suffered from serious and chronic health problems throughout his short life. In his teens, he suffered from frequent respiratory infections and countless episodes of bronchitis and laryngitis. He suffered through a bout of influenza in 1837, and although his doctor assured him that he was not suffering from tuberculosis, Chopin’s health rapidly deteriorated after 1840, with the composer weighing only 45 kilograms.

An army of doctors tended to his physical ailments, including cough, fever, painful wrists and ankles, haemoptysis, hematemesis and ankle oedema. Chopin’s condition deteriorated further at the beginning of October 1849, and he died on the morning of October 17, 1849, “after having been unconscious for 24 hours.” Despite his constant health struggles, “Chopin reached a new plateau of creative achievement, marked by an eloquent simplicity which severely excludes the extraneous and the gratuitously ornamental.”